The young men were comrades; the young girls were friends.Such loves are always accompanied by such friendships.
Goodness and philosophy are two distinct things; the proof of this is that, after making all due allowances for these little irregular households, Favourite, Zephine, and Dahlia were philosophical young women, while Fantine was a good girl.
Good! some one will exclaim; and Tholomyes?
Solomon would reply that love forms a part of wisdom.
We will confine ourselves to saying that the love of Fantine was a first love, a sole love, a faithful love.
She alone, of all the four, was not called "thou" by a single one of them.
Fantine was one of those beings who blossom, so to speak, from the dregs of the people.
Though she had emerged from the most unfathomable depths of social shadow, she bore on her brow the sign of the anonymous and the unknown.
She was born at M. sur M. Of what parents?
Who can say?
She had never known father or mother.She was called Fantine.
Why Fantine?
She had never borne any other name.
At the epoch of her birth the Directory still existed.She had no family name; she had no family; no baptismal name; the Church no longer existed.
She bore the name which pleased the first random passer-by, who had encountered her, when a very small child, running bare-legged in the street.