“Well! well! well! well! well! so you are a baron now. I present you my compliments. What is the meaning of this?”

Marius reddened slightly and replied:⁠—

“It means that I am the son of my father.”

M. Gillenormand ceased to laugh, and said harshly:⁠—

“I am your father.”

“My father,” retorted Marius, with downcast eyes and a severe air, “was a humble and heroic man, who served the Republic and France gloriously, who was great in the greatest history that men have ever made, who lived in the bivouac for a quarter of a century, beneath grapeshot and bullets, in snow and mud by day, beneath rain at night, who captured two flags, who received twenty wounds, who died forgotten and abandoned, and who never committed but one mistake, which was to love too fondly two ingrates, his country and myself.”