As the brother and sister were about to rise from the table, there came a knock at the door.
“Come in,” said the Bishop.
The door opened. A singular and violent group made its appearance on the threshold. Three men were holding a fourth man by the collar. The three men were gendarmes; the other was Jean Valjean.
A brigadier of gendarmes, who seemed to be in command of the group, was standing near the door. He entered and advanced to the Bishop, making a military salute.
“Monseigneur—” said he.
At this word, Jean Valjean, who was dejected and seemed overwhelmed, raised his head with an air of stupefaction.
“Monseigneur!” he murmured. “So he is not the cure?”
“Silence!” said the gendarme. “He is Monseigneur the Bishop.”
In the meantime, Monseigneur Bienvenu had advanced as quickly as his great age permitted.
“Ah! here you are!” he exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. “I am glad to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?”
Jean Valjean opened his eyes wide, and stared at the venerable Bishop with an expression which no human tongue can render any account of.
“Monseigneur,” said the brigadier of gendarmes, “so what this man said is true, then? We came across him. He was walking like a man who is running away. We stopped him to look into the matter. He had this silver—”
“And he told you,” interposed the Bishop with a smile, “that it had been given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had passed the night? I see how the matter stands. And you have brought him back here? It is a mistake.”
“In that case,” replied the brigadier, “we can let him go?”
“Certainly,” replied the Bishop.
The gendarmes released Jean Valjean, who recoiled.
“Is it true that I am to be released?” he said, in an almost inarticulate voice, and as though he were talking in his sleep.
“Yes, thou art released; dost thou not understand?” said one of the gendarmes.
“My friend,” resumed the Bishop, “before you go, here are your candlesticks. Take them.” He stepped to the chimney-piece, took the two silver candlesticks, and brought them to Jean Valjean. The two women looked on without uttering a word, without a gesture, without a look which could disconcert the Bishop.
Jean Valjean was trembling in every limb. He took the two candlesticks mechanically, and with a bewildered air.
“Now,” said the Bishop, “go in peace. By the way, when you return, my friend, it is not necessary to pass through the garden. You can always enter and depart through the street door. It is never fastened with anything but a latch, either by day or by night.”
Then, turning to the gendarmes:—
“You may retire, gentlemen.”
The gendarmes retired.
Jean Valjean was like a man on the point of fainting.
The Bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice:—
“Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money in becoming an honest man.”
Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of ever having promised anything, remained speechless. The Bishop had emphasized the words when he uttered them. He resumed with solemnity:—
“Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.”
The Table of Mercy: A Theological Reflection on Jean Valjean’s Conversion
This scene from Les Misérables is one of the most powerful moments in all of literature. Jean Valjean, guilty and desperate, is dragged back into the Bishop’s house — not unlike sinners dragged before the judgment seat of God. The evidence of his crime is literally in his hands. Yet the Bishop does not condemn. Instead, he does something shocking: he confirms Valjean’s story, adds the silver candlesticks, and speaks words that change Valjean’s destiny.
Here is grace enacted in liturgical form. The table where Valjean had eaten the night before becomes a place of absolution. The Bishop’s generosity is not merely about utensils; it is a proclamation of the gospel. “You no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you… and I give it to God.” In that moment, the Bishop mirrors the action of Christ, who “redeemed us not with silver or gold, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.” (Small Catechism, Explanation of Apostles’ Creed
Like the Eucharist, this moment is both gift and commissioning. Valjean receives unmerited grace — his crime forgiven, his hands filled — but he is also charged to live differently. The candlesticks become sacramental: signs of a new identity, of a life set apart for God. They will sit on Valjean’s mantel for the rest of his life, reminding him of the night grace found him and changed him.
This is our story too. We come to the Lord’s Table weary, guilty, and sometimes even resistant. But God does not send us away empty-handed. He places in our hands something far more precious than silver — the very body and blood of His Son. He tells us, “You are forgiven. You are free. You no longer belong to the darkness but to Me.”
And then He sends us out: forgiven people sent to live as forgiven people. The Eucharist is never just a private meal; it is a commissioning feast. We are sent into the world to live differently — to be candles of mercy and light in the darkness, just as Valjean was called to be after that night.
The Bishop’s radical generosity points us to the heart of God: a love that risks scandal, a mercy that restores dignity, and a grace that transforms the sinner into a saint.
