The reader is first introduced to Thenardier in the chapter recounting the Battle of Waterloo:
The hero by day is the vampire by night. After all, a person has the right to rob a corpse he has made. As for us, we do not think so. For the same hand to gather laurels and steal a dead man's shoes seems inconceivable to us.
What is certain is that, normally, after the victors come the thieves...
Every army has a rear end and that is where the accusation should lie. Beings like bats, part brigand, part valet, every species of rodent engendered by this twilight we call war: wearers of uniforms who do not fight, would-be malingerers, dreadful walking wounded; shady canteen attendants, trotting along on little carts, sometimes with their wives, stealing things they later sell on; beggars offering themselves as guides to officers; scum, marauders...
___
But on the night of June 18-19, they stripped the dead clean.
___
Around midnight, a man was prowling or, rather, creeping along the sunken Ohain road. To all appearances, he was one of these people we have just described, neither English nor French, neither peasant nor soldier, less man than ghoul, attracted by a nose for the dead, having theft for victory and coming to raid Waterloo.
___
The night prowler the reader has just caught a glimpse of was headed that way. He was ferreting through that vast grave. He looked around. We don't know what hideous review of the dead he passed. He was walking with his feet in the blood.
All of a sudden, he stopped in his tracks.
A few feet in front of him, in the sunken road, at the spot where the mound of the dead ended, from underneath this heap of men and horses, an open hand emerged, lit up by the moon.
The hand had something on its finger that shone; it was a gold ring.
The man bent down, stayed crouching a moment, and when he stood up again, there was no more ring on the hand.
He didn't exactly stand up again; he stayed in a half-crouching position like that of a scared wildcat, turning his back on the heap of dead, scrutinizing the skyline, on his knees, the whole top part of his body being supported by his two index fingers on the ground, his head peering over the rim of the sunken road. The four paws of the jackal are just right for certain purposes.
When he had set his course, he stood up.
At that instant he nearly jumped out of his skin. He could feel someone grab him from behind.
He wheeled round; the open hand had closed again, seizing the lapel of his greatcoat.
An honest man would have taken fright. This man burst out laughing.
"I'll be damned," he said, "it's only the dead man. I'd prefer a ghost to a gendarme any day."
But the hand relaxed and released him. Effort is quickly exhausted in the grave.
"God!" the prowler went on. "Can this dead man be alive? Let's have a closer look."
He bent down again, fumbled in the heap, removed whatever was in the way, took the hand, grabbed the arm, freed the head, pulled out the body, and a few seconds later dragged into the darkness of the sunken road a man who was inanimate -- or at least senseless. It was a cuirassier, an officer, even an officer of some rank; a big gold epaulet poked out from beneath his cuirass; this officer no longer had a helmet. A furious cut of the sword had slashed his face and you could not see it for blood. Yet it didn't look like he had any broken limbs, and by a stroke of luck, if we may use such a term here, the bodies had arched above him in such a way as to prevent him from being crushed. His eyes were closed.
He had on his cuirass the silver cross of the Legion d'Honneur.
The prowler ripped the cross off and it disappeared into one of the gaping holes of his greatcoat.
After that, he felt around in the officer's fob pocket, felt a watch in it and took it. Then he fumbled in the waistcoat, found a purse there and pocketed it.
As he reached this phase in the assistance he was offering the dying man, the officer opened his eyes.
"Thank you," he said feebly.
The roughness of the man handling him, the freshness of the night, the fact of being able to breath freely, had brought him to his senses.
The prowler did not answer. He raised his head. The sound of footfalls could be heard on the plain, probably some patrol approaching.
The officer murmured, for there was still agony in his voice: "Who won the battle?"
"The English," replied the prowler.
The officer went on: "Look in my pockets. You'll find a purse and a watch. Take them."
This had already been done.
The prowler pretended to do what he was told and said: "There's nothing there."
"I've been robbed," the officer went on. "I'm so sorry. You could have had them."
The tread of the patrol was becoming more and more distinct.
"Someone's coming," said the prowler, making a move as though to go.
The officer, painfully raising his arm, held him back.
"You saved my life. Who are you?"
The prowler replied fast and low: "I was, like you, in the French army. I must leave you. If they catch me, they'll shoot me. I've saved your life. Now you're on your own."
"What's your rank?"
"Sergeant."
"What's your name?"
"Thenardier."
Clearly, for Hugo, Thenardier was just about the lowest form of humanity.
I'm reminded of all this by the news that, at long last, Fox News will be dropping Glenn Beck from its lineup. (Now if we could only do something about Fox.) Did Roger Ailes, the head of the network, have a sudden burst of conscience? Hardly. It turns out that Beck has been losing viewers and advertisers for some time now. So rest assured, it was all about money. (It always was.)
And rest assured, also, that Mr. Beck will slink away into the night with a large nest egg that will prevent him from ever going hungry again.
But as we bid farewell to this modern-day Thenardier, it's worth reflecting on just what a scoundrel Mr. Beck has been.
At the time that our nation was entering its worst financial crisis in generations, calm -- above all else -- was called for. But of all the bad actors during that period-- John McCain (who could have stepped up and acted like a statesman instead of a bitter partisan), Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann -- Glenn Beck may have been the worst. For it was Beck who -- like Thenardier -- took advantage of the nation's angst and fanned its worst fears. For a quick buck (several million, actually), Beck called our nation's first African-American president a "racist"; warned of FEMA concentration camps, death panels and all sorts of wild conspiracies; and generally just scared the bejesus out of poor, innocent people like my 80-something-year-old neighbor, Dick. Beck lied, cried, race-baited, spewed hatred and flat-out behaved in the most outrageous and despicable manner imaginable. He will surely go down in history as this generation's Father Coughlin. He should be ashamed of himself. (But I doubt it.)
Mr. Beck, as I said, will now drift off into his well-deserved obscurity and live comfortably ever after on his ill-gotten gains.
Good riddance, Thenardier!
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