Les Misérables Read online

  PREFACE

  So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees ofdamnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid thecivilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divinedestiny; so long as the three great problems of the century--thedegradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman throughhunger, the crippling of children through lack of light--are unsolved;so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;--inother words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignoranceand poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannotfail to be of use.

  HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862.

  FANTINE

  BOOK FIRST--A JUST MAN