Les Misérables, page 47
CHAPTER I--THE HISTORY OF A PROGRESS IN BLACK GLASS TRINKETS
And in the meantime, what had become of that mother who according tothe people at Montfermeil, seemed to have abandoned her child? Where wasshe? What was she doing?
After leaving her little Cosette with the Thénardiers, she had continuedher journey, and had reached M. sur M.
This, it will be remembered, was in 1818.
Fantine had quitted her province ten years before. M. sur M. had changedits aspect. While Fantine had been slowly descending from wretchednessto wretchedness, her native town had prospered.
About two years previously one of those industrial facts which are thegrand events of small districts had taken place.
This detail is important, and we regard it as useful to develop it atlength; we should almost say, to underline it.
From time immemorial, M. sur M. had had for its special industry theimitation of English jet and the black glass trinkets of Germany. Thisindustry had always vegetated, on account of the high price of the rawmaterial, which reacted on the manufacture. At the moment when Fantinereturned to M. sur M., an unheard-of transformation had taken placein the production of "black goods." Towards the close of 1815 a man,a stranger, had established himself in the town, and had been inspiredwith the idea of substituting, in this manufacture, gum-lac for resin,and, for bracelets in particular, slides of sheet-iron simply laidtogether, for slides of soldered sheet-iron.
This very small change had effected a revolution.
This very small change had, in fact, prodigiously reduced the cost ofthe raw material, which had rendered it possible in the first place, toraise the price of manufacture, a benefit to the country; in the secondplace, to improve the workmanship, an advantage to the consumer; in thethird place, to sell at a lower price, while trebling the profit, whichwas a benefit to the manufacturer.
Thus three results ensued from one idea.
In less than three years the inventor of this process had become rich,which is good, and had made every one about him rich, which is better.He was a stranger in the Department. Of his origin, nothing was known;of the beginning of his career, very little. It was rumored that he hadcome to town with very little money, a few hundred francs at the most.
It was from this slender capital, enlisted in the service of aningenious idea, developed by method and thought, that he had drawn hisown fortune, and the fortune of the whole countryside.
On his arrival at M. sur M. he had only the garments, the appearance,and the language of a workingman.
It appears that on the very day when he made his obscure entry intothe little town of M. sur M., just at nightfall, on a December evening,knapsack on back and thorn club in hand, a large fire had broken outin the town-hall. This man had rushed into the flames and saved, at therisk of his own life, two children who belonged to the captain of thegendarmerie; this is why they had forgotten to ask him for his passport.Afterwards they had learned his name. He was called Father Madeleine.
