Page 1069 - les-miserables

to produce the impression that grief had deprived him of
the strength to hold it.
At the same time, he experienced remorse, and he de-
spised himself for behaving in this manner. But was it his
fault? He did not love his father? Why should he!
The colonel had left nothing. The sale of big furniture
barely paid the expenses of his burial.
The servant found a scrap of paper, which she hand-
ed to Marius. It contained the following, in the colonel’s
handwriting:—
‘For my son.—The Emperor made me a Baron on the bat-
tle-field of Waterloo. Since the Restoration disputes my right
to this title which I purchased with my blood, my son shall
take it and bear it. That he will be worthy of it is a matter of
course.’ Below, the colonel had added: ‘At that same battle
of Waterloo, a sergeant saved my life. The man’s name was
Thenardier. I think that he has recently been keeping a little
inn, in a village in the neighborhood of Paris, at Chelles or
Montfermeil. If my son meets him, he will do all the good
he can to Thenardier.’
Marius took this paper and preserved it, not out of duty
to his father, but because of that vague respect for death
which is always imperious in the heart of man.
Nothing remained of the colonel. M. Gillenormand had
his sword and uniform sold to an old-clothes dealer. The
neighbors devastated the garden and pillaged the rare flow-
ers. The other plants turned to nettles and weeds, and died.
Marius remained only forty-eight hours at Vernon. Af-
ter the interment he returned to Paris, and applied himself

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