1
THE STORY OF AN IMPROVEMENT IN JET-WORK
BUT THIS MOTHER, in the meanwhile, who, according to the people of Montfermeil, seemed to have abandoned her child? What had become of her? Where was she? What was she doing?
After leaving her little Cosette with the Thénardiers, she went on her way and reached M—sur M—.
This, it will be remembered, was in 1818.
Fantine had left the province some twelve years before, and M—sur M—had changed in appearance. While Fantine had been slowly sinking deeper and deeper into misery, her native village had become prosperous.
About two years ago there had been accomplished there one of those industrial changes which are the great events of small communities.
This circumstance is important and we think it well to relate it, we might even say to italicise it.
From time immemorial the special occupation of the inhabitants of M—sur M—had been the imitation of English jets and German black glass trinkets. The business had always been sluggish because of the high price of the raw material, which reacted upon the manufacture. At the time of Fantine’s return to M—sur M—an unheard-of transformation had been effected in the production of these ‘black goods.’ Towards the end of the year 1815, an unknown man had established himself in the city, and had conceived the idea of substituting gum-lac for resin in the manufacture; and for bracelets, in particular, he made the clasps by simply bending the ends of the metal together instead of soldering them.
This very slight change had in fact reduced the price of the raw material enormously, and this had rendered it possible, first, to raise the wages of the labourer—a benefit to the region—secondly, to improve the quality of the goods—an advantage for the consumer—and thirdly, to sell them at a lower price even while making three times the profit—a gain for the manufacturer.
Thus we have three results from one idea.
In less than three years the inventor of this process had become rich, which was well, and had made all around him rich, which was better. He was a stranger in the Department. Nothing was known of his birth, and but little of his early history: he had come to the city with very little money, a few hundred francs at most.
From this slender capital, under the inspiration of an ingenious idea, made fruitful by order and care, he had drawn a fortune for himself, and a fortune for the whole region.
On his arrival at M—sur M—he had the dress, the manners, and the language of a mere labourer.
It seems that the very day on which he thus obscurely entered the little city of M—sur M—, just at dusk on a December evening, with his bundle on his back, and a thorn stick in his hand, a great fire had broken out in the Town Hall. This man rushed into the fire and saved, at the peril of his life, two children, who proved to be those of the captain of the gen darmerie, so no one thought to ask him for his passport. He was known from that time by the name of Old Madeleine.