Les Misérables - Volume II - Cosette

Classic from the year 2009 in the subject French Studies - Literature language: English abstract: BOOK FOURTH. THE GORBEAU HOVEL***CHAPTER I. MASTER GORBEAU***Forty years ago a rambler who had ventured into that unknown country of the Salpetriere and who had mounted to the Barriere d'Italie by way of the boulevard reached a point where it might be said that Paris disappeared. It was no longer solitude for there were passers-by; it was not the country for there were houses and streets; it was not the city for the streets had ruts like highways and the grass grew in them; it was not a village the houses were too lofty. What was it then? It was an inhabited spot where there was no one; it was a desert place where there was some one; it was a boulevard of the great city a street of Paris; more wild at night than the forest more gloomy by day than a cemetery.It was the old quarter of the Marche-aux-Chevaux.[...]***BOOK FIFTH. FOR A BLACK HUNT A MUTE PACK[...]CHAPTER I. THE ZIGZAGS OF STRATEGY[...]An observation here becomes necessary in view of the pages which the reader is about to peruse and of others which will be met with further on.The author of this book who regrets the necessity of mentioning himself has been absent from Paris for many years. Paris has been transformed since he quitted it. A new city has arisen which is after a fashion unknown to him. There is no need for him to say that he loves Paris: Paris is his mind's natal city. In consequence of demolitions and reconstructions the Paris of his youth that Paris which he bore away religiously in his memory is now a Paris of days gone by. He must be permitted to speak of that Paris as though it still existed. It is possible that when the author conducts his readers to a spot and says In such a street there stands such and such a house neither street nor house will any longer exist in that locality. Readers may verify the facts if they care to take the trouble. For