And he added, in the tone of a man who begins to feel that he possesses some authority:

“Let us be calm.”

Robber, assassin⁠—those words which Marius thought had disappeared and which returned, fell upon him like an ice-cold shower-bath.

“Again!” said he.

“Always,” ejaculated Thénardier. “Jean Valjean did not rob Madeleine, but he is a thief. He did not kill Javert, but he is a murderer.”

“Will you speak,” retorted Marius, “of that miserable theft, committed forty years ago, and expiated, as your own newspapers prove, by a whole life of repentance, of self-abnegation and of virtue?”