Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [456]
“I don’t understand, Monsieur Baron,” said Thénardier.
“I will make myself understood. Listen. There was, in an arrondissement of the Pas-de-Calais, about 1822, a man who had had some old difficulty with justice, and who, under the name of M. Madeleine, had reformed and re-established himself. He had become in the full force of the term an upright man. By means of a manufacture, that of black glass trinkets, he had made the fortune of an entire city. As for his own personal fortune, he had made it also, but secondarily, and, in some sort, incidentally. He was the foster-father of the poor. He founded hospitals, opened schools, visited the sick, endowed daughters, supported widows, adopted orphans; he was, as it were, the guardian of the country. He had refused the Cross, he had been appointed mayor. A liberated convict knew the secret of a penalty once incurred by this man; he informed against him and had him arrested, and took advantage of the arrest to come to Paris and draw from the banker, Laffitte—I have the fact from the cashier himself—by means of a false signature, a sum of more than half a million which belonged to M. Madeleine. This convict who robbed M. Madeleine is Jean Valjean. As to the other act, you have just as little to tell me. Jean Valjean killed the officer Javert; he killed him with a pistol. I, who am now speaking to you, I was present.”
Thénardier cast upon Marius the sovereign glance of a beaten man, who lays hold on victory again, and who has just recovered in one minute all the ground which he had lost. But the smile returned immediately; the inferior before the superior can only have a skulking triumph, and Thénardier merely said to Marius:
“Monsieur Baron, we are on the wrong track.”
And he emphasised this phrase by giving his bunch of trinkets an expressive twirl.
“What!” replied Marius, “do you deny that? These are facts.”
“They are chimeras. The confidence with which Monsieur the Baron honours me makes it my duty to tell him so. Before all things, truth and justice. I do not like to see people accused unjustly. Monsieur Baron, Jean Valjean never robbed Monsieur Madeleine, and Jean Valjean never killed Javert.”
“You speak strongly! how is that?”
“For two reasons.”
“What are they? tell me.”
“The first is this: he did not rob Monsieur Madeleine, since it is Jean Valjean himself who was Monsieur Madeleine.”
“What is that you are telling me?”
“And the second is this: he did not assassinate Javert, since Javert himself killed Javert.”
“What do you mean?”
“That Javert committed suicide.”
“Prove it! prove it!” cried Marius, beside himself.
Thénardier resumed, scanning his phrase in the fashion of an ancient Alexandrine:
“The—police—of—ficer—Ja—vert—was—found—drowned—under—a—boat—by—the—Pont—au—Change.”
“But prove it now!”
Thénardier took from his pocket a large envelope of grey paper, which seemed to contain folded sheets of different sizes.
“I have my documents,” said he, with calmness.
And he added: “Monsieur Baron, in your interest, I wished to find out Jean Valjean to the bottom. I say that Jean Valjean and Madeleine are the same man; and I say that Javert had no other assassin than Javert; and when I speak I have the proofs. Not manuscript proofs; writing is suspicious; writing is complaisant, but proofs in print.”
While speaking, Thénardier took out of the envelope two newspapers, yellow, faded, and strongly saturated with tobacco. One of these two newspapers, broken at all the folds, and falling in square pieces, seemed much older than the other.
“Two facts, two proofs,” said Thénardier. And unfolding the two papers, he handed them to Marius.
With these two newspapers the reader is acquainted. One, the oldest, a copy of the Drapeau Blanc, of the 25th of July, 1823,