This is how it came about.
For a long time he refused the honor. One day an old woman, standing on the steps, said:—
"Bah, a good mayor is a good thing.
"You are a good thing.
"Be a good mayor."
This woman was a rhetorician. She understood inductive ratiocination.
IX.
When this good M. Madeline, whom the reader will perceive must have been a former convict, and a very bad man, gave himself up to justice as the real Jean Valjean, about this same time, Fantine was turned away from the manufactory, and met with a number of losses from society. Society attacked her, and this is what she lost:—
First her lover.
Then her child.