• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1320 0

these disappearances of families often occur. You search, but can find nothing. Such people, when they are not mud, are dust. And then as the commencement of this story dates back thirty years, there is nobody now at Faverolles who knew Jean Valjean. But search has been made at Toulon. Besides Brevet there are only two convicts who have seen Jean Valjean. They are convicts for life; their names are Cochepaille and Chenildieu. These men were brought from the galleys and confronted with the so-called Champmathieu. They did not hesitate. To them as well as to Brevet it was Jean Valjean. Same age; fifty-four years old; same height; same appearance, in fact the same man; it is he. At this time it was that I sent my denunciation to the Prefecture at Paris. They replied that I was out of my mind, and that Jean Valjean was at Arras in the hands of justice. You may imagine how that astonished me; I who believed that I had here the same Jean Valjean. I wrote to the examining magistrate; he sent for me and brought Champmathieu before me.”

“Well,” interrupted Monsieur Madeleine.

Javert replied, with an incorruptible and sad face:

“Monsieur Mayor, truth is truth. I am sorry for it, but that man is Jean Valjean. I recognised him also.”

Monsieur Madeleine said in a very low voice:

“Are you sure?”

Javert began to laugh with the suppressed laugh which indicates profound conviction.

“H‘m, sure!”

He remained a moment in thought, mechanically taking up pinches of the powdered wood used to dry ink, from the box on the table, and then added:

“And now that I see the real Jean Valjean, I do not understand how I ever could have believed anything else. I beg your pardon, Monsieur Mayor.”

In uttering these serious and supplicating words to him, who six weeks before had humiliated him before the entire squad, and had said “Leave!” Javert, this haughty man, was unconsciously full of simplicity and dignity. Monsieur Madeleine responded to this entreaty only with this abrupt question:

“And what did the man say?”

“Oh, bless me! Monsieur Mayor, the affair is a bad one. If it is Jean Valjean, it is a second offence. To climb a wall, break a branch, and take apples, for a child is only a trespass; for a man it is a misdemeanor; for a convict it is a felony. Scaling a wall and theft includes everything. It is not a case for a police court, but for the circuit court. It is not a few days’ imprisonment, but the galleys for life. And then there is the business of the little chimneysweep, whom I hope will be found. The devil! That’s a difficult set of charges to elude, isn’t it? They would be for anybody but Jean Valjean. But Jean Valjean is a sly fellow. And that is just where I recognise him. Anybody else would know that he was in hot water, and would rave and cry out, as the tea-kettle sings on the fire; he would say that he was not Jean Valjean, et cetera. But this man pretends not to understand, he says: ‘I am Champmathieu: I have no more to say.’ He puts on an appearance of astonishment; he plays stupid. Oh, the rascal is cunning! But it is all the same, there is the evidence. Four persons have recognised him, and the old villain will be condemned. It has been taken to the circuit court at Arras. I am going to testify. I have been subpoenaed.”

Monsieur Madeleine had turned again to his desk, and was quietly looking over his papers, reading and writing alternately, like a man pressed with business. He turned again towards Javert:

“That will do, Javert. Indeed all these details interest me very little. We are wasting time, and we have urgent business, Javert; go at once to the house of the good woman Buseaupied, who sells herbs at the corner of Rue Saint Saulve, tell her to make her complaint against the carman Pierre Chesne long. He is a brutal fellow, he almost crushed this woman and her child. He must be punished. Then you will go to Monsieur Charcellay, Rue Montrede-Champigny. He complains that the gutter of the next house when it rains throws water upon his house, and is undermining the foundation. Then you will inquire into the offences