A note on the setting if you have not read the book: The "confrontation" scene at Fantine's deathbed in the book and the movie/musical differ significantly. In the book, Javert arrests Valjean. Within a few hours, Valjean has escaped. Four days later, Valjean is arrested again as he is boarding a coach for Montfermeil, presumably going to get Cosette. In the intervening time, he withdrew a great deal of money from the bank and hid it in the woods. Valjean is put on trial and sentenced to death. The king, perhaps with the intercession of the Church, commutes his sentence to life and he is sent back to Toulon. Toulon holds him for just a few months before he manages to fake his own death and escape again. My story is begins with Valjean's arrest at the coach.
Javert leaned against the side of a building, tucked between the pools of lamp light. Close to the building, he was sheltered slightly from the wind. In Montreuil-sur-Mer, so close to the ocean, the air would have been raw and damp, but here, in Paris, it was dryer and for that Javert was grateful. Despite the cold, the street was busy with people hustling about their business. He had missed the bustle of Paris over the last five years in sleepy Montreuil-sur-Mer, but he had never imagined that his return would be like this.
In the shadows, it was impossible to see the dark lines under his eyes, or the creased state of his uniform. In the last four days, Javert had slept less than a ten hours and most of those had been while in coaches or slumped in the corner of an unfamiliar stationhouse. He held his cudgel in his right hand, swinging it into his left palm and then releasing it, over and over. He hoped that the motion would help him stay awake.
He was loath to admit it, but at the moment, he was working on a hunch. Valjean, Javert knew, had several things he needed to accomplish. Valjean had already been to Laffite's and had secured a great deal of cash. Javert had been too late to the bank to catch him there. Valjean would need a place to stay, and Javert was sure he would try to loose himself in the maelstrom of Paris. And then there was the promise Valjean had made to the prostitute Fantine about helping her daughter. The daughter was in Montfermeil so, he stood watching for the mail coach that would pass through Montfermeil before eventually winding its way out to Reims. If he was lucky, very lucky, it would draw his quarry.
At last, the empty mail coach pulled up. The horses were watered while the mail was loaded on. Standing here, watching the proceedings, it occurred to him that he was doing this backwards. He should have gone out to Montfermeil and waited for Valjean to come to him. Clearly, the lack of sleep was getting to him.
The coachman was getting ready to go when a nondescript man walked up, showed his ticket and boarded the coach. He had brown hair that stuck out in unruly curls from under a shapeless woolen cap, pulled down low over his ears. He wore rough workman's trousers and a battered jacket. For no reason Javert could later explain, he emerged from the shadows and walked purposefully over to the carriage. His bearing, more than his rumpled uniform, identified him and the coachman frowned. "Can I help you, officer?" he asked, as Javert came close.
Javert ignored the coachman and pulled himself into the coach. "Do you have a ticket?" the coachman was asking. The man in the coach flung open the opposite door and fled.
With a feral grin, Javert leapt from the coach and raced after the man. Pedestrians scattered as one, and then two large men crashed through the street. It took less than a block, sliding on slushy snow, before the exhausted Javert caught his break. Had it been any further, he would have lost the man. The man ran down an alley that turned out to be a dead end. In panic, the man spun around, but there was no escape. Javert, panting for breath, blocked the way out.
Javert looked at the man he had cornered. Fear tickled his inside for a moment when he was not sure if he had run down an innocent man, and then there would be apologies and excuses and his fitness for duty would be questioned.
The man tried to push past Javert, back out to freedom. As he tried to duck Javert's arm, the hat came off his head, taking a curly brown wig off with it. Underneath the wig was a head of white hair. Reckless in his exhaustion, Javert brought his cudgel around on the back of the man's knees, dropping him to the ground. Javert brought his stick down again, this time across the man's stomach and the man crumpled into a fetal ball at the inspector's feet.
Holding his stomach, the man glanced up and Javert was looking into the familiar clear green eyes of his quarry. Oh, what relief! A triumphant leer captured his face. "Jean Valjean," he stated. "We meet again." Behind him, he heard his backup, two constables he had brought along, run into the alley. "Are you going to come quietly, or is this going to be a fight?" He brought his cudgel up for a third strike but did not swing it.
Valjean flinched. He looked past Javert to the constables. Javert could hear them close ranks, ready in case Valjean attempted to bolt. He made a mental note to compliment their commanding officer. Too many constables were not sufficiently trained in being effective backup. Defeated, Valjean looked back to Javert. "I'll come," he said.
"What, no pleas for another day?" Javert asked.
"Would it do any good?"
"No, but it is amusing to hear you beg."
Valjean was silent.
"Get up." Javert ordered. "Against the wall." Valjean got painfully to his feet and put his hands against the wall. Javert efficiently frisked him, marveling at the turn of events as he ran his hands over the body of this man who was so recently his superior. Javert unclipped the handcuffs from his belt and fastened one around Valjean's right wrist. He turned the unresisting man around, cuffing his hands in front of him. Taking hold of Valjean's arm, he led him out of the alley.
"You almost had me fooled," Javert commented.
"What gave me away?"
"Does it matter?"
"I suppose not."
The carriage ride to La Conciergerie occurred in silence. Valjean sat next to Javert, feeling the heavy weight of the inspector's hand on him, never losing contact. For a few minutes, he watched the evening's bustle of the city as the free men went about their business, and he tried not to let rage consume him.
The city before his eyes faded from Paris to Montreuil-sur-Mer, and he thought back to a week ago, before he had any idea any of what was coming. He had just sent a ship full of bracelets and rosaries and baubles off to Spain. With that out of the way, he had thought he may finally have a few days to go for Fantine's child.
The next morning, he had gotten up and went to an early Mass, as he was accustomed. He found that the familiar routine of sitting, standing, kneeling focused his mind and as much as possible, he made it his practice to attend daily Mass. However, it had been two weeks into the Lenten season and the early morning services had taken on a particular importance. Lent, when the Savior's faith had been tested, resonated deeply with him.
After the service, kneeling before a statue of the Virgin, he had prayed for Fantine, he had prayed for the continual success of the town and his business, but most of all he had prayed for that which he always prayed for. He had prayed he would be able to keep the gift of God's grace and God's forgiveness in his heart as he went through the day. Even after all of these years, the rage that Toulon had instilled in him would occasionally come bubbling to the surface. More times than he could count, he had gone to Confession to tell the priest of a moment of blasphemy, of a time when he had abandoned his vows, a time when doubt had overcome him, only to be told to pray to the Virgin for patience and for faith. Kneeling before Her, eyes closed, he had felt the warmth of the Pentecostal flame kindled in his heart. With a fierce joy, he had sat back on his heels and looked up at Her in quiet adoration. Gratias Deo, he had whispered. Crossing himself, he had gotten up and walked into a day that, by its end, would test every scrap of his poor faith.
Riding in the carriage, iron once again around his wrists, Javert's dominating hand on his arm, he closed his eyes and tried to block it all out. He pictured the statue of the Virgin that he was so used to kneeling before. He tried to feel the Presence with whom he had spent the night in vigil on Her feast days. Mother of mercy, he prayed, give me faith in my moment of doubt. I am going to a place of great despair. Please, watch over me. And then, in a sudden moment of horror, he remembered his errand tonight. Tonight, he had intended to go for Cosette. Holy Virgin, he prayed, please watch over Fantine's daughter. Grant me the opportunity to still help her. Then, with perhaps with even more fierceness than the prayer, he thought, O, Fantine I am sorry! I will go to my grave trying to help your daughter.
Abruptly the carriage came to a halt, shaking Valjean out of his reverie. The imposing stone and tiny windows of the ancient castle turned jail filled his view and he felt the weight of the walls before they even closed around him. For a moment, a wild, futile impulse to run captured him, but he fought it down. Javert's hand tightened on his arm. "Come, now," Javert said, as he opened the door of the carriage and got out. Valjean slid to the edge of the seat and got down, stumbling, only to be steadied by Javert's hand. He had forgotten how having his hands cuffed altered his balance.
They walked into La Conciergerie and down the stone steps to the jail. Very quickly, the scene became overwhelming. The distant shouts of the inmates in the dungeons, the clanging of the heavy metal gates locking behind him, the smell of unwashed bodies and refuse, the persistent chill of the stone. Javert left him, still handcuffed, in a tiny holding cell while he went next door to find the Governor.
Left in the cell, Valjean turned his back to the door and dropped to his knees on the filthy floor, once again trying to kindle the Virgin's peace, but it would not come. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners…His thoughts were in turmoil as he thought of Fantine, his factory, his workers and the tasks he had left undone.
It was not long before Javert returned with a prison guard. Valjean awkwardly stood and turned so he could watch them. Javert was speaking as they walked up. "He is a flight risk – he tried to escape Toulon four times and he escaped the jail in Montreuil-sur-Mer by breaking loose the iron bars in the window. I am not sure how he did that – he is tremendously strong, but he may have had a file or another tool we missed."
"So we shall have to fully search him."
Valjean bowed his head, his jaw clenched. Waves of humiliation and rage threatened his control. It was not that they were not correct to search him thoroughly, he recognized that, but he had grown used to his privacy and his control over his own body. With a deep breath, he tried to calm himself.
"I would advise it," Javert replied. "And get him out of those clothes right away. He may be hiding just about anything in them."
The jailer nodded. "Will do. Well, we can take it from here, Inspector. You look like you could use some shut-eye."
Javert stifled a yawn. "I suppose I could," he said. "Might as well, before I have to see the Prefect tomorrow." Javert stepped up to the bars. "Valjean!"
Valjean did not meet Javert's eye, instead he was looking at the inspector's boots, his hands clenched in the cuffs as he trembled with…anger? Fear? He could not say. Javert reached into the cell with his cudgel and tucked it under Valjean's chin, prodding his head up. Reluctantly, Valjean looked Javert in the eye. The Inspector looked Valjean over, from his face to his feet and back to his face, and then Javert slowly smiled a terrible smile, completely devoid of actual happiness.
End notes: Chapter 1
This story is mostly set during the backdrop of the Easter season. In 1823, the dates for the major feast days of the Easter season are as follows:
Ash Wednesday: February 14
Easter: March 30
Pentecost Sunday: May 18
