Doing Right

The curé of M-sur-M stared down at the note in his hands and once again asked himself if he was doing the right thing.

This money that he had been given to help the poor came from a convict. It was strange enough that a convict would give money to aid the poor but he knew for a fact that the money was legitimate. Some people might have questioned where a convict would have even gotten the money but the curé wasn't stupid. Jean Valjean had earned the money from his factory here in town. Where had the money that he had brought to town with him and that led him to be able to purchase the factory and amass his great wealth came from?

That he did not know. Perhaps it was stolen. Valjean was a convict after all. But what if it was stolen? Should he turn it over to the police? What good would that do? It would never end up back with the people it was stolen from so many years ago. What would the police do with it? He did not know.

But this money, no matter how it had come to be legitimately earned, was for the poor and the poor needed it more than the government did. They would not ask him for the money at any rate.

Jean Valjean had not had many requests before he had fled town. He had wanted his trial to be paid for and then that woman's funeral before distributing the rest of it to the poor. He had fled down and yet asked for his trial to be paid for? Had he always expected to be caught? Would he have ever come back? He did not know. He would find out in time, perhaps. He had consulted with a lawyer and had been told how much a cheap trial usually cost and set aside that money for Valjean.

It was his money, after all, and even if he was a convict how could he not allow for a man's own money to pay for his trial? It would all be very neat and in accordance with the law. Perhaps he could have set aside more and bought him a better defense but Jean Valjean was a convict and he had confessed in open court. It did not matter if he had no trial at all or the best attorney money could buy because he was going to spend the rest of his life in the galleys. What would the use be of wasting money on a more expensive trial when there were so many innocents suffering and in need of the money more than Valjean was? It was his money and so he would get his trial paid for but that was really it.

The curé had his priorities in order and he owed far more to his innocent flock than to a hidden convict who had fooled them all. Madeleine would have agreed.

Sister Simplice came in then. "You wished to see me?"

The curé nodded. "Indeed. Do you know what is in the letter that you delivered to me?"

Sister Simplice nodded. "Monsieur Madeleine let me read it before he gave it to me."

Monsieur Madeleine. Sister Simplice knew as well as anybody that there was no Monsieur Madeleine and that there never had been, only the common criminal Jean Valjean. It didn't make any sense and yet what could they do? He did not know how to make sense of it and he supposed that she did not either. It was a bit much to be pretending that it had never happened but she was a nun and so therefore not as equipped to deal with the harsh realities of the world. He was a curé, yes, but he had lived before that.

He wished that he could just pretend that it had not happened but how could he do that responsibly, especially when people had already come to see him to try and understand how this could be. He wished that, if he must accept that the convict Valjean was pretending to be their mayor, he could pretend that all the good he had done had not happened or that it was all a lie.

But Valjean had confessed in open court when no one had suspected him. And when the curé received the letter requesting him to use the money to help the poor he had not only not been surprised but had realized, much to his shock, that he would have been much more discomforted if the man who had once been mayor had done so.

It did not make any sense. Perhaps he had truly sought redemption in God. He had certainly spent enough time in the church and in long spiritual conversations with him to let him believe that. God forgave everybody though humans did not and could not be expected to live like that. The law would do what it must but he felt a little more optimistic for the fate of Valjean's soul.

"The note asked for me to set aside money for a trial and a burial for that woman and then give the rest to the poor," the curé said, very careful not to call him Jean Valjean and upset Sister Simplice but not able to delude himself, either. Sister Simplice would never lie so it must simply be that she could not think of that man and connect him with a convict.

"He said that he was begging you to look after what he left behind and to do good with his money here," Sister Simplice remarked.

In the past it had made him uncomfortable when 'Monsieur Madeleine' had been so humble but now that he knew it was a convict he would have been scandalized if it hadn't been written like that.

"And that is exactly what I wanted to discuss with you. The money for the trial is set aside. It is not much but it will do, I believe. He must have a trial, after all, and if we do not pay for it out of his money then who will pay for it? But that leaves the matter of that woman."

"Fantine," Sister Simplice said quietly, lowering her eyes sadly.

The curé nodded distractedly. "Yes, her. I have a set amount of money and two things to do with it. I must bury that woman and provide for the poor."

Sister Simplice sighed. "There will be a great many more poor people in the days to come, I fear."

As it happened, the curé had been thinking along those same lines. In the past, they had not had to worry much about their poor as the factory had provided jobs for many people and he had personally gone out and given every poor person he could find enough to get by. It was always a good thing to get a second opinion, however, and Sister Simplice was a sensible woman. "Why do you say that?"

"Of course there is the sudden lack of charity now that Monsieur Madeleine is no longer here to provide it," Sister Simplice said. "But more than that…with Monsieur Madeleine gone, what will happen to the factory?"

The curé had not considered that. "Ah, because it was run by a convict who can now no longer own it? Well, I don't think the government will shut it down. Why would they? There is nothing wrong with the factory itself, just that it was owned by a convict. Someone else will take over production, I'm sure."

"Perhaps," Sister Simplice agreed hesitantly. "But I have seen a lot of people watching that factory for a very long time. They all wanted it but they could never have it. Now is their chance."

The curé considered that. "They may fight over it but it's far too profitable for them to destroy it."

"I hope you are right," Sister Simplice said. "But I cannot help but worry and I do not think I will be able to stop worrying until the factory is safely in the hands of a new owner, hopefully one that cares for this town and his workers even a fraction of as much Monsieur Madeleine did."

The curé nodded his head absently because that wasn't the point. "No matter what will happen with the factory, the poor are going to need a lot of help very soon and once we use up this money then it is gone and we will not be able to do any more than we could before he came to town and made his fortune."

Sister Simplice nodded, looking curious.

"I suppose that what he wanted me to do was to give that woman, that Fantine, a grander burial than her kind normally receives," the curé mused. "Otherwise why leave money behind for that at all? We bury those with no money all the time. We are not heathens. And while I, for one, would not go so far as to say that Fantine had been treated as a countess for being given a hospital bed by the man who paid for it, it was more than someone like her normally gets. He was in the habit of treating her better than anyone else would have."

"I suppose that you are right," Sister Simplice agreed. "And yet…"

"And yet?" the curé asked hopefully.

"Monsieur Madeleine always put helping the poor before any sense of propriety or what others thought he should do. He wanted to help poor Fantine. Even at the end, he asked only for Inspector Javert to grant him three days leave to help that poor child, Cosette. He may have wanted Fantine to have a decent burial but I think that he would understand."

The curé nodded, relieved. It did not matter so much what Valjean wanted but he needed to hear from someone whose goodness he was so assured of as Sister Simplice that he was not doing something wrong. He would not ordinarily take money he had been given for one purpose and use it for another but the man who had given him the money was a convict and the woman it was for was a woman of the town. No one was there to object and he had no one to answer to except his own conscience.

He would still give her a proper funeral and bury her but she did not need anything more lavish than her kind ever did. If she would have liked it in life, well, she was past having any preferences now and the curé rather thought that the dead had more pressing concerns than the treatment of their mortal remains.

He would do what he could for the dead and the condemned but ultimately it was the living that he must concern himself with now. Jean Valjean had given him the money and trusted him to do what was right with it and he intended to do just that.