This convent was for Jean Valjean like an island surrounded by gulfs. Henceforth, those four walls constituted his world. He saw enough of the sky there to enable him to preserve his serenity, and Cosette enough to remain happy.
A very sweet life began for him.
He inhabited the old hut at the end of the garden, in company with Fauchelevent. This hovel, built of old rubbish, which was still in existence in 1845, was composed, as the reader already knows, of three chambers, all of which were utterly bare and had nothing beyond the walls. The principal one had been given up, by force, for Jean Valjean had opposed it in vain, to M. Madeleine, by Father Fauchelevent. The walls of this chamber had for ornament, in addition to the two nails whereon to hang the kneecap and the basket, a Royalist banknote of ’93, applied to the wall over the chimneypiece, and of which the following is an exact facsimile:—
This specimen of Vendean paper money had been nailed to the wall by the preceding gardener, an old Chouan, who had died in the convent,