Chương Chương 231 · EMBRYONIC FORMATION OF CRIMES IN THE INCUBATION OF PRISONS

Javert’s triumph in the Gorbeau hovel seemed complete, but had not been

so.

In the first place, and this constituted the principal anxiety, Javert

had not taken the prisoner prisoner. The assassinated man who flees is

more suspicious than the assassin, and it is probable that this

personage, who had been so precious a capture for the ruffians, would

be no less fine a prize for the authorities.

And then, Montparnasse had escaped Javert.

Another opportunity of laying hands on that “devil’s dandy” must be

waited for. Montparnasse had, in fact, encountered Éponine as she stood

on the watch under the trees of the boulevard, and had led her off,

preferring to play Nemorin with the daughter rather than Schinderhannes

with the father. It was well that he did so. He was free. As for

Éponine, Javert had caused her to be seized; a mediocre consolation.

Éponine had joined Azelma at Les Madelonettes.

And finally, on the way from the Gorbeau house to La Force, one of the

principal prisoners, Claquesous, had been lost. It was not known how

this had been effected, the police agents and the sergeants “could not

understand it at all.” He had converted himself into vapor, he had

slipped through the handcuffs, he had trickled through the crevices of

the carriage, the fiacre was cracked, and he had fled; all that they

were able to say was, that on arriving at the prison, there was no

Claquesous. Either the fairies or the police had had a hand in it. Had

Claquesous melted into the shadows like a snow-flake in water? Had

there been unavowed connivance of the police agents? Did this man

belong to the double enigma of order and disorder? Was he concentric

with infraction and repression? Had this sphinx his fore paws in crime

and his hind paws in authority? Javert did not accept such

comminations, and would have bristled up against such compromises; but

his squad included other inspectors besides himself, who were more

initiated than he, perhaps, although they were his subordinates in the

secrets of the Prefecture, and Claquesous had been such a villain that

he might make a very good agent. It is an excellent thing for

ruffianism and an admirable thing for the police to be on such intimate

juggling terms with the night. These double-edged rascals do exist.

However that may be, Claquesous had gone astray and was not found

again. Javert appeared to be more irritated than amazed at this.

As for Marius, “that booby of a lawyer,” who had probably become

frightened, and whose name Javert had forgotten, Javert attached very

little importance to him. Moreover, a lawyer can be hunted up at any

time. But was he a lawyer after all?

The investigation had begun.

The magistrate had thought it advisable not to put one of these men of

the band of Patron Minette in close confinement, in the hope that he

would chatter. This man was Brujon, the long-haired man of the Rue du

Petit-Banquier. He had been let loose in the Charlemagne courtyard, and

the eyes of the watchers were fixed on him.

This name of Brujon is one of the souvenirs of La Force. In that

hideous courtyard, called the court of the Bâtiment-Neuf (New

Building), which the administration called the court Saint-Bernard, and

which the robbers called the Fosse-aux-Lions (The Lion’s Ditch), on

that wall covered with scales and leprosy, which rose on the left to a

level with the roofs, near an old door of rusty iron which led to the

ancient chapel of the ducal residence of La Force, then turned in a

dormitory for ruffians, there could still be seen, twelve years ago, a

sort of fortress roughly carved in the stone with a nail, and beneath

it this signature:—

BRUJON, 1811.

The Brujon of 1811 was the father of the Brujon of 1832.

The latter, of whom the reader caught but a glimpse at the Gorbeau

house, was a very cunning and very adroit young spark, with a

bewildered and plaintive air. It was in consequence of this plaintive

air that the magistrate had released him, thinking him more useful in

the Charlemagne yard than in close confinement.

Robbers do not interrupt their profession because they are in the hands

of justice. They do not let themselves be put out by such a trifle as

that. To be in prison for one crime is no reason for not beginning on

another crime. They are artists, who have one picture in the salon, and

who toil, nonetheless, on a new work in their studios.

Brujon seemed to be stupefied by prison. He could sometimes be seen

standing by the hour together in front of the sutler’s window in the

Charlemagne yard, staring like an idiot at the sordid list of prices

which began with: _garlic_, 62 _centimes_, and ended with: _cigar_, 5

_centimes_. Or he passed his time in trembling, chattering his teeth,

saying that he had a fever, and inquiring whether one of the eight and

twenty beds in the fever ward was vacant.

All at once, towards the end of February, 1832, it was discovered that

Brujon, that somnolent fellow, had had three different commissions

executed by the errand-men of the establishment, not under his own

name, but in the name of three of his comrades; and they had cost him

in all fifty sous, an exorbitant outlay which attracted the attention

of the prison corporal.

Inquiries were instituted, and on consulting the tariff of commissions

posted in the convict’s parlor, it was learned that the fifty sous

could be analyzed as follows: three commissions; one to the Panthéon,

ten sous; one to Val-de-Grâce, fifteen sous; and one to the Barrière de

Grenelle, twenty-five sous. This last was the dearest of the whole

tariff. Now, at the Panthéon, at the Val-de-Grâce, and at the Barrière

de Grenelle were situated the domiciles of the three very redoubtable

prowlers of the barriers, Kruideniers, alias Bizarro, Glorieux, an

ex-convict, and Barre-Carosse, upon whom the attention of the police

was directed by this incident. It was thought that these men were

members of Patron Minette; two of those leaders, Babet and Gueulemer,

had been captured. It was supposed that the messages, which had been

addressed, not to houses, but to people who were waiting for them in

the street, must have contained information with regard to some crime

that had been plotted. They were in possession of other indications;

they laid hand on the three prowlers, and supposed that they had

circumvented some one or other of Brujon’s machinations.

About a week after these measures had been taken, one night, as the

superintendent of the watch, who had been inspecting the lower

dormitory in the Bâtiment-Neuf, was about to drop his chestnut in the

box—this was the means adopted to make sure that the watchmen performed

their duties punctually; every hour a chestnut must be dropped into all

the boxes nailed to the doors of the dormitories—a watchman looked

through the peep-hole of the dormitory and beheld Brujon sitting on his

bed and writing something by the light of the hall-lamp. The guardian

entered, Brujon was put in a solitary cell for a month, but they were

not able to seize what he had written. The police learned nothing

further about it.

What is certain is, that on the following morning, a “postilion” was

flung from the Charlemagne yard into the Lions’ Ditch, over the

five-story building which separated the two court-yards.

What prisoners call a “postilion” is a pallet of bread artistically

moulded, which is sent _into Ireland_, that is to say, over the roofs

of a prison, from one courtyard to another. Etymology: over England;

from one land to another; _into Ireland_. This little pellet falls in

the yard. The man who picks it up opens it and finds in it a note

addressed to some prisoner in that yard. If it is a prisoner who finds

the treasure, he forwards the note to its destination; if it is a

keeper, or one of the prisoners secretly sold who are called _sheep_ in

prisons and _foxes_ in the galleys, the note is taken to the office and

handed over to the police.

On this occasion, the postilion reached its address, although the

person to whom it was addressed was, at that moment, in solitary

confinement. This person was no other than Babet, one of the four heads

of Patron Minette.

The postilion contained a roll of paper on which only these two lines

were written:—

“Babet. There is an affair in the Rue Plumet. A gate on a garden.”

This is what Brujon had written the night before.

In spite of male and female searchers, Babet managed to pass the note

on from La Force to the Salpêtrière, to a “good friend” whom he had and

who was shut up there. This woman in turn transmitted the note to

another woman of her acquaintance, a certain Magnon, who was strongly

suspected by the police, though not yet arrested. This Magnon, whose

name the reader has already seen, had relations with the Thénardier,

which will be described in detail later on, and she could, by going to

see Éponine, serve as a bridge between the Salpêtrière and Les

Madelonettes.

It happened, that at precisely that moment, as proofs were wanting in

the investigation directed against Thénardier in the matter of his

daughters, Éponine and Azelma were released. When Éponine came out,

Magnon, who was watching the gate of the Madelonettes, handed her

Brujon’s note to Babet, charging her to look into the matter.

Éponine went to the Rue Plumet, recognized the gate and the garden,

observed the house, spied, lurked, and, a few days later, brought to

Magnon, who delivers in the Rue Clocheperce, a biscuit, which Magnon

transmitted to Babet’s mistress in the Salpêtrière. A biscuit, in the

shady symbolism of prisons, signifies: Nothing to be done.

So that in less than a week from that time, as Brujon and Babet met in

the circle of La Force, the one on his way to the examination, the

other on his way from it:—

“Well?” asked Brujon, “the Rue P.?”

“Biscuit,” replied Babet. Thus did the fœtus of crime engendered by

Brujon in La Force miscarry.

This miscarriage had its consequences, however, which were perfectly

distinct from Brujon’s programme. The reader will see what they were.

Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite

another.