He hastened with Cosette to Jean Valjean's room; but the old man's last
hour had come.

"Come closer, come closer, both of you," he cried. "I love you so much.
It is good to die like this! You love me too, my Cosette. I know you've
always had a fondness for the poor old man. And you, M. Pontmercy, will
always make Cosette happy. There were several things I wanted to say,
but they don't matter now. Come nearer, my children. I am happy in
dying!"

Cosette and Marius fell on their knees, and covered his hands with
kisses.

Jean Valjean was dead!

* * * * *

Notre Dame de Paris

Victor Hugo was already eminent as one of the greatest
dramatic poets of his day before he gave to the world, in
1831, his great tragic romance, "Notre Dame de Paris," of
which the original title was "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."
Hugo has said that the story was suggested to him by the Greek
word _anagke_ (Fate), which one day he discovered carved on
one of the towers of the famous cathedral. "These Greek
characters," he says, "black with age and cut deep into the
stone with the peculiarities of form and arrangement common to
the Gothic caligraphy that marked them the work of some hand
in the Middle Ages, and above all the sad and mournful meaning
which they expressed, forcibly impressed me." In "Notre Dame"
there is all the tenderness for sorrow and sympathy for the
afflicted, which found even fuller and deeper expression
thirty years later in "Les Miserables"; while as a study of
the life of Paris of the Middle Ages, and of the great church
after which the romance is called, the book is still
unrivalled.

_I.--The Hunchback of Notre Dame_

It was January 6, 1482, and all Paris was keeping the double festival of
Epiphany and the Feast of Fools.

The Lord of Misrule was to be elected, and all who were competing for
the post came in turn and made a grimace at a broken window in the great
hall of the Palace of Justice. The ugliest face was to be acclaimed
victor by the populace, and shouts of laughter greeted the grotesque
appearances.

The vote was unanimous in favour of the hunchback of Notre Dame. He had
but stood at the window, and at once had been elected. The square nose,
the horseshoe shaped mouth, the one eye, overhung by a bushy red
eyebrow, the forked chin, and the strange expression of amaze