Excerpt from Les Miserables, Principaux Episodes De, Vol. 1: I. M. Bienvenu; II. Jean Valjean; III. M. Madeleine To those who would object to the constructive! Character of some of the notes, Iwould reply that I am writing for learners, and not for scholars. I have always held it to be the first principle of the sound teaching of a language to make an author 'interpret' his own tongue. We can follow in this respect no better guide than M. Victor Hugo, whose masterly handling of so delicate an instrument as the French language is unsurpassed by that of any living writer. I shall be satisfied if I have succeeded in giving my readers some idea of a work which will always be reckoned as one of the greatest achievements of him who towers, 'titan-like, ' far above all his fellow-workers in the vast field of literature. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."