Her younger sister, now dead, was her exact opposite. She breathed poetry, flowers, and light, dreamed of falling in love with a remote heroic cavalier, and married the man of her dreams. She has left behind a son, Marius, who lives with M. Gillenormand. Marius is a sensitive child who trembles before his gruff grandfather, for the latter speaks to him severely and sometimes raises his cane to him. Secretly, however, M. Gillenormand adores the child.
Even though the boy lives under his grandfather's care, he is not an orphan. His father lives in very straitened circumstances in the little town of Vernon. Practically a hermit, he has only one occupation:
the cultivation of a magnificent garden.
This humble and peaceful retirement, however, is the poignant conclusion to a stormy existence. The father, Georges Pontmercy, was for most of his life a soldier in Napoleon's army. He had a heroic career, distinguishing himself in all the emperor's campaigns. He captured a British ship, was severely wounded, and won the highest military decoration. At the debacle of Waterloo; he achieved the peak of valor by capturing the flag of the Lunebourg battalion. The emperor, delighted, shouted, "I'm making you a colonel, a baron, an officer of the Legion of Honor."
