FATHER FAUCHELEVENT.
[CHAPTER VII.]
FAUCHELEVENT BECOMES A GARDENER AT PARIS.
Fauchelevent had put out his knee-cap in his fall, and Father Madeleine had him carried to an infirmary he had established for his workmen in his factory, and which was managed by two sisters of charity. The next morning the old man found a thousand-franc note by his bed-side, with a line in M. Madeleine's handwriting, "Payment for your cart and horse, which I have bought:" the cart was smashed and the horse dead. Fauchelevent recovered, but his leg remained stiff, and, hence M. Madeleine, by the recommendation of the sisters and his curé, procured him a situation as gardener at a convent in the St. Antoine quarter of Paris.
Some time after, M. Madeleine was appointed Mayor; the first time Javert saw him wearing the scarf which gave him all authority in the town, he felt that sort of excitement a dog would feel that scented a wolf in its master's clothes. From this moment he avoided him as much as he could, and when duty imperiously compelled him, and he could not do otherwise than appear before the Mayor, he addressed him with profound respect.
The prosperity created in M—— by Father Madeleine had, in addition to the visible signs we have indicated, another symptom, which, though not visible, was not the less significant, for it is one that never deceives: when the population is suffering, when work is scarce and trade bad, tax-payers exhaust and exceed the time granted them, and the State spends a good deal of money in enforcing payment. When work abounds, when the country is happy and rich, the taxes are paid cheerfully, and cost the State little. We may say that wretchedness and the public exchequer have an infallible thermometer in the cost of collecting the taxes. In seven years these costs had been reduced three-fourths in the arrondissement of M——, which caused it to be frequently quoted by M. de Villele, at that time Minister of Finances.
Such was the state of the town when Fantine returned to it. No one remembered her, but luckily the door of M. Madeleine's factory was like a friendly face; she presented herself at it, and was admitted to the female shop. As the trade was quite new to Fantine, she was awkward at it and earned but small wages; but that was enough, for she had solved the problem,—she was earning her livelihood.