am speaking of actual facts.
What I have to reveal to you is absolutely unknown.
It belongs to unpublished matter.
And perhaps you will find in it the source of the fortune so skilfully presented to Madame la Baronne by Jean Valjean.
I say skilfully, because, by a gift of that nature it would not be so very unskilful to slip into an honorable house whose comforts one would then share, and, at the same stroke, to conceal one''s crime, and to enjoy one''s theft, to bury one''s name and to create for oneself a family."
"I might interrupt you at this point," said Marius, "but go on."
"Monsieur le Baron, I will tell you all, leaving the recompense to your generosity.
This secret is worth massive gold.
You will say to me:
`Why do not you apply to Jean Valjean?''
For a very simple reason; I know that he has stripped himself, and stripped himself in your favor, and I consider the combination ingenious; but he has no longer a son, he would show me his empty hands, and, since I am in need of some money for my trip to la Joya, I prefer you, you who have it all, to him who has nothing.
I am a little fatigued, permit me to take a chair."
Marius seated himself and motioned to him to do the same.
Thenardier installed himself on a tufted chair, picked up his two newspapers, thrust them back into their envelope, and murmured as he pecked at the Drapeau Blanc with his nail: