Jean Valjean was in fact permanently installed; he had the leathern knee-cap and bell, and was henceforth official. He called himself Ultime Fauchelevent. The most powerful determining cause of his admission was the remark of the prioress with reference to Cosette,--"She will be ugly." The prioress, once she had prognosticated this, felt an affection for Cosette, and gave her a place in the boarding-school. This is very logical after all; for although there may be no looking-glasses in a convent, women are conscious of their face. Now, girls who feel themselves pretty have a disinclination to take the veil; and as profession is generally in an inverse ratio to the beauty, more is hoped from ugly than from pretty girls. All this adventure aggrandized Fauchelevent, for he had a three-fold success,--with Jean Valjean, whom he saved and sheltered; with Gribier, who said to himself, "He saved me fifteen francs;" and with the convent, which, thanks to him, while keeping the coffin of Mother Crucifixion under the altar, eluded Cæsar and sanctified God. There was a coffin with a body at the Little Picpus, and a coffin without a body in the Vaugirard cemetery; public order was doubtless deeply affected by this, but did not perceive the fact. As for the convent, its gratitude to Fauchelevent was great; he became the best of servants, and most precious of gardeners. On the archbishop's very next visit, the prioress told the whole affair to the Grandeur, partly in confusion, and partly in a boastful spirit. The archbishop, on leaving the convent, spoke about it applaudingly and in a whisper to M. de Latil, Confessor to Monseigneur, and afterwards Archbishop of Reims and Cardinal. The admiration felt for Fauchelevent travelled all the way to Rome; and we have seen a letter addressed by the then reigning Pope, Leo XII., to one of his relatives, Monsignore, in the Paris Nunciature, and called, like himself, Della Genga, in which were the following lines,--"It appears that there is at a convent in Paris an excellent gardener, who is a holy man, of the name of Fauvent." Nothing of all this triumph reached Fauchelevent in his hut; he went on grafting, hoeing, and covering his melon beds, quite unaware of his excellence and sanctity. He no more suspected his glory than does a Durham or Surrey steer whose portrait is published in the _Illustrated London News_, with the inscription "The ox that gained the Short-horn prize." CHAPTER IX. IN THE CONVENT.