Les Misérables, Five Volumes, Complete by Victor Hugo

"I declare to you," continued the senator, "that the Marquis d'Argens,       Pyrrhon, Hobbes, and M. Naigeon are no rascals. I have all the       philosophers in my library gilded on the edges."

"I declare to you," continued the senator, "that the Marquis d'Argens,       Pyrrhon, Hobbes, and M. Naigeon are no rascals. I have all the       philosophers in my library gilded on the edges."

"I declare to you," continued the senator, "that the Marquis d'Argens,       Pyrrhon, Hobbes, and M. Naigeon are no rascals. I have all the       philosophers in my library gilded on the edges."

"I declare to you," continued the senator, "that the Marquis d'Argens,       Pyrrhon, Hobbes, and M. Naigeon are no rascals. I have all the       philosophers in my library gilded on the edges."

This  man was almost a monster. He had not voted for the death of the king,  but   almost

in  St. Augustine,—'Place your   hopes in the man from whom you do not  inherit.'"

we demolished the ancient regime in deeds; we were not able to suppress it entirely in ideas. To destroy abuses is not sufficient; customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer; the wind is still there."

if you don't change the culture of the people which is psycho-social you will only temporarily rid society of the tendency to reach for and accept limited freedom and a docile population...if education and then custom is not altered then man will seek what is natural...to rule ...to take..to control

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we   demolished the ancient regime in deeds; we were  not able to suppress     it    entirely in ideas. To destroy abuses is not  sufficient; customs must be     modified.  The mill is there no longer; the wind is   still  there."

we  demolished the ancient regime in deeds; we were not able to suppress    it  entirely in ideas. To destroy abuses is not sufficient; customs must be    modified. The mill is there no longer; the wind is  still there."

That tyrant engendered royalty, which is authority falsely understood,

Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop

he belonged to the nobility of the bar

the parliamentary families, decimated, pursued, hunted down, were dispersed.

The Revolution came

the fall of his own family, the tragic spectacles of '93, which were, perhaps,  even more alarming to the emigrants who viewed them from a distance, with the  magnifying powers of terror

by striking to his heart

by striking at his existence and his fortune

all that was known was, that when he returned from Italy he was a priest.

turned round and said abruptly

Napoleon,

Who is this good man who is staring at me

Myriel was utterly astonished to learn that he had been appointed Bishop of D——

Napolean gave titles out because he could. I wonder why he made this person Bishop?

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M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, where  there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think.

rumors only

Mademoiselle Baptistine, who was his sister, and ten years his junior.

In the movie I thought she was his wife...but of course Catholic Priests or Bishops are not allowed to marry

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M. Myriel had no property, his family having been ruined by the Revolution.

Who are the innocent victims of change and crisis?
I guess this is something we don't think about. There were innocent victims of the Revolution, regardless of their affiliations to church or state...this is something that should be explored...the morality aspect of the Revolution

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Myriel received from the State, in his quality of bishop, a salary of fifteen  thousand francs.

arrangement was accepted with absolute submission by Mademoiselle Baptistine.

This holy woman regarded Monseigneur of D—— as at one and the same time her  brother and her bishop, her friend according to the flesh and her superior  according to the Church. She simply loved and venerated him. When he spoke, she  bowed; when he acted, she yielded her adherence

voted him an annual sum of three thousand francs, under this heading: Allowance  to M. the Bishop for expenses of carriage, expenses of posting, and expenses of  pastoral visits.

This provoked a great outcry among the local burgesses; and a senator of the  Empire, a former member of the Council of the Five Hundred which favored the 18  Brumaire, and who was provided with a magnificent senatorial office in the  vicinity of the town of D

"Expenses of carriage? What can be done with it in a town of less than four  thousand inhabitants? Expenses of journeys? What is the use of these trips, in  the first place?

No one travels otherwise than on horseback

These priests are all thus, greedy and avaricious

This man played the good priest when he first came. Now he does like the rest;  he must have a carriage and a posting-chaise, he must have luxuries, like the  bishops of the olden days.

Things will not go well, M. le Comte, until the Emperor has freed us from these  black-capped rascals

Down with the Pope! [Matters were getting embroiled with Rome.] For my part, I  am for Caesar alone." Etc., etc.

As for the chance episcopal perquisites, the fees for marriage bans, dispensations, private baptisms, sermons, benedictions, of churches or chapels, marriages, etc., the Bishop levied them on the wealthy with all the more asperity, since he bestowed them on the needy.

The Bishop did not omit his pastoral visits because he had converted his carriage into alms. The diocese of D—— is a fatiguing one. There are very few plains and a great many mountains; hardly any roads, as we have just seen; thirty-two curacies, forty-one vicarships, and two hundred and eighty-five auxiliary chapels. To visit all these is quite a task.

Curacies, vicarships, auxilary chapels...just under the Bishops charge in one bishopric...this really demonstrates the complexity, enormity, and sophistication of the Catholic network and reach throughout Europe...The Revolution attempted to elimate this system, which it viewed just as corrupt as the French Monarchy...they tried to take this apart and Versaille...Amazing!!

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when the father of a family dies, the boys go off to seek their fortunes,  leaving the property to the girls, so that they may find husbands."

Since a little country of a dozen or fifteen hearths cannot always support a teacher, they have school-masters who are paid by the whole valley, who make the round of the villages, spending a week in this one, ten days in that, and instruct them. These teachers go to the fairs.

this is interesting because in South America, I beleive Peru or Colombia there is man who travels on his bike to rural/poor areas with a library of books for children

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What are you thinking about?" "I am thinking," replied the Bishop, "of a singular remark, which is to be found, I believe, in St. Augustine,—'Place your hopes in the man from whom you do not inherit.'"

this quote is so interesting, what if you put your hopes into the person you were supposed to inherit from? Maybe it means don't hold your breath or count on it. Better off counting on someone who your not expecting money or property from

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St. Augustine,—'Place your     hopes in  the man from whom you do not   inherit.'"

Never in his whole life had M. Geborand bestowed alms on any poor wretch. After the delivery of that sermon, it was observed that he gave a sou every Sunday to the poor old beggar-women at the door of the cathedral.

shows power of Biships verbal eloquence. Able to inspire

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a wealthy and avaricious old man, who contrived to be, at one and the same time, an ultra-royalist and an ultra-Voltairian.

wow this is a contradiction! A royalist and Voltairian. Shows that even the elite were suspect of the Church since Voltaire was the most effective literary critic of religion in general

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which have but one opening, the door. And this arises from a thing which is  called the tax on doors and windows.

whole of the hilly country of Dauphine. They make bread for six months at one  time; they bake it with dried cow-dung. In the winter they break this bread up  with an axe, and they soak it for twenty-four hours,

he easily familiarized himself with the dialect of the south

This pleased the people extremely, and contributed not a little to win him  access to all spirits

As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts.

"Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, cheek it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity.

this is such a power and interesting quote...it is at first glance a very Christian idea which demonstrates that Hugo believed in his Christian or Catholic teachings [have to check his background]...but I beleive there is some truth in this quote. Because it is our human-animal or flesh part of us that provokes us to things that may be violent to others or ourselves. In order to satisfy our most carnal or basic desires for attention, sexual pleasure, hunger, or revenge we can do vile things that are sometimes immoral or unethical [subjective, I know]. And so man and woman "watch it [the caranl instincts], check it, repress it. Then he goes on to say that we must "obey it only at the last extremity." This demonstrates that Hugo advocates survival at the expense of what might be considered immoral in Christian terms...if you must hurt, lie, steal, or kill to save yourself or others then obey your carnal instincts...This tells me he is not fully convinces of the teachings and commands of Jesus Christ who said turn the other cheek and never do as they do...

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exhibited himself to the eyes of the crowd in his purple camail and with his  episcopal cross upon his neck, side by side with the criminal bound with cords.

He was indulgent towards women and poor people, on whom the burden of human society rest. He said, "The faults of women, of children, of the feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the fault of the husbands, the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise."

The Bishop embraced him, and at the moment when the knife was about to fall, he  said to him: "God raises from the dead him whom man slays

society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction gratis;

it is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul is full of shadow;  sin is therein committed. The guilty one is not the person who has committed the  sin, but the person who has created the shadow."

A wretched man, being at the end of his resources, had coined counterfeit money,  out of love for a woman, and for the child which he had had by her.

As for the Bishop, it was a shock to him to have beheld the guillotine, and it  was a long time before he recovered from it.

In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has something  about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain indifference to  the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing upon it, from saying yes or  no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with one's own eyes: but if one  encounters one of them, the shock is violent; one is forced to decide, and to  take part for or against.

The guillotine is the concretion of the law; it is called vindicte; it is not  neutral, and it does not permit you to remain neutral

He who sees it shivers with the most mysterious of shivers. All social problems  erect their interrogation point around this chopping-knife. The scaffold is a  vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not a machine;  the scaffold is not an inert bit of mechanism constructed of wood, iron and  cords.

By bringing jealousy into play, he had caused the truth to burst forth in wrath,  he had educed the justice of revenge.

The scaffold is the accomplice of the executioner; it devours, it eats flesh, it  drinks blood; the scaffold is a sort of monster fabricated by the judge and the  carpenter, a spectre which seems to live with a horrible vitality composed of  all the death which it has inflicted.

A man was condemned to death for murder

This is one which his sister overheard one evening and preserved: "I did not  think that it was so monstrous. It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law  to such a degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By  what right do men touch that unknown thing?"

I have nothing to do with that unpleasant task, and with that mountebank: I,  too, am ill; and besides, it is not my place."

This reply was reported to the Bishop, who said, "Monsieur le Curé is right: it  is not his place; it is mine."

As he knew the moment for silence he knew also the moment for speech.

His condemnation, which had been a profound shock, had, in a manner, broken  through, here and there, that wall which separates us from the mystery of  things, and which we call life. He gazed incessantly beyond this world through  these fatal breaches, and beheld only darkness. The Bishop made him see light.

Like all old men, and like the majority of thinkers, he slept little.

"The mind is a garden," said he.

On his return, he dined. The dinner resembled his breakfast.

With that exception, his ordinary diet consisted only of vegetables boiled in  water, and oil soup.

In another dissertation, he examines the theological works of Hugo, Bishop of  Ptolemais, great-grand-uncle to the writer of this book

he only emerged to write a few lines on the pages of the volume itself. These  lines have often no connection whatever with the book which contains them.

Oh, you who are!

"Ecclesiastes calls you the All-powerful; the Maccabees call you the Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty; Baruch calls you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls you Light; the Books of Kings call you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; man calls you Father; but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the most beautiful of all your names."

"The most beautiful of altars," he said, "is the soul of an unhappy creature  consoled and thanking God."

Before becoming a hospital, this house had been the ancient parliament house of  the Bourgeois. Hence this decoration

In the Bishop's own chamber, at the head of his bed, there was a small cupboard, in which Madame Magloire locked up the six silver knives and forks and the big spoon every night. But it is necessary to add, that the key was never removed.

The garden, which had been rather spoiled by the ugly buildings which we have  mentioned, was composed of four alleys in cross-form, radiating from a tank.

It would be better to grow salads there than bouquets." "Madame Magloire,"  retorted the Bishop, "you are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as the  useful." He added after a pause, "More so, perhaps."

He respected learned men greatly; he respected the ignorant still more;

The house had not a single door which could be locked. The door of the  dining-room, which, as we have said, opened directly on the cathedral square,  had formerly been ornamented with locks and bolts like the door of a prison. The  Bishop had had all this ironwork removed, and this door was never fastened,  either by night or by day, with anything except the latch. All that the first  passerby had to do at any hour, was to give it a push.

Am not I a physician like them? I also have my patients, and then, too, I have  some whom I call my unfortunates."

He was fond of saying, "There is a bravery of the priest as well as the bravery of a colonel of dragoons,—only," he added, "ours must be tranquil."

After the destruction of the band of Gaspard Bes, who had infested the gorges of  Ollioules, one of his lieutenants, Cravatte, took refuge in the mountains.

He even pushed as far as Embrun, entered the cathedral one night, and despoiled  the sacristy. His highway robberies laid waste the country-side. The gendarmes  were set on his track, but in vain.

"Do not go, Monseigneur. In the name of Heaven! You are risking your life!"

He traversed the mountain on mule-back, encountered no one, and arrived safe and  sound at the residence of his "good friends," the shepherds.

The chest was opened; it contained a cope of cloth of gold, a mitre ornamented  with diamonds, an archbishop's cross, a magnificent crosier,—all the pontifical  vestments which had been stolen a month previously from the treasury of Notre  Dame d'Embrun. In the chest was a paper, on which these words were written,  "From Cravatte to Monseigneur Bienvenu."

That evening, before he went to bed, he said again: "Let us never fear robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers. Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters it what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which threatens our soul."

I have seen the enemy & it is us...Victor is concerned with the soul and it's destruction

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The senator above mentioned was a clever man, who had made his own way, heedless  of those things which present obstacles, and which are called conscience, sworn  faith, justice, duty: he had marched straight to his goal, without once  flinching in the line of his advancement and his interest.

"What an excellent and really marvellous thing is this materialism! Not every  one who wants it can have it. Ah! when one does have it, one is no longer a  dupe, one does not stupidly allow one's self to be exiled like Cato, nor stoned  like Stephen, nor burned alive like Jeanne d'Arc. Those who have succeeded in  procuring this admirable materialism have the joy of feeling themselves  irresponsible, and of thinking that they can devour everything without  uneasiness,—places, sinecures, dignities, power, whether well or ill acquired,  lucrative recantations, useful treacheries, savory capitulations of  conscience,—and that they shall enter the tomb with their digestion  accomplished.

letter from Mademoiselle Baptistine to Madame the Vicomtess de Boischevron, the  friend of her childhood

"And you are right," replied the Bishop. "As one makes one's philosophy, so one lies on it. You are on the bed of purple, senator."

"I hate Diderot; he is an ideologist, a declaimer, and a revolutionist, a  believer in God at bottom, and more bigoted than Voltaire.

Man is the eel. Then what is the good of the Eternal Father? The Jehovah  hypothesis tires me, Bishop. It is good for nothing but to produce shallow  people, whose reasoning is hollow. Down with that great All, which torments me!  Hurrah for Zero which leaves me in peace!

I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who preaches renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity. 'Tis the counsel of an avaricious man to beggars. Renunciation; why? Sacrifice; to what end? I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another wolf. Let us stick to nature, then. We are at the top; let us have a superior philosophy. What is the advantage of being at the top, if one sees no further than the end of other people's noses? Let us live merrily. Life is all. That man has another future elsewhere, on high, below, anywhere, I don't believe; not one single word of it. Ah! sacrifice and renunciation are recommended to me; I must take heed to everything I do; I must cudgel my brains over good and evil, over the just and the unjust, over the fas and the nefas. Why? Because I shall have to render an account of my actions. When? After death. What a fine dream! After my death it will be a very clever person who can catch me.

Altruism goes against nature Victor claims here...however it is of a higher human developement...he said no where i nature is sacrafice for the other found...but if one looks to certain primate groups care and concern for companions is practiced

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Let us tell the truth, we who are initiated, and who have raised the veil of  Isis: there is no such thing as either good or evil; there is vegetation. Let us  seek the real. Let us get to the bottom of it. Let us go into it thoroughly.  What the deuce! let us go to the bottom of it! We must scent out the truth; dig  in the earth for it, and seize it. Then it gives you exquisite joys. Then you  grow strong, and you laugh.

Do come to my assistance: is it not Tertullian who says that the blessed shall  travel from star to star? Very well. We shall be the grasshoppers of the stars.  And then, besides, we shall see God. Ta, ta, ta! What twaddle all these  paradises are! God is a nonsensical monster. I would not say that in the  Moniteur, egad! but I may whisper it among friends.

have interrogated my brother with regard to the information which you desire on the subject of the Faux family. You are aware that he knows everything, and that he has memories, because he is still a very good royalist. They really are a very ancient Norman family of the generalship of Caen. Five hundred years ago there was a Raoul de Faux, a Jean de Faux, and a Thomas de Faux, who were gentlemen, and one of whom was a seigneur de Rochefort.

To sacrifice the world to paradise is to let slip the prey for the shadow.

Did I exist before my birth? No. Shall I exist after death? No. What am I? A  little dust collected in an organism. What am I to do on this earth? The choice  rests with me: suffer or enjoy. Whither will suffering lead me? To nothingness;  but I shall have suffered. Whither will enjoyment lead me? To nothingness; but I  shall have enjoyed myself. My choice is made. One must eat or be eaten. I shall  eat. It is better to be the tooth than the grass. Such is my wisdom.

After which, go whither I push thee, the grave-digger is there; the Pantheon for  some of us: all falls into the great hole. End. Finis. Total liquidation. This  is the vanishing-point. Death is death, believe me. I laugh at the idea of there  being any one who has anything to tell me on that subject. Fables of nurses;  bugaboo for children; Jehovah for men. No; our to-morrow is the night. Beyond  the tomb there is nothing but equal nothingness.

Legends, chimeras, the soul, immortality, paradise, the stars, are provided for  them to swallow. They gobble it down. They spread it on their dry bread. He who  has nothing else has the good. God. That is the least he can have. I oppose no  objection to that; but I reserve Monsieur Naigeon for myself. The good God is  good for the populace."

Cravatte,

In the country near D—— a man lived quite alone. This man, we will state at  once, was a former member of the Convention. His name was G——

This man was almost a monster. He had not voted for the death of the king, but  almost. He was a quasi-regicide. He had been a terrible man. How did it happen  that such a man had not been brought before a provost's court, on the return of  the legitimate princes?

They need not have cut off his head, if you please; clemency must be exercised,  agreed; but a good banishment for life. An example, in short, etc. Besides, he  was an atheist, like all the rest of those people. Gossip of the geese about the  vulture.

Besides, he was an atheist, like all the rest of those people

the old wretch was dying, that paralysis was gaining on him, and that he would  not live over night.—"Thank God!" some added.

"I shall die three hours hence."

You have done well to come and look at a man who is on the point of death.

Meanwhile, the member of the Convention had been surveying him with a modest cordiality, in which one could have distinguished, possibly, that humility which is so fitting when one is on the verge of returning to dust.

there was something calculated to disconcert death

thought that he had mistaken the door. G—— seemed to be dying because he willed  it so.

"I mean to say that man has a tyrant,—ignorance. I voted for the death of that tyrant. That tyrant engendered royalty, which is authority falsely understood, while science is authority rightly understood. Man should be governed only by science."

Enlightenment influence clearly stated...trust in science and renounce superstition of religion...I am not certain of Victor Hugo's position at this point...not sure he beleives relgion should be renounced and all trust put into science

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The member of the Convention resumed:—

"So far as Louis XVI. was concerned, I said 'no.' I did not think that I had the  right to kill a man; but I felt it my duty to exterminate evil. I voted the end  of the tyrant, that is to say, the end of prostitution for woman, the end of  slavery for man, the end of night for the child.

"You may say troubled joy, and to-day, after that fatal return of the past, which is called 1814, joy which has disappeared! Alas! The work was incomplete, I admit: we demolished the ancient regime in deeds; we were not able to suppress it entirely in ideas. To destroy abuses is not sufficient; customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer; the wind is still there."

In any case, and in spite of whatever may be said, the French Revolution is the  most important step of the human race since the advent of Christ.

set free all the unknown social quantities; it softened spirits, it calmed, appeased, enlightened; it caused the waves of civilization to flow over the earth. It was a good thing. The French Revolution is the consecration of humanity."

incredible commentary on the French Revolution...what was it? What did it accomplish? A true turning point for humanity

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As will be perceived from this letter, these two women understood how to mould  themselves to the Bishop's ways with that special feminine genius which  comprehends the man better than he comprehends himself.

he did a thing

more hazardous than his trip across the mountains infested with bandits.

when they said "citizen

As he had not voted for the death of the king, he had not been included in the  decrees of exile, and had been able to remain in France.

the old member of the Convention inspired him, without his being clearly  conscious of the fact himself, with that sentiment which borders on hate

Who are you, sir?"

My name is Bienvenu Myriel

Are you the man whom the people call Monseigneur Welcome?"

This man, after all, this member of the Convention, this representative of the  people, had been one of the powerful ones of the earth; for the first time in  his life, probably, the Bishop felt in a mood to be severe.

A member of the Convention produced on him somewhat the effect of being outside  the pale of the law

The Revolution had many of these men, proportioned to the epoch. In this old man  one was conscious of a man put to the proof.

You did not vote for the death of the king, after all."

"I congratulate you

Do not congratulate me too much, sir. I did vote for the death of the tyrant."

We have caused the fall of the old world, and the old world, that vase of miseries, has become, through its upsetting upon the human race, an urn of joy."

the old system of monarchy was looked upon by many as a sorely missed way of life. All was right onder the feudal system. Less chaos and all knew his/her place in the world. The "vase of miseries" became to some "an urn of joy". Royalists were weeping and desiring a return to the old. Interesting revelation here.

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"I persist," continued the conventionary G—— "You have mentioned Louis XVII. to me. Let us come to an understanding. Shall we weep for all the innocent, all martyrs, all children, the lowly as well as the exalted? I agree to that. But in that case, as I have told you, we must go back further than '93, and our tears must begin before Louis XVII. I will weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep with me over the children of the people."

the children of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were abused and some of them died from this neglect.
So a good question is put forth not to justify but to understand that they were not the only children to die of injustice...innocent poor children died because of Louis XVI policies and greed of the nobles

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let it be on the side of the people. They have been suffering longer."

clever men have so many ways of imposing on that honest goodman, the people.

Who are you? You are a bishop; that is to say, a prince of the church, one of those gilded men with heraldic bearings and revenues, who have vast prebends,—the bishopric of D—— fifteen thousand francs settled income, ten thousand in perquisites; total, twenty-five thousand francs,—who have kitchens, who have liveries, who make good cheer, who eat moor-hens on Friday, who strut about, a lackey before, a lackey behind, in a gala coach, and who have palaces, and who roll in their carriages in the name of Jesus Christ who went barefoot! You are a prelate,—revenues, palace, horses, servants, good table, all the sensualities of life; you have this like the rest, and like the rest, you enjoy it; it is well; but this says either too much or too little; this does not enlighten me upon the intrinsic and essential value of the man who comes with the probable intention of bringing wisdom to me.

Victor pulls the sheet off of the pious representatives of the Catholic Church. It proves that over 50 yrs after the Revolution the Church was and it's reps were still suspect and also viewed as part of the tyranny suffered by society

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Apart from the Revolution, which, taken as a whole, is an immense human affirmation, '93 is, alas! a rejoinder

the year of 1793 witnessed the culmination of the Terror which included an attemt at dechristianization of France. Destruction of Church properties and executions of members of the Church brought horror to the institution and its adherents. A new "secular religion" was attempted with Robespierre as its chief proponet

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Sir, sir, I am sorry for Marie Antoinette, archduchess and queen; but I am also sorry for that poor Huguenot woman, who, in 1685, under Louis the Great, sir, while with a nursing infant, was bound, naked to the waist, to a stake, and the child kept at a distance; her breast swelled with milk and her heart with anguish; the little one, hungry and pale, beheld that breast and cried and agonized; the executioner said to the woman, a mother and a nurse, 'Abjure!' giving her her choice between the death of her infant and the death of her conscience.

Victor sounds like a learned lawyer for the Revoution. He justifies the acts committed for liberty, equality, and Fraternity

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the French Revolution had its reasons for existence; its wrath will be absolved by the future; its result is the world made better. From its most terrible blows there comes forth a caress for the human race.

Justification and value of the Revolution

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"Progress should believe in God. Good cannot have an impious servitor. He who is an atheist is but a bad leader for the human race."

I wonder if Victor supports this idea? He may believe morality is necessary but does he believe in God?

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Les Misérables, Five Volumes, Complete by Victor Hugo

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