Page 922 - les-miserables

peror Henry II., who combated Antipope Gregory and
re-established Benoit VIII., has two surnames, the Saint
and the Lame.’
‘Two surtouts are a good thing,’ murmured Fauchelev-
ent, who really was a little hard of hearing.
‘Now that I think of it, Father Fauvent, let us give a whole
hour to it. That is not too much. Be near the principal al-
tar, with your iron bar, at eleven o’clock. The office begins
at midnight. Everything must have been completed a good
quarter of an hour before that.’
‘I will do anything to prove my zeal towards the com-
munity. These are my orders. I am to nail up the coffin. At
eleven o’clock exactly, I am to be in the chapel. The Mother
Precentors will be there. Mother Ascension will be there.
Two men would be better. However, never mind! I shall
have my lever. We will open the vault, we will lower the cof-
fin, and we will close the vault again. After which, there will
be no trace of anything. The government will have no suspi-
cion. Thus all has been arranged, reverend Mother?’
‘No!’
‘What else remains?’
‘The empty coffin remains.’
This produced a pause. Fauchelevent meditated. The pri-
oress meditated.
‘What is to be done with that coffin, Father Fauvent?’
‘It will be given to the earth.’
‘Empty?’
Another silence. Fauchelevent made, with his left hand,
that sort of a gesture which dismisses a troublesome sub-

922 Les Miserables