M Madeleine was as good as his word, Javert was kept a busy man from the moment he commenced hi official duties. This was partly due to the nature of crime in Montrieul - many small and similar incidents occurring in a pattern which Javert himself termed 'one damn thing after another' - and partly due to the ineptitude of his predecessor, M Taillefer, which had created a huge backlog of things to be dealt with before Javert could implement any system of his own. Indeed, when M Chabouillet had appointed Javert to his post, he had done so with the words "What we really need is someone who's actually going to DO something for a change".
Obviously this was to have repercussions on the fate of Cosette. Javert had, it is true, began to make inquiries as to the whereabouts of hr mother, but without immediate success. He had also looked into having her placed in the local orphanage. Even this step required a shocking amount of tedious paperwork and his mind was soon distracted by other, more pressing, matters. And yet if he had been instructed to carry out the same task by the state Javert could have resolved the matter in a blink of an eye - why did it now take him so long? Simply that Cosette came into the province of his personal life rather than his public responsibilities, and Javert's personal life was always of last consideration for him. The child was his private responsibility and he saw no earthly reason why he should take be able to take time from his duties to clear up whatever mess he might have made of his private life. This argument held more weight since it did not seem that Cosette's presence interfered with his duties in any noticeable way. What time he did take to devote to the child was better spent in ensuring her to be fed, clean, well-mannered and happy.
Consequently the papers remained untouched on his desk.
Javert was also using his rare leisure moments to quite another purpose. Ever since his first meeting with Madeleine he had been increasingly convinced that he had seen him before. He would spend hours pondering over when and where this might have happened. He became surer that his first meeting with Madeleine had not been an innocent one. Everything about Madeleine persuaded him further, even the universal esteem in which he was held. In Javert's view a man that desperate to be beloved certainly wanted to compensate for something and probably had something to hide. He did have a theory - one too audacious to act on without significant proof - so he sat back and waited.
Never the less, on the day Madeleine was made mayor, was placed in charge of not only him but everyone in the entire district, Javert had to use all his self discipline not to cry wolf. He also admitted to himself that he found Madeleine personally rather irritating and resolved that he would keep well clear of him unless his official duties made it absolutely necessary to do otherwise.
Thus were the twin occupations of the inspector's private moments. The one he pursued alone, in the other he acquired a formidable ally.
On his arrival in the town Adele Jacquemin, wife of his sergeant, had promised to help look after Cosette, and she had been better than her word. She offered not only practical help but advice, moral support and, over time, came as close as anyone ever did to being friends with the inspector. Javert, as we have seen, knew nothing about children, Adele Jacquemin knew everything and he deferred to her as his superior. In Javert's eyes Mme Jacquemin was to Cosette as M Chabouillet was to the police. For her part, she was happy to provide a gentle guiding hand whilst accommodating some of the Inspector's more idiosyncratic notions on matters such as discipline.
Adele was a woman who had been kind from her youth, but who had had to learn to be sensible, and learn the hard way. Intelligent, good-natured and lively, she was a classic example of the woman who is held to have 'thrown herself away' by popular gossip. She had made one mistake in her youth (or possibly two, if you count the pregnancy and marriage separately) and it had become a defining characteristic of hers to not make any more, an attitude especially apparent when dealing with her children. It was this mistake that formed the second pillar of her friendship with Inspector Javert (Cosette being the first). The mistake was, of course, Sergeant Germain Jacquemin, who was the bane of both their lives. Adele had, after sixteen years, adopted the policy of treating her husband as a fifth child - which seemed to work - and could now laugh at all but his most glaring idiocies. Javert had yet to learn to be so sanguine.For Javert, Jacquemin summed up everything that was wrong with Montrieul and his life in it. He was inept, stupid, idle, provincial and boring.
It was the boredom that afflicted Javert most of all. Despite being chief of police for the region he could almost feel himself going mad with it. He came to regret his promotion and the ambition that made him take it. Command without activity did not suit him. He would have greatly preferred a thousand ever-present and exacting superiors and something to do. It wasn't that nothing ever happened in Montreal - enough happened to keep him occupied with a constant flood of trivia - it was just that nothing important ever happened. Even the criminals weren't the same - he was dealing with the stupid rather than the crafty. For example, towards the end of Javert's first year in M-SUR-M, the wife of a prosperous local doctor was murdered, a cause of great commotion in the town. Within five minutes of beginning his investigation Javert had found a pistol in the tea caddy in the doctor's kitchen, within ten the doctor had sobbingly confessed to everything. This, the Inspector had been solemnly informed, was the most exciting event to happen in Montrieul for ten years. Javert could almost feel his sense of humour evaporating. Command made him arrogant and boredom made him snappish. It also did nothing to abate his growing dislike of M Madeleine. An underused and ironical part of Javert's brain told him that he might be becoming a little too obsessed with M le Maire's secret identity.
If Javert was bored by the populace of Montrieul, then they were frankly confused by him. Firstly there were his personal eccentricities - his solitary life, Spartan nature, apparent lack of vices. Where had he come from and why was he such a firm favourite with M Chabouillet and the Paris Prefecture? Was he, as was rumoured, a gypsy? Sometimes he spoke like a prince and others like a peasant - just how educated was he? Why was he so damn moody? But chiefly it was the contrast between his seeming lack of human sympathy, his harsh and meticulous performance of his duties, and his equally meticulous care for his child. Speculation on this matter increased when people realised that Cosette was, in fact, not Javert's child. No relation at all - well fancy that! "Just what isgoing on therethen?" was the question on the lips of everyone form baroness to bangtail. It was a question that fascinated women in particular.
Javert, being a dreamer, was little concerned by all this. He lived his life with the pleasing regularity with which he was accustomed to, and was surprised at how well Cosette was able to fit in with this. He performed his duties, she attended school and played with the Jacquemin children. He tried to spend at some time with her each day and to talk to her, considering this also to be part of his duty. When this was not possible he would often be found sitting by her bed when he finally did return home. He would take whatever he had found for supper to her bedside and watch her sleep. That way he kept faith with himself.
Often she would wake up, seeming to have a sixth sense for his presence. He did not realise, as Adele would have, that she was desperate for his attention and Adele would never have explained it, sensing that Javert would take it as a reproach. Such evenings had their own routine. At first Javert would scold her gruffly - "Shouldn't you be asleep? You know when your bedtime is and you'll never get up tomorrow. Go back to sleep - I'm tired" etc, etc. In their first months together Cosette would obey him instantly, terrified that he would fly into a rage like the Thernardiess. Seeing that he never did, she grew bolder, producing childish excuses as to why she could not possibly sleep and asking questions about his day. Javert would then happily talk to the child - having no notion of how to speak to children he spoke to her as an adult - usually he would end up telling her a story. This was as much of a pleasure for him as for her - Javert loved to talk and those who considered him taciturn were those who did not know him well. If he had any vices other than his snuff it was a tendency to ramble at length.
For her part, Cosette adored Javert, firstly as her rescuer from the Thenardiers and later for his own sake. At first this manifested itself as a desperate desire for his attention, an insecurity that made her sit up and wait for him when he was out and sit and watch him when he was in. She feared that she would be sent away or given back to Madame and, although he had promised that he would never return her to Monfermiel, she did not entirely believe him. Gradually, she forgot these fears and began to feel settled and her nature lightened accordingly. She remained a serious child - obedient, shy and desperate to avoid getting in the way. There was always a lot more going on in her head than was ever on her lips - although she was capable of speaking intelligently. She laughed seldom, but when she did it was infectious and she began to develop an impish sense of humour. And although her life with Javert could not remedy all the damage done by the Thenardiers (for she sensed that he too wanted a quiet and unobtrusive child) she even began to be light hearted and to behave with some of the heedlessness that is natural in children.
Javert was gratified to see her nature grow sunnier and more open, but was also pleased that her character retained a streak of seriousness. She was also losing her scrawniness and fast became a healthy, robust, if plain, child. Unaccountably Javert worried about her plainness. Some fathers in his position might have been cheered by it, seeing in their daughter's homeliness the preservation of their existence a deux. Javert wished for Cosette all that he imagined constituted female happiness - a husband and children, a normal and, if possible, happy family life. Still, Adele said that a lack of beauty had never done her any harm on that front, and he reflected that being plain might help Cosette to remain sensible.
If Javert had been a man to reflect, he might have noticed his increased ease and warmth in the Cosette's company, that time spent with her was always one of the more enjoyable aspects of his day, that he no longer objected when she called him Papa rather than Monsieur Javert. In short, that he had become fond of the child. But Javert was not a man to reflect, he had never seen the point of it. Perhaps as Cosette softened one part of his nature and his duties hardened another there was too little overall change for a man so inexperienced in personal reflection to notice it.
Javert was not the only person who had changed in Montrieul. Over the next three years Madeleine grew proud (the last temptation of the virtuous), and Fantine grew desperate . Her path continued to follow the one set down by Hugo - degradation and descent, physically, financially and spiritual.