[Hello everyone. It is the author here.
Let's make it clear. My native language is French. I made the translation of my own text myself. If you wish to read it in its original language (and I can tell that it is surely better), it is available in French language. I do not guarantee that it is a translation without mistake, therefore, I excuse myself by advance.
For the story part, you have under your eyes a fiction that relates, with references to the musical, an episode of Javert's young years, coming straight from my imagination. There may be historical inaccuracies, etc. It is perhaps a bit cheesy, too. I hope that you will enjoy it even so!
Do not hesitate to give feedback on this story if you liked it.
Good reading!]
Lux Aeterna
France has a rich History; France has poor tragedies and rich defects.
Some places in France concentrated misery more than others; one of these places was in Toulon. I mean; in the prison of Toulon. There where torture disguised itself in justice sentence, hiding in the rusted chains that the convicts hang after them. Convicts walking to the galleys, wet with rain and their bare feet hitting the mud on the ground; sometimes some of them fell from the ranks, and the prison guards hastened themselves to hit them to make them stand again the fastest possible even though their headwear still lay in the wet earth.
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There where the prisoners roared with pain, the newcomers not getting used yet to the bright red marks of the shackles on their wrists and ankles, the National Guards had not a single worry about their feelings. They obstructed the laws, and these obstructions took a materialized form on their articulations, it was all.
However, the Guards often had to confront several problems; of judiciary order? Rarely, as they were trained to think in that way in which only police officers think, and that seems so illogical to the rest of the population. Of moral order? Much more often. They were soldiers; and soldiers had a painful difficulty to recover their sensibility after the terrifying training of the Ecole Militaire.
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The problem that happened several years ago was a birth. A birth, yes; a flower that blossoms in the middle of Hell. The mother was a bohemian, the father was a convict. We did not know what to do. The blame in first, to the one who let the two criminals meet each other; but we did not know who could carry the responsibility for this act, and we abandoned the idea quite quickly for the urgency of the situation. Would we let the child be raised by his parents? The justice that the officers venerated did not state the answer for this. We decided to let the child to his parents, under proper supervision.
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A priest came to the prison. It was not a rare event. Once a week, he came to collect the confessions of the poor convicts that were sent there. The place from which no one came back. Everyone kept the silence, there was no reason to talk. The visit of the priest was just usual. But it differed on this day, since he came to baptize the child who had the misfortune to be born in such a hell, and to pray God that he did not grow up in the same way than his father.
The child got named after the priest who baptized him; we spared him the shame to wear the name of a convict. The child was named Etienne Javert.
In the National Guards that concerted themselves the day of the birth, there was one who considered himself guilty for the event. It was the sergeant Ducastre, and it was him who kept under guard the cell of the father-convict on that day. He considered himself responsible for the accident, and responsible also for the birth. He took care to keep his post to be the one watching over that child.
The young Javert had difficulties to conceive the world around him; his own father did not want of him, this father who had already well enough of the weight of the metal ball on his foot. In the places where the child saw wonders, the convict saw hellish fire and the slave driver saw a pile of rubbish. Rejected from all sides, Javert could only stagger to the figurine that was figure of authority, and it was the sergeant Ducastre.
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The child grew up to become a teenager. A young man with troubled ideas. It was impossible to do otherwise when one had been growing up in such a terrible place that is a prison. But he also grew up with a police officer who educated him, and so he could put a name on each thing, a name on each convict, a name on each crime and virtue. He enjoyed knowledge, and even though the sergeant knew well that the young man was imprisoned, this one did not know anything of it and imagined that there was nothing else interesting in the world than the prison, its convicts and its officers.
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The sergeant hoped that one day, the young man would take his place as a prison guard. Came a day where he took him on patrol on the paths of guard that surrounded the prison.
In their patrol, Ducastre saw Javert who pointed to the sky black of night, and he said:
"It is, so, the night that you are looking at? But that is where the crimes are. That is where we only see shadows.
- Monsieur, even in the night, there is light sometimes.
- True, you are right. There is the moon, and the stars. You know, when I was small, and that someone spoke to me of the Heaven that God promises us so much when we lead an exemplary life, I thought that each star was someone exemplary, and that we can all become one, a star. Isn't it beautiful?
- Yes, monsieur. What about the convicts?
- The convicts... the convicts... They are not quite men anymore. They say that they have been men, one day. But then, they did immoral things. Their beards became unkempt and they went to the galleys. I do not know if there can be convicts, right above. Probably not."
Ducastre did not talk more, but Javert believed him nonetheless, and thought that an exemplary life was not the one of a convict, but that the ones who kept the convicts in order were the most noble. He finished his day on these thoughts, well anchored in the depth of him.
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On his sixteenth birthday, Javert became a National Guard. He was very proud of it. He placed all his precepts in the uniform and the musket, and rejoiced himself of living the exemplary life which everyone considered as full of benefits. The sergeant, him, apprehended the way in which the young man would keep his convicts; he wanted to hold a conversation with him.
"Javert, do you know what is outside the prison?
- You talked about it sometimes.
- Outside the prison, there is the Revolution.
- You said that it was a bloodbath that I should not see.
- It is true. But I am confused."
The young guard stared at Ducastre with surprise, holding his musket with two strong hands. The sergeant who doubted? As much as he could remember, it was something rare. It was rare for a soldier to doubt, even more for a guard, even more for a National Guard. After this moment of silence, Ducastre continued on his thoughts.
"The Guard does not know what to expect anymore. We do not know anymore who to obey to. The laws change all the time. The prisoners too. We serve the Revolution; we fight it also. The Terror pervades into our cells. Sometimes the guards become the convicts. Sometimes the convicts become the guards. The merry-go-round is quite amusing for the population! Not for us.
- To who should I obey then?
- I do not know, Javert. We obey to the one who makes authority. Nothing less, nothing more. We do not complicate anything in this way. If there is an Assembly, we obey to the Assembly. If there is a king, we obey to the king. If there is an emperor, we obey to the emperor. The government does not matter, the man alone matters.
- It is you who I obey to in first, monsieur.
- It is good. Though, it is the great men you obey to, as well."
Javert had to think about these sayings. It was not very difficult. His work did not differ as much than the one of an officer. All he had to do was to stand straight, to walk after the convicts, to reprimand them if they fell. The guard wondered if there existed redemption for these outlaws once their punishment done. After a few months, he was convinced that no. Repeat offenders were legion.
He was even more convinced of it after he called a reticent convict, a day of burning sun.
"Stop there! What is your name?
- It's Vidocq.
- Crop yourself back into ranks. Why are you here?
- I come from Bicêtre. I falsified papers. I tried to make a comrade escape.
- I dare to hope that you will not attempt to escape yourself.
- I will try it, guard.
- You will try. You will not success. Men like you can never change."
Javert did not hear of Vidocq again after this. The rumours said that he escaped. The Guard caught him again a few time after. Scowling, Javert took a stand anytime someone talked to him of this galleys man. It did not matter, as long as Vidocq was brought back to prison. Nothing gave more joy to Javert than to see a reticent leave to row on the sea under the rough stick hits of the officers.
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The young man had this mind-set during a few years, and did not know anything else more than the galleys of Toulon. Ducastre thought that it was time for Javert to graduate in rank. This occasion was never granted to him, because the Revolution he talked about extended itself more and more outside the prisons.
Eventually, Javert got called by the sergeant in one of the quarters of the Guard. The young man received a lot of compliments from Ducastre these last times, who was satisfied with how much his protégé was toughened and trained. However, the gaze of the sergeant was less vibrant suddenly.
"Javert, you are a brilliant guard. I expect from you to take my place. See, your musket dipped into the mud. Give it back to me, and I give you my musket, my musket which belongs to me, my musket of officer. It is my offering.
- Why such a present, monsieur?
- Because I will not need it anymore."
The young man took the musket from the hands of officer; it was decorated with gildings that showed the rank of their owner. He felt very honoured, but his comprehension was not complete. After he saluted, the guard simply stared at Ducastre, who continued to talk.
"I leave, Javert. I got impeached. It is a bad event, a twist of fate. But it happens sometimes. You will be good enough for this work, or even, you could be a better officer than me. If the great men cannot make the law, you will make it yourself.
- Monsieur. It is a terrible thing to get impeached! What did you violate?
- I violated their laws. Theirs, only. Their laws are not justice; justice is not their laws. If my life has not been exemplary, I ask forgiveness from the justice. If I am impeached, it is for a reason yet. Are their laws fair? Perhaps. But I applied them. On the others. With rigor. They apply with rigor on me as well.
- Why don't you stay with me?
- I leave. I leave there. Your patrols on the circle of guard will be solitary. I will be solitary as well. But even once we left, we are not quite alone, under the burning sky or the sky of coldness."
A mute expression appeared on Javert's face. Yes, there, this place that the convicts knew well. This place where the convicts left, not to row; but that place from which they never came back. Ducastre was silent. There was serenity on his face. He was a soldier. A poetic soldier, though. But a soldier even so; and the soldiers were direct in their speeches, even if it meant that this little one that he almost considered as a member of his family had to confront the complexity of what he served as a Guard.
"Monsieur… How will I hold myself in my post if there is not someone to hold me there fairly?
- You will attempt to lead an exemplary life, also. It is all you can do, my protégé. You will only have to raise your head when the sun will be set. It is there that you will find your answer. An exemplary life, nothing less, nothing more. Be proud to be a member of the Guard. It is not a chance given to everyone. You have more luck than the prisoners who can only look down; you, you can look up to the sky."
The benevolent, but empty, gaze of Ducastre on the insignia of the headwear he gave to Javert was enough to understand that the conversation was finished. Javert saluted. One, two, three times. He turned around. His throat was tightened. The words lacked. He regretted.
The cleaver of the Revolution had fallen. They did not like a National Guard who served both the King and the Republic.
The sergeant Ducastre left, like a shadow fades away when the light rises. The officer Javert stayed, the eyes raised to where the light was.
The high-ranked congratulated Javert. He did not answer. The compliments did not reach him.
Before, his ear only heard the voice of Ducastre who was his only company. The time is assassin, he was alone now, and he did not hear anymore.
He talked a single, rare time. In the goods of his promotion, he asked to be assigned to the night guard.
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It was all.
The inspector Javert held between his fingers, tight enough, the old documents of a convict. Not his own documents, fortunately. But the ones of a so-called Jean Valjean, who at the same time wore the registration numbers 24601 and 9430. The reading of these papers obsessed Javert, since days, weeks or even months. He could not deviate his gaze from the prison sentences written on it; "Theft of a bread. Attempt of escape. Recidivism. False identity. Return to prison."
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The inspector had his forty-five winters left now. He spent long years in the prison of Toulon, memories that he hated for most of them. He eventually left this place marked by injustice despite of its nature, and found himself in Montreuil-sur-mer, where the fatality hit again with the meeting of this convict.
What was the point? A distant voice in Javert's mind said: "Men like that can never change". Why, then? What was so particular in that man, Jean Valjean, to dare to pretend that he was better than the other prisoners and than this Vidocq who Javert once met? The inspector felt this confusion that he always feared to feel. His only fear, to be honest.
He inflicted his justice upon others. It was fair. He did well. Could he do otherwise?
The convict had his own meaning of justice, that he applied on him, him, the inspector who was still alive.
He had to apply the law with the same rigor. The same rigor that he applied and that he saw being applied.
The inspector rested his nightstick and his top-hat on the edge of the Pont-au-Change, keeping his gaze on the tormented waters of the Seine. In one hand, he held tight between his fingers the papers of the convict, wrinkled against the handle of his musket.
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It was the sentence of the justice.
That sentence, he effloresced it once. Where the passionate teenagers enflamed themselves with passion for the young ladies, where the children huddled into the maternal warmth, Javert saw the blade of the sovereign guillotine fall, and he felt that the cleaver bit into his skin a little bit, to him as well.
When he raised his gaze to the sky, he only saw the dark clouds that hid the stars. He could not look up, so he looked down. He did not see the mud in which suffered his ancient convicts, but the violent river that hit the rocks with clangour at the feet of the bridge.
He did not see it, he imagined it. He imagined himself sink into the darkness that surrounded him, and into this gulf full of a freezing cold that made him shiver. At the end of the obscure tunnel, there is the light; but he had a post in this tunnel and he had to hold himself in it. The light was not there and it would not come to him.
A black figure stood in the dim light and the water reverberated with more intensity. The black figure erased itself into the night. The Seine became calm again; its appetite did as well.
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It happened simply. The inspector left into the shadows before the light came.
When it came at last, there were only the gildings of a musket that shined in the small hours.