الفصل الفصل 119 · WHICH EXPLAINS HOW JAVERT GOT ON THE SCENT

The events of which we have just beheld the reverse side, so to speak,

had come about in the simplest possible manner.

When Jean Valjean, on the evening of the very day when Javert had

arrested him beside Fantine’s death-bed, had escaped from the town jail

of M. sur M., the police had supposed that he had betaken himself to

Paris. Paris is a maelstrom where everything is lost, and everything

disappears in this belly of the world, as in the belly of the sea. No

forest hides a man as does that crowd. Fugitives of every sort know

this. They go to Paris as to an abyss; there are gulfs which save. The

police know it also, and it is in Paris that they seek what they have

lost elsewhere. They sought the ex-mayor of M. sur M. Javert was

summoned to Paris to throw light on their researches. Javert had, in

fact, rendered powerful assistance in the recapture of Jean Valjean.

Javert’s zeal and intelligence on that occasion had been remarked by M.

Chabouillet, secretary of the Prefecture under Comte Anglès. M.

Chabouillet, who had, moreover, already been Javert’s patron, had the

inspector of M. sur M. attached to the police force of Paris. There

Javert rendered himself useful in divers and, though the word may seem

strange for such services, honorable manners.

He no longer thought of Jean Valjean,—the wolf of to-day causes these

dogs who are always on the chase to forget the wolf of yesterday,—when,

in December, 1823, he read a newspaper, he who never read newspapers;

but Javert, a monarchical man, had a desire to know the particulars of

the triumphal entry of the “Prince Generalissimo” into Bayonne. Just as

he was finishing the article, which interested him; a name, the name of

Jean Valjean, attracted his attention at the bottom of a page. The

paper announced that the convict Jean Valjean was dead, and published

the fact in such formal terms that Javert did not doubt it. He confined

himself to the remark, “That’s a good entry.” Then he threw aside the

paper, and thought no more about it.

Some time afterwards, it chanced that a police report was transmitted

from the prefecture of the Seine-et-Oise to the prefecture of police in

Paris, concerning the abduction of a child, which had taken place,

under peculiar circumstances, as it was said, in the commune of

Montfermeil. A little girl of seven or eight years of age, the report

said, who had been intrusted by her mother to an inn-keeper of that

neighborhood, had been stolen by a stranger; this child answered to the

name of Cosette, and was the daughter of a girl named Fantine, who had

died in the hospital, it was not known where or when.

This report came under Javert’s eye and set him to thinking.

The name of Fantine was well known to him. He remembered that Jean

Valjean had made him, Javert, burst into laughter, by asking him for a

respite of three days, for the purpose of going to fetch that

creature’s child. He recalled the fact that Jean Valjean had been

arrested in Paris at the very moment when he was stepping into the

coach for Montfermeil. Some signs had made him suspect at the time that

this was the second occasion of his entering that coach, and that he

had already, on the previous day, made an excursion to the neighborhood

of that village, for he had not been seen in the village itself. What

had he been intending to do in that region of Montfermeil? It could not

even be surmised. Javert understood it now. Fantine’s daughter was

there. Jean Valjean was going there in search of her. And now this

child had been stolen by a stranger! Who could that stranger be? Could

it be Jean Valjean? But Jean Valjean was dead. Javert, without saying

anything to anybody, took the coach from the _Pewter Platter_,

Cul-de-Sac de la Planchette, and made a trip to Montfermeil.

He expected to find a great deal of light on the subject there; he

found a great deal of obscurity.

For the first few days the Thénardiers had chattered in their rage. The

disappearance of the Lark had created a sensation in the village. He

immediately obtained numerous versions of the story, which ended in the

abduction of a child. Hence the police report. But their first vexation

having passed off, Thénardier, with his wonderful instinct, had very

quickly comprehended that it is never advisable to stir up the

prosecutor of the Crown, and that his complaints with regard to the

_abduction_ of Cosette would have as their first result to fix upon

himself, and upon many dark affairs which he had on hand, the

glittering eye of justice. The last thing that owls desire is to have a

candle brought to them. And in the first place, how explain the fifteen

hundred francs which he had received? He turned squarely round, put a

gag on his wife’s mouth, and feigned astonishment when the _stolen

child_ was mentioned to him. He understood nothing about it; no doubt

he had grumbled for awhile at having that dear little creature “taken

from him” so hastily; he should have liked to keep her two or three

days longer, out of tenderness; but her “grandfather” had come for her

in the most natural way in the world. He added the “grandfather,” which

produced a good effect. This was the story that Javert hit upon when he

arrived at Montfermeil. The grandfather caused Jean Valjean to vanish.

Nevertheless, Javert dropped a few questions, like plummets, into

Thénardier’s history. “Who was that grandfather? and what was his

name?” Thénardier replied with simplicity: “He is a wealthy farmer. I

saw his passport. I think his name was M. Guillaume Lambert.”

Lambert is a respectable and extremely reassuring name. Thereupon

Javert returned to Paris.

“Jean Valjean is certainly dead,” said he, “and I am a ninny.”

He had again begun to forget this history, when, in the course of

March, 1824, he heard of a singular personage who dwelt in the parish

of Saint-Médard and who had been surnamed “the mendicant who gives

alms.” This person, the story ran, was a man of means, whose name no

one knew exactly, and who lived alone with a little girl of eight

years, who knew nothing about herself, save that she had come from

Montfermeil. Montfermeil! that name was always coming up, and it made

Javert prick up his ears. An old beggar police spy, an ex-beadle, to

whom this person had given alms, added a few more details. This

gentleman of property was very shy,—never coming out except in the

evening, speaking to no one, except, occasionally to the poor, and

never allowing any one to approach him. He wore a horrible old yellow

frock-coat, which was worth many millions, being all wadded with

bank-bills. This piqued Javert’s curiosity in a decided manner. In

order to get a close look at this fantastic gentleman without alarming

him, he borrowed the beadle’s outfit for a day, and the place where the

old spy was in the habit of crouching every evening, whining orisons

through his nose, and playing the spy under cover of prayer.

“The suspected individual” did indeed approach Javert thus disguised,

and bestow alms on him. At that moment Javert raised his head, and the

shock which Jean Valjean received on recognizing Javert was equal to

the one received by Javert when he thought he recognized Jean Valjean.

However, the darkness might have misled him; Jean Valjean’s death was

official; Javert cherished very grave doubts; and when in doubt,

Javert, the man of scruples, never laid a finger on any one’s collar.

He followed his man to the Gorbeau house, and got “the old woman” to

talking, which was no difficult matter. The old woman confirmed the

fact regarding the coat lined with millions, and narrated to him the

episode of the thousand-franc bill. She had seen it! She had handled

it! Javert hired a room; that evening he installed himself in it. He

came and listened at the mysterious lodger’s door, hoping to catch the

sound of his voice, but Jean Valjean saw his candle through the

key-hole, and foiled the spy by keeping silent.

On the following day Jean Valjean decamped; but the noise made by the

fall of the five-franc piece was noticed by the old woman, who, hearing

the rattling of coin, suspected that he might be intending to leave,

and made haste to warn Javert. At night, when Jean Valjean came out,

Javert was waiting for him behind the trees of the boulevard with two

men.

Javert had demanded assistance at the Prefecture, but he had not

mentioned the name of the individual whom he hoped to seize; that was

his secret, and he had kept it for three reasons: in the first place,

because the slightest indiscretion might put Jean Valjean on the alert;

next, because, to lay hands on an ex-convict who had made his escape

and was reputed dead, on a criminal whom justice had formerly classed

forever as _among malefactors of the most dangerous sort_, was a

magnificent success which the old members of the Parisian police would

assuredly not leave to a newcomer like Javert, and he was afraid of

being deprived of his convict; and lastly, because Javert, being an

artist, had a taste for the unforeseen. He hated those well-heralded

successes which are talked of long in advance and have had the bloom

brushed off. He preferred to elaborate his masterpieces in the dark and

to unveil them suddenly at the last.

Javert had followed Jean Valjean from tree to tree, then from corner to

corner of the street, and had not lost sight of him for a single

instant; even at the moments when Jean Valjean believed himself to be

the most secure Javert’s eye had been on him. Why had not Javert

arrested Jean Valjean? Because he was still in doubt.

It must be remembered that at that epoch the police was not precisely

at its ease; the free press embarrassed it; several arbitrary arrests

denounced by the newspapers, had echoed even as far as the Chambers,

and had rendered the Prefecture timid. Interference with individual

liberty was a grave matter. The police agents were afraid of making a

mistake; the prefect laid the blame on them; a mistake meant dismissal.

The reader can imagine the effect which this brief paragraph,

reproduced by twenty newspapers, would have caused in Paris:

“Yesterday, an aged grandfather, with white hair, a respectable and

well-to-do gentleman, who was walking with his grandchild, aged eight,

was arrested and conducted to the agency of the Prefecture as an

escaped convict!”

Let us repeat in addition that Javert had scruples of his own;

injunctions of his conscience were added to the injunctions of the

prefect. He was really in doubt.

Jean Valjean turned his back on him and walked in the dark.

Sadness, uneasiness, anxiety, depression, this fresh misfortune of

being forced to flee by night, to seek a chance refuge in Paris for

Cosette and himself, the necessity of regulating his pace to the pace

of the child—all this, without his being aware of it, had altered Jean

Valjean’s walk, and impressed on his bearing such senility, that the

police themselves, incarnate in the person of Javert, might, and did in

fact, make a mistake. The impossibility of approaching too close, his

costume of an _émigré_ preceptor, the declaration of Thénardier which

made a grandfather of him, and, finally, the belief in his death in

prison, added still further to the uncertainty which gathered thick in

Javert’s mind.

For an instant it occurred to him to make an abrupt demand for his

papers; but if the man was not Jean Valjean, and if this man was not a

good, honest old fellow living on his income, he was probably some

merry blade deeply and cunningly implicated in the obscure web of

Parisian misdeeds, some chief of a dangerous band, who gave alms to

conceal his other talents, which was an old dodge. He had trusty

fellows, accomplices’ retreats in case of emergencies, in which he

would, no doubt, take refuge. All these turns which he was making

through the streets seemed to indicate that he was not a simple and

honest man. To arrest him too hastily would be “to kill the hen that

laid the golden eggs.” Where was the inconvenience in waiting? Javert

was very sure that he would not escape.

Thus he proceeded in a tolerably perplexed state of mind, putting to

himself a hundred questions about this enigmatical personage.

It was only quite late in the Rue de Pontoise, that, thanks to the

brilliant light thrown from a dram-shop, he decidedly recognized Jean

Valjean.

There are in this world two beings who give a profound start,—the

mother who recovers her child and the tiger who recovers his prey.

Javert gave that profound start.

As soon as he had positively recognized Jean Valjean, the formidable

convict, he perceived that there were only three of them, and he asked

for reinforcements at the police station of the Rue de Pontoise. One

puts on gloves before grasping a thorn cudgel.

This delay and the halt at the Carrefour Rollin to consult with his

agents came near causing him to lose the trail. He speedily divined,

however, that Jean Valjean would want to put the river between his

pursuers and himself. He bent his head and reflected like a blood-hound

who puts his nose to the ground to make sure that he is on the right

scent. Javert, with his powerful rectitude of instinct, went straight

to the bridge of Austerlitz. A word with the toll-keeper furnished him

with the information which he required: “Have you seen a man with a

little girl?” “I made him pay two sous,” replied the toll-keeper.

Javert reached the bridge in season to see Jean Valjean traverse the

small illuminated spot on the other side of the water, leading Cosette

by the hand. He saw him enter the Rue du Chemin-Vert-Saint-Antoine; he

remembered the Cul-de-Sac Genrot arranged there like a trap, and of the

sole exit of the Rue Droit-Mur into the Rue Petit-Picpus. _He made sure

of his back burrows_, as huntsmen say; he hastily despatched one of his

agents, by a roundabout way, to guard that issue. A patrol which was

returning to the Arsenal post having passed him, he made a requisition

on it, and caused it to accompany him. In such games soldiers are aces.

Moreover, the principle is, that in order to get the best of a wild

boar, one must employ the science of venery and plenty of dogs. These

combinations having been effected, feeling that Jean Valjean was caught

between the blind alley Genrot on the right, his agent on the left, and

himself, Javert, in the rear, he took a pinch of snuff.

Then he began the game. He experienced one ecstatic and infernal

moment; he allowed his man to go on ahead, knowing that he had him

safe, but desirous of postponing the moment of arrest as long as

possible, happy at the thought that he was taken and yet at seeing him

free, gloating over him with his gaze, with that voluptuousness of the

spider which allows the fly to flutter, and of the cat which lets the

mouse run. Claws and talons possess a monstrous sensuality,—the obscure

movements of the creature imprisoned in their pincers. What a delight

this strangling is!

Javert was enjoying himself. The meshes of his net were stoutly

knotted. He was sure of success; all he had to do now was to close his

hand.

Accompanied as he was, the very idea of resistance was impossible,

however vigorous, energetic, and desperate Jean Valjean might be.

[Illustration: Javert on the Hunt]

Javert advanced slowly, sounding, searching on his way all the nooks of

the street like so many pockets of thieves.

When he reached the centre of the web he found the fly no longer there.

His exasperation can be imagined.

He interrogated his sentinel of the Rues Droit-Mur and Petit-Picpus;

that agent, who had remained imperturbably at his post, had not seen

the man pass.

It sometimes happens that a stag is lost head and horns; that is to

say, he escapes although he has the pack on his very heels, and then

the oldest huntsmen know not what to say. Duvivier, Ligniville, and

Desprez halt short. In a discomfiture of this sort, Artonge exclaims,

“It was not a stag, but a sorcerer.” Javert would have liked to utter

the same cry.

His disappointment bordered for a moment on despair and rage.

It is certain that Napoleon made mistakes during the war with Russia,

that Alexander committed blunders in the war in India, that Cæsar made

mistakes in the war in Africa, that Cyrus was at fault in the war in

Scythia, and that Javert blundered in this campaign against Jean

Valjean. He was wrong, perhaps, in hesitating in his recognition of the

exconvict. The first glance should have sufficed him. He was wrong in

not arresting him purely and simply in the old building; he was wrong

in not arresting him when he positively recognized him in the Rue de

Pontoise. He was wrong in taking counsel with his auxiliaries in the

full light of the moon in the Carrefour Rollin. Advice is certainly

useful; it is a good thing to know and to interrogate those of the dogs

who deserve confidence; but the hunter cannot be too cautious when he

is chasing uneasy animals like the wolf and the convict. Javert, by

taking too much thought as to how he should set the bloodhounds of the

pack on the trail, alarmed the beast by giving him wind of the dart,

and so made him run. Above all, he was wrong in that after he had

picked up the scent again on the bridge of Austerlitz, he played that

formidable and puerile game of keeping such a man at the end of a

thread. He thought himself stronger than he was, and believed that he

could play at the game of the mouse and the lion. At the same time, he

reckoned himself as too weak, when he judged it necessary to obtain

reinforcement. Fatal precaution, waste of precious time! Javert

committed all these blunders, and nonetheless was one of the cleverest

and most correct spies that ever existed. He was, in the full force of

the term, what is called in venery a _knowing dog_. But what is there

that is perfect?

Great strategists have their eclipses.

The greatest follies are often composed, like the largest ropes, of a

multitude of strands. Take the cable thread by thread, take all the

petty determining motives separately, and you can break them one after

the other, and you say, “That is all there is of it!” Braid them, twist

them together; the result is enormous: it is Attila hesitating between

Marcian on the east and Valentinian on the west; it is Hannibal

tarrying at Capua; it is Danton falling asleep at Arcis-sur-Aube.

However that may be, even at the moment when he saw that Jean Valjean

had escaped him, Javert did not lose his head. Sure that the convict

who had broken his ban could not be far off, he established sentinels,

he organized traps and ambuscades, and beat the quarter all that night.

The first thing he saw was the disorder in the street lantern whose

rope had been cut. A precious sign which, however, led him astray,

since it caused him to turn all his researches in the direction of the

Cul-de-Sac Genrot. In this blind alley there were tolerably low walls

which abutted on gardens whose bounds adjoined the immense stretches of

waste land. Jean Valjean evidently must have fled in that direction.

The fact is, that had he penetrated a little further in the Cul-de-Sac

Genrot, he would probably have done so and have been lost. Javert

explored these gardens and these waste stretches as though he had been

hunting for a needle.

At daybreak he left two intelligent men on the outlook, and returned to

the Prefecture of Police, as much ashamed as a police spy who had been

captured by a robber might have been.