Explore "Les Miserables, Wilbour Translation" by Victor Hugo on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
LITTLE by little in the lapse of time all opposition had ceased. At first there had been, as always happens with those who rise by their own efforts, slanders and calumnies against Monsieur Madeleine, soon this was reduced to satire, then it was only wit, then it vanished entirely; respect became complete, unanimous, cordial, and there came a moment, about 1821, when the words
Monsieur the Mayor were pronounced at M sur M with almost the same accent as the words Monseigneur the Bishop at D in 1815. People came from thirty miles around to con suit Monsieur Madeleine. He settled differences, he prevented lawsuits, he reconciled enemies. Everybody, of his own will, chose him for judge. He seemed to have the book of the natural law by heart. A contagion of veneration had, in the course of six or seven years, step by step, spread over the whole country.