Kabanata Kabanata 99 · WHICH POSSIBLY PROVES BOULATRUELLE’S INTELLIGENCE

On the afternoon of that same Christmas Day, 1823, a man had walked for

rather a long time in the most deserted part of the Boulevard de

l’Hôpital in Paris. This man had the air of a person who is seeking

lodgings, and he seemed to halt, by preference, at the most modest

houses on that dilapidated border of the faubourg Saint-Marceau.

We shall see further on that this man had, in fact, hired a chamber in

that isolated quarter.

This man, in his attire, as in all his person, realized the type of

what may be called the well-bred mendicant,—extreme wretchedness

combined with extreme cleanliness. This is a very rare mixture which

inspires intelligent hearts with that double respect which one feels

for the man who is very poor, and for the man who is very worthy. He

wore a very old and very well brushed round hat; a coarse coat, worn

perfectly threadbare, of an ochre yellow, a color that was not in the

least eccentric at that epoch; a large waistcoat with pockets of a

venerable cut; black breeches, worn gray at the knee, stockings of

black worsted; and thick shoes with copper buckles. He would have been

pronounced a preceptor in some good family, returned from the

emigration. He would have been taken for more than sixty years of age,

from his perfectly white hair, his wrinkled brow, his livid lips, and

his countenance, where everything breathed depression and weariness of

life. Judging from his firm tread, from the singular vigor which

stamped all his movements, he would have hardly been thought fifty. The

wrinkles on his brow were well placed, and would have disposed in his

favor any one who observed him attentively. His lip contracted with a

strange fold which seemed severe, and which was humble. There was in

the depth of his glance an indescribable melancholy serenity. In his

left hand he carried a little bundle tied up in a handkerchief; in his

right he leaned on a sort of a cudgel, cut from some hedge. This stick

had been carefully trimmed, and had an air that was not too

threatening; the most had been made of its knots, and it had received a

coral-like head, made from red wax: it was a cudgel, and it seemed to

be a cane.

There are but few passers-by on that boulevard, particularly in the

winter. The man seemed to avoid them rather than to seek them, but this

without any affectation.

At that epoch, King Louis XVIII. went nearly every day to

Choisy-le-Roi: it was one of his favorite excursions. Towards two

o’clock, almost invariably, the royal carriage and cavalcade was seen

to pass at full speed along the Boulevard de l’Hôpital.

This served in lieu of a watch or clock to the poor women of the

quarter who said, “It is two o’clock; there he is returning to the

Tuileries.”

And some rushed forward, and others drew up in line, for a passing king

always creates a tumult; besides, the appearance and disappearance of

Louis XVIII. produced a certain effect in the streets of Paris. It was

rapid but majestic. This impotent king had a taste for a fast gallop;

as he was not able to walk, he wished to run: that cripple would gladly

have had himself drawn by the lightning. He passed, pacific and severe,

in the midst of naked swords. His massive couch, all covered with

gilding, with great branches of lilies painted on the panels, thundered

noisily along. There was hardly time to cast a glance upon it. In the

rear angle on the right there was visible on tufted cushions of white

satin a large, firm, and ruddy face, a brow freshly powdered _à

l’oiseau royal_, a proud, hard, crafty eye, the smile of an educated

man, two great epaulets with bullion fringe floating over a bourgeois

coat, the Golden Fleece, the cross of Saint Louis, the cross of the

Legion of Honor, the silver plaque of the Saint-Esprit, a huge belly,

and a wide blue ribbon: it was the king. Outside of Paris, he held his

hat decked with white ostrich plumes on his knees enwrapped in high

English gaiters; when he re-entered the city, he put on his hat and

saluted rarely; he stared coldly at the people, and they returned it in

kind. When he appeared for the first time in the Saint-Marceau quarter,

the whole success which he produced is contained in this remark of an

inhabitant of the faubourg to his comrade, “That big fellow yonder is

the government.”

This infallible passage of the king at the same hour was, therefore,

the daily event of the Boulevard de l’Hôpital.

The promenader in the yellow coat evidently did not belong in the

quarter, and probably did not belong in Paris, for he was ignorant as

to this detail. When, at two o’clock, the royal carriage, surrounded by

a squadron of the body-guard all covered with silver lace, debouched on

the boulevard, after having made the turn of the Salpêtrière, he

appeared surprised and almost alarmed. There was no one but himself in

this cross-lane. He drew up hastily behind the corner of the wall of an

enclosure, though this did not prevent M. le Duc de Havré from spying

him out.

M. le Duc de Havré, as captain of the guard on duty that day, was

seated in the carriage, opposite the king. He said to his Majesty,

“Yonder is an evil-looking man.” Members of the police, who were

clearing the king’s route, took equal note of him: one of them received

an order to follow him. But the man plunged into the deserted little

streets of the faubourg, and as twilight was beginning to fall, the

agent lost trace of him, as is stated in a report addressed that same

evening to M. le Comte d’Anglès, Minister of State, Prefect of Police.

When the man in the yellow coat had thrown the agent off his track, he

redoubled his pace, not without turning round many a time to assure

himself that he was not being followed. At a quarter-past four, that is

to say, when night was fully come, he passed in front of the theatre of

the Porte Saint-Martin, where _The Two Convicts_ was being played that

day. This poster, illuminated by the theatre lanterns, struck him; for,

although he was walking rapidly, he halted to read it. An instant later

he was in the blind alley of La Planchette, and he entered the _Plat

d’Etain_ [the Pewter Platter], where the office of the coach for Lagny

was then situated. This coach set out at half-past four. The horses

were harnessed, and the travellers, summoned by the coachman, were

hastily climbing the lofty iron ladder of the vehicle.

The man inquired:—

“Have you a place?”

“Only one—beside me on the box,” said the coachman.

“I will take it.”

“Climb up.”

Nevertheless, before setting out, the coachman cast a glance at the

traveller’s shabby dress, at the diminutive size of his bundle, and

made him pay his fare.

“Are you going as far as Lagny?” demanded the coachman.

“Yes,” said the man.

The traveller paid to Lagny.

They started. When they had passed the barrier, the coachman tried to

enter into conversation, but the traveller only replied in

monosyllables. The coachman took to whistling and swearing at his

horses.

The coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak. It was cold. The man did

not appear to be thinking of that. Thus they passed Gournay and

Neuilly-sur-Marne.

Towards six o’clock in the evening they reached Chelles. The coachman

drew up in front of the carters’ inn installed in the ancient buildings

of the Royal Abbey, to give his horses a breathing spell.

“I get down here,” said the man.

He took his bundle and his cudgel and jumped down from the vehicle.

An instant later he had disappeared.

He did not enter the inn.

When the coach set out for Lagny a few minutes later, it did not

encounter him in the principal street of Chelles.

The coachman turned to the inside travellers.

“There,” said he, “is a man who does not belong here, for I do not know

him. He had not the air of owning a sou, but he does not consider

money; he pays to Lagny, and he goes only as far as Chelles. It is

night; all the houses are shut; he does not enter the inn, and he is

not to be found. So he has dived through the earth.”

The man had not plunged into the earth, but he had gone with great

strides through the dark, down the principal street of Chelles, then he

had turned to the right before reaching the church, into the crossroad

leading to Montfermeil, like a person who was acquainted with the

country and had been there before.

He followed this road rapidly. At the spot where it is intersected by

the ancient tree-bordered road which runs from Gagny to Lagny, he heard

people coming. He concealed himself precipitately in a ditch, and there

waited until the passers-by were at a distance. The precaution was

nearly superfluous, however; for, as we have already said, it was a

very dark December night. Not more than two or three stars were visible

in the sky.

It is at this point that the ascent of the hill begins. The man did not

return to the road to Montfermeil; he struck across the fields to the

right, and entered the forest with long strides.

Once in the forest he slackened his pace, and began a careful

examination of all the trees, advancing, step by step, as though

seeking and following a mysterious road known to himself alone. There

came a moment when he appeared to lose himself, and he paused in

indecision. At last he arrived, by dint of feeling his way inch by

inch, at a clearing where there was a great heap of whitish stones. He

stepped up briskly to these stones, and examined them attentively

through the mists of night, as though he were passing them in review. A

large tree, covered with those excrescences which are the warts of

vegetation, stood a few paces distant from the pile of stones. He went

up to this tree and passed his hand over the bark of the trunk, as

though seeking to recognize and count all the warts.

Opposite this tree, which was an ash, there was a chestnut-tree,

suffering from a peeling of the bark, to which a band of zinc had been

nailed by way of dressing. He raised himself on tiptoe and touched this

band of zinc.

Then he trod about for awhile on the ground comprised in the space

between the tree and the heap of stones, like a person who is trying to

assure himself that the soil has not recently been disturbed.

That done, he took his bearings, and resumed his march through the

forest.

It was the man who had just met Cosette.

As he walked through the thicket in the direction of Montfermeil, he

had espied that tiny shadow moving with a groan, depositing a burden on

the ground, then taking it up and setting out again. He drew near, and

perceived that it was a very young child, laden with an enormous bucket

of water. Then he approached the child, and silently grasped the handle

of the bucket.