Les Misérables, v. 5/5: Jean Valjean
Page 33
CHAPTER II.
EXPLANATION.
On the day of June 6 a battue of the sewers was ordered, for it wasfeared lest the conquered should fly to them as a refuge, and PrefectGisquet ordered occult Paris to be searched, while General Bugeaudswept public Paris,--a double connected operation, which required adouble strategy of the public force, represented above by the army andbeneath by the police. Three squads of agents and sewer-men exploredthe subway of Paris,--the first the right bank, the second the leftbank, and the third the Cité. The agents were armed with carbines,bludgeons, swords, and daggers, and what was at this moment pointed atJean Valjean was the lantern of the round of the right bank. This roundhad just inspected the winding gallery and three blind alleys whichare under the Rue du Cadran. While the lantern was moved about at thebottom of these blind alleys, Jean Valjean in his progress came to theentrance of the gallery, found it narrower than the main gallery, andhad not entered it. The police, on coming out of the Cadran gallery,fancied that they could hear the sound of footsteps in the direction ofthe engirdling sewer, and they were really Jean Valjean's footsteps.The head sergeant of the round raised his lantern, and the squad beganpeering into the mist in the direction whence the noise had come.
It was an indescribable moment for Jean Valjean; luckily, if he saw thelantern well the lantern saw him badly, for it was the light and hewas the darkness. He was too far off, and blended with the blacknessof the spot, so he drew himself up against the wall and stopped.However, he did not explain to himself what was moving behind him, wantof sleep and food and emotion having made him pass into a visionarystate. He saw a flash, and round this flash, spectres. What was it?He did not understand. When Jean Valjean stopped the noise ceased;the police listened and heard nothing, they looked and saw nothing,and hence consulted together. There was at that period at that pointin the Montmartre sewer a sort of square called _de service_, whichhas since been done away with, owing to the small internal lake whichthe torrents of rain formed there, and the squad assembled on thissquare. Jean Valjean saw them make a sort of circle, and then bull-dogheads came together and whispered. The result of this council held bythe watch-dogs was that they were mistaken, that there had been nonoise, that there was nobody there, that it was useless to enter thesurrounding sewer, that it would be time wasted, but that they musthasten to the St. Merry drain; for if there were anything to be doneand any "boussingot" to track, it would be there. From time to timeparties new-sole their old insults. In 1832 the word "boussingot"formed the transition between the word "jacobin," no longer current,and the word "demagogue," at that time almost unused, and whichhas since done such excellent service. The sergeant gave orders toleft-wheel toward the watershed of the Seine. Had they thought ofdividing into two squads and going in both directions, Jean Valjeanwould have been caught. It is probable that the instructions ofthe Préfecture, fearing the chance of a fight with a large body ofinsurgents, forbade the round from dividing. The squad set out again,leaving Jean Valjean behind; and in all this movement he perceivednothing except the eclipse of the lantern, which was suddenly turnedaway.
Before starting, the sergeant, to satisfy his police conscience,discharged his carbine in the direction where Jean Valjean was. Thedetonation rolled echoing along the crypt, like the rumbling of theseTitanic bowels. A piece of plaster which fell into the gutter andplashed up the water a few yards from Jean Valjean warned him that thebullet had struck the vault above his head. Measured and slow stepsechoed for some time along the wooden causeway, growing more and moredeadened by the growing distance; the group of black forms disappeared;a light oscillated and floated, forming on the vault a ruddy circle,which decreased and disappeared; the silence again became profound, theobscurity again became complete, and blindness and deafness again tookpossession of the gloom; Jean Valjean, not daring yet to stir, remainedleaning for a long time against the wall, with outstretched ear anddilated eyeballs, watching the vanishing of this patrol of phantoms.