THE

BLODGETT FIFTH READER

THE BISHOP AND THE CONVICTI

VICTOR HUGO

VICTOR HUGO (1802-1885) was the foremost French author of the nineteenth century. Les Misérables (là mẽ zě rä ́bl) (The Outcasts), from which the following pages are taken, was his masterpiece. Its purpose was to awaken society to the startling flaws in its own structure.

NOTE. The central figure of the book is Jean Valjean (zhän val zhän ́), 5 a dull, good-natured French peasant. After the death of his parents he lived with his widowed sister and aided in the support of her seven little children. In 1795 there came a very severe winter; and, unable to find work, Jean stole a loaf of bread to save the family from starving. For this he was sentenced to five years of hard labor in the galleys. Four attempts 10 to escape added fourteen years to his term of imprisonment, and when, at last, he was released, he was a man who had lost all hope. His meeting with the good bishop reveals to him a new world.

The bishop of D——— was a man of such saintly life and self-sacrificing charity that he became known as Monseig- 15 neur Bienvenu, or Welcome. He gave up his palace that it might serve as a hospital, taking for himself and his sister, Mademoiselle Baptistine, with their one servant, Madame Magloire, the small and poorly furnished quarters formerly occupied by the hospital. Here he devoted 20

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