When Enjolras was a boy; his father took him aside and said;

"Mon fil, I will tell you something very improtant now, about women."

"Are they very different from us, mon pere?"

The Elder Enjolras smiled.

"Very, mon fil. But for all women are so different from us, they do not differ much at all one from the other. Examine closely, and you will find this to be quite true."

The younger Enjolras furrowed his brow in thought.

"Is mother, too, so very like other women?"

"Not exactly. She differed from them in those ways which are the most important."

"There are four ways in which Women can differ; therse are: Money, property, position (that is to say; family) and looks. Some add temperment, but I argue that this is an illusion. All women are, as far as temeperment, only varied on the surface. But as to the four... the last, looks, may be sacrificed for a reasonable combination or prevelence of the first three, and is certainly the least important. I was very fortunate in that your mother, happily, had all of the former in abundance, and god was not a miser with the latter."

"But were you not already rich, before you met mother?"

"I was indeed, or her parents would never have agreed to the match."

"But what does that matter? What purpose do all those things serve?"

His father smiled patiently.

"When you have them, you can do more things."

"like?"

"Take your leisure. Enjoy life. Buy pretty toys for your beloved son."

He chuckled down at the boy, who chewed a knuckle trough his frown.

"What about thosew who are not born into money? How do they get these things, if they cannot marry rich because the rich all marry each other?"

"They must work very hard."

"Do you not have many such people working for you?"

"Yes indeed."

"Could you not pay them more?"

"If I did, it would hurt us all financially. I would have to raise prices of the things that I sell, and they would then have to pay more for them."

"But you're already rich! Why would you have workers if they cost so much?"

"Because at the rate i do pay them, they make more money than they cost. And son, if I had no workers, I could make no money. Who would make the products then?"

"You could do it yourself, and I could help you."

Enjolras' father laughed heartily.

"You're a good boy and noble, mon fil. But the two of us could not possibly do the work of 2 factories, each of which run on several hundred workers apiece."

Enjolras thought about that awhile, then looked up at his father most seroiusly.

"Thank you for the advice mon pere, and for explaining this to me," He said, "But i have one more question."

"Yes?"

"What is love?"

The old man blinked, then chuckled warmly and put the boy on his knee.

"Love," he said, "Is when you do something for someone or give someone something because you care about them, and not because you want something back. My father always used to say to me, 'mon fil, love is good advice.' I have always found this to be true."

And he smiled at the boy, depositing a paternal kiss on his forehead. Enjolras nodded sagaciously, looked up at his father and said,

"When i'm wise enough, i'll love you then, mon pere."

and with a filial faire-la-bis; he climbed off of his father's knee and went to go read.