e monk Austin Castillejo, this was the means employed by Charles the Fifth, desirous of seeing the Plombes for the last time after his abdication.
He had her brought into and carried out of the monastery of Saint-Yuste in this manner.
Fauchelevent, who had recovered himself a little, exclaimed:--
"But how will you manage to breathe?"
"I will breathe."
"In that box!
The mere thought of it suffocates me."
"You surely must have a gimlet, you will make a few holes here and there, around my mouth, and you will nail the top plank on loosely."
"Good!
And what if you should happen to cough or to sneeze?"
"A man who is making his escape does not cough or sneeze."
And Jean Valjean added:--
"Father Fauchelevent, we must come to a decision:
I must either be caught here, or accept this escape through the hearse."
Every one has noticed the taste which cats have for pausing and lounging between the two leaves of a half-shut door.
Who is there who has not said to a cat, "Do come in!"
There are men who, when an incident stands half-open before them, have the same tendency to halt in indecision between two resolutions, at the risk of getting crushed through the abrupt closing of the adventure by fate. The over-prudent, cats as they are, and because they are cats, sometimes incur more danger than the audacious.