The Count and the Convict

Jean Valjean

The common room of L'Auberge Du Dragon Vert was dimly lit with amber light, as just four gas lanterns burned in the corners. There were four small tables arranged geometrically in the room, and a small podium stood in front of a door to the rear cook's room where the hearth, hidden from the patrons, kept a potato and carrot stew warm. Behind the podium was a thin woman, wearing a worn and smoke-stained blouse, its color closer to buff than to white from the burning oil of the lamps and fireplace that she labored by every evening. She might have been a beautiful woman in her earlier years, but now her hair was matted, her fingers worn, and her complexion pale. At thirty-eight, her beauty had been spent on thirsty patrons, burning stews, and ragged overturned bed linens. She was a widow, like many in this city; her husband was long dead in the Napoleonic War, buried in an unmarked grave under horses and men and the dirt of Waterloo. She looked at the patrons that sat at the four tables of her inn. These were her children now, and this inn, her husband. It sheltered her and provided. These walls kissed her goodnight and welcomed her in the morning. It was only these walls that knew her Christian name, and only these walls that comforted her from the shadow of death that was an October in Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

Seven patrons sat at the splintered tables hunched over their stew and ale. Hushed conversations filled the stagnant air as the paired men spoke of their struggles and enemies, either joining in each other's misery or competing for the sadder story. The innkeeper woman kept their cups full and their bowls warm with meal, but her eyes always fell onto the man sitting alone. He was a tall and considerable man, with a full head of snow white hair that rested just shy of his shoulders. His neck was hidden by a high dark jacket with brass buttons, a jacket common for the bourgeoisie, but also mistaken at times for a clerical garb if seen from behind. He cradled his head in the palms of his hands as he was deep in thought.

The man was Jean Valjean, but these patrons and this innkeeper were not to know that name. Although he looked like a well-dressed man-of-renown, he was a convict, sentenced to nineteen years in prison at Toulon for stealing a piece of bread to feed his sister; a sister long since dead, his strong hands forever incapable of rescuing her-the same rugged hands that now rubbed his temples. He had paid for his crime with the justice this world had to provide, for one piece of bread-nineteen years of a man's life, and the death of his loved sister. Yet he had paid it, only to be released as a convict that no one would take in; no one but a priest, Monseigneur Bienvenue. 

How did Valjean repay the kindness of the priest? He rendered a payment the poor have plenty of, betrayal. Valjean robbed the priest while he slept under the gaze of the crucifix that stood sentinel above the priest's bed. This convict fled in the night only to be caught and brought before the priest. For his larceny, Bienvenu offered mercy. Give to those who ask of you. If anyone would take from you your coat, give him your cloak as well. That is what this good priest had done, and with it, he purchased Jean Valjean's life for God. However, his redemption was not complete, for though Bienvenu sacrificed for him, there was one more act of his old self Valjean had to take. 

With the theft of a small coin from a child, even after the priest's forgiveness, Valjean incurred the ever vigilant pursuit of the law, another arrest, and subsequent escape. No matter how the man then reformed himself, how he sought to atone for his wickedness; no matter that he took in a poor child, Cosette, and adopted her as his own to protect from the deadly life of the streets, it did not matter; the hound of the law snapped at his heels. Moving from place to place to keep Cosette safe from his fate, Valjean changed his name and appearance as much as he could. To these men and women of Paris, he was known only as Monsieur LeBlanc, a name that described the appearance of his white hair, but for Valjean, it was a sarcastic reminder of the opposite self-image he had of himself-the white. No, not LeBlanc, Valjean would think to himself, rather Le Noir.

So, the two protagonists (or antagonists) are introduced.  Can you see where this might be going?  Let me know what you think these two would talk about.