, she had married a monk who had fled from his cloister in a red cap, and passed from the Bernardines to the Jacobins. She was dry, rough, peevish, sharp, captious, almost venomous; all this in memory of her monk, whose widow she was, and who had ruled over her masterfully and bent her to his will. She was a nettle in which the rustle of the cassock was visible. At the Restoration she had turned bigot, and that with so much energy that the priests had forgiven her her monk.
She had a small property, which she bequeathed with much ostentation to a religious community. She was in high favor at the episcopal palace of Arras.
So this Madame Victurnien went to Montfermeil, and returned with the remark, "I have seen the child."
All this took time.
Fantine had been at the factory for more than a year, when, one morning, the superintendent of the workroom handed her fifty francs from the mayor, told her that she was no longer employed in the shop, and requested her, in the mayor''s name, to leave the neighborhood.
This was the very month when the Thenardiers, after having demanded twelve francs instead of six, had just exacted fifteen francs instead of twelve.
Fantine was overwhelmed.
She could not leave the neighborhood; she was in debt for her rent and furniture.
Fifty francs was not sufficient to cancel this debt.