Javert was out for his routine patrol of Montreuil-sur-Mer on a particularly dark December night. He walked as he always did; back straight, chin up, exerting his authority despite there being nobody to appreciate it. He walked with purpose, hearing the click of his boots on the cobblestones.
As he rounded a corner, he saw a small crowd gathering under a street lamp. He placed a hand on the cudgel in his belt, then strode forward, purposeful as ever.
The gentlemen had not heard him arrive, and Javert watched as one of them, a man he knew to be named Bamatabois, grabbed a fistful of snow and pressed it down the front of a woman's dress.
Javert took little notice of the woman; she certainly would have had some discomfort, but it was nothing she wouldn't be able to take care of herself. More pressing was the fact that this man had clearly assaulted her, disrupting the peace of the town Javert had been ordered to look after.
He strode purposefully through the group of gentlemen - maybe five or six of them - and placed a stern hand on Bamatabois's shoulder. He barely noticed the woman run off. He used the pressure on his shoulder to turn him around, and asked, barely above a whisper, "Care to explain why I just saw a respectable man assault a woman?"
Bamatabois sputtered. "Inspector Javert," he cried, "She assaulted me! The tart-"
"You don't look hurt," Javert said, curtly. "I turned the corner and watched you assault a defenceless woman. It appears you intended to mug her. I can't have that."
Javert kept a firm hand on Bamatabois's upper shoulder, and turned to the gentlemen behind them. "Go home," he spat impatiently. He turned back to Bamatabois and pinned both his wrists to the small of his back as he reached for the handcuffs in his belt. "Mugging is a crime, and a serious one," he said, sternly, as he retrieved the cuffs.
Feeling only one hand holding his wrist, Bamatabois saw his chance; he wrenched his hands free of Javert and swung at him, hitting the Inspector square in the jaw. Javert stumbled back a few paces, but quickly drew his cudgel and delivered a blow to Bamatabois's side. Only an instant later, however, the other men who had stood by as Bamatabois assaulted that woman had grabbed Javert's arms. Javert tried desperately to shrug them off, but despite his vigorous lifestyle, he was no match for the men who could have been half his age.
Several of the men held Javert back, his arms spread apart, as Bamatabois walked up closely to him. "I wasn't trying to mug her," He spat. "She's a filthy whore. We were having some fun."
Javert continued to struggle when he felt one of the men wrench his cudgel out of his hand, just before it delivered a sharp blow to Javert's side. The men let go of him and he fell to the ground, instinctively covering his head as he felt them kicking at him.
Humiliated and ashamed, Javert stayed curled up on the ground, feeling the snow soak through his uniform jacket on one end and - was that blood? - soak through elsewhere. He begged for it to end soon, each kick sending a painful jolt through his body, and an even more painful jolt through his pride.
Suddenly, he heard one of the men above him cry out, as if he had been struck, and Javert wondered if, somehow, they had started fighting among themselves. The kicking ceased; Javert moved his arms away from his face and opened his eyes just enough to see what was going on.
It appeared a tall, formidable man in a long coat had retrieved Javert's cudgel and, sensing the danger the Inspector was in, had hit one of the men kicking Javert. The men immediately turned on him, but unlike Javert, this man had no trouble shrugging them off, despite his apparent age.
Javert blinked as he realized who the man was.
Monsieur Madeleine dropped the cudgel, clearly not used to the weapon, and began swinging at the men still attempting to subdue him the way they had Javert. "Get out of here," he heard the man roar. Javert watched, transfixed, as the men began to flee. Bamatabois, however, seeing Monsieur Madeleine preoccupied with the others, had returned to Javert. Before Javert could summon the strength to stand up, Bamatabois closed the distance between them, appearing to Javert as if he intended to continue kicking him, overflowing with rage from how the evening's events had transpired.
Madeleine, though, had finished fighting off the other men, and grabbed Bamatabois firmly, hands pressed to his upper arms, and spun him around. "I'm warning you, son, clear out of here. Don't do anything you'll regret." Madeleine's let go, and Bamatabois ran off into the darkness behind his friends.
Javert could not take his eyes off the mayor. The mayor coming to the officer's rescue. The shame of it, he thought. And at his age, too - where had he learned that strength?
A wave of something like admiration spread through Javert. He was sure he was going to be severely injured, if not killed, by those men, before the mayor - the mayor, the one Javert was intended to protect, not the other way around - had stepped in, placing himself in certain danger. Who was this man?
Madeleine knelt down beside Javert. "Are you alright, Inspector?" He asked gravely, in a voice not so soft as to humiliate Javert even further.
Javert could find no words, but instead tried to bring himself to his feet. He stumbled, his beaten legs not fully able to support his weight, but before he could fall back down to the cobblestone, he felt the mayor's strong arm supporting him.
Madeleine placed his shoulder under Javert's, hoisting him to his feet, and then wrapped his arm against Javert's waist, supporting him. Another wave rushed through Javert as he felt his body pressed up against the mayor's, supported by his strong arm that was holding him just tight enough to support him, without placing too much pressure on Javert's surely bruised body.
"Can you walk, Inspector?" Madeleine asked, in the same grave voice as earlier.
"I don't think so," Javert choked. He tried not to think of how pathetic he looked, and the way the mayor's confidence in him as chief inspector will have wavered after the incident.
"I will take you to the hospital," Madeleine replied, holding Javert close to him, walking slowly as Javert leaned on him for support.
"Monsieur le Maire," Javert implored. He didn't need anybody else knowing about the incident.
Madeleine seemed to have understood. "I shall take you home, then, and do what I can for you there."
They walked like this, Javert relying on Madeleine even just to stand, let alone walk, as Javert directed Madeleine toward his lodgings. As the humiliation wore off - somewhat quicker than Javert had expected - he found himself leaning into the mayor more than he necessitated. He tried to tell himself that that wasn't what he was doing, and prayed the older man didn't notice it either.
Madeleine asked no further questions as they continued, seeming to understand Javert's hesitation at being treated like a victim, for which Javert was thankful. Still, he clung almost desperately to the mayor's body, amazed at the man's strength.
This is indecent, he told himself, his brain still fuzzy from the night's events. This is indecent. This is demeaning to the mayor. You're a man, Javert, not some young woman who -
They had arrived at Javert's small apartment. Madeleine helped him up the stairs and guided him to his bed. Javert sat on the edge of the bed as Madeleine turned toward the door.
"I will return in the morning, Inspector," he said. He was gone before Javert could protest.
Javert laid down, still in his soaked-through uniform, and recalled a time in prison when he had watched another man single-handedly fight off a half-dozen attackers, and remembered the indecent surge of admiration he had felt then, too. Javert had not intervened until after it was clear the man had successfully beaten off the other convicts, transfixed by his strength. He tried not to think of the mayor in that way.
I'm damned, he thought, closing his eyes and letting himself fall immediately asleep.
