s and calls him the good God. And
the mayor looks at Javert with tranquil eye, though knowing full well
that this act of generous courage in the rescue of an enemy has doomed
himself. This is moral courage of celestial order.

His magnanimity is certainly apparent,--in the rescue of his enemy,
Fauchelevent; in his release of his arch-enemy, Javert; in his presence
within the barricade to protect Marius, who had, as a lover, robbed him
of the one blossom that had bloomed in the garden of his heart, save
only the passing bishop and the abiding God. No pettiness is in him.
He loves and serves after a fashion learned of Christ. If compelled to
admire his courage, we are no less compelled to pay homage to his
magnanimity.

His was a hungry heart. Love he had never known; he had never had a
sweetheart. And now all pent-up love of a long life empties its
precious ointment on the head of Cossette. He was all the mother she
ever knew or needed to know. Heaven made her rich in such maternity as
his. Mother instinct is in all good lives, and belongs to man.
Maternity and paternity are met in the best manhood. The tenderness of
motherhood must soften a man's touch to daintiness, like an evening
wind's caress, before fatherhood is perfect. All his youthhood, which
knew not any woman's lips to kiss; all his manhood, which had never
shared a hearth with wife or child,--all this unused tenderness now
administers to the wants of this orphan, Cossette. His rescue of her
from the Thenardiers is poetry itself. He had the instincts of a
gentleman. The doll he brought her for her first Christmas gift was
forerunner of a thousand gifts of courtesy and love. See, too, the
mourning garments he brought and laid beside her bed the first morning
he brought her to his garret, and watched her slumber as if he had been
appointed by God to be her guardian angel. To him life henceforth
meant Cossette. He was her servant always. For her he fought for his
life as if it had been an unutterable good. He lost himself, which is
the very crown of motherhood's devotion. He was himself supplanted in
her affections by her lover, Marius, and his heart was stabbed as if by
poisoned daggers; for was not Cossette wife, daughter, sister, brother,
mother, father, friend--all? But if his heart was breaking, she never
guessed it. He hid his hurt, though dying of heartbreak.

Then, too, Jean Valjean is misjudged, and by those who should have
trus