Author's Note: A "toise" is six Parisian feet, i.e. 6.42 English feet. Javert is around 6'3 English-style. The average height for a French male of his economic class in those days might hover around 5'5.
The visitor stepped over the threshold with caution, stooping like a question mark and inclining his head to avoid banging it on the doorway. Vidocq's preoccupied eyes searched the room for another chair but didn't find one.
"That's all right, I can sit on the floor," said the man blithely, folding like a jackknife against the wall facing Vidocq's desk and putting his sharp elbows on his knees.
"Careful, there's a patch of fresh plaster somewhere there," advised Vidocq, taking his own seat.
The visitor half-turned his head, felt the wall behind him with his left hand, then returned to his original position and fixed his eyes on the man who would be his employer. He had not taken off his cap.
Suddenly the man frowned and twitched his short nose like a rabbit.
"What burned?" he asked.
"Pardon?"
"It smells wicked in here." The man tilted his head back against the wall, treating Vidocq to the uncomely sight of two deep, elongated nostrils. "Smells as if someone had burnt a supper of... of something rotten."
"Yes, something did burn in the kitchen a while ago," admitted Vidocq, drawing air through his nose and smelling nothing. A pot of spoiled milk, he amended in his head, and that was three days ago. Diable!
"What may I call you?" asked Vidocq. "I am obligated to communicate to the Prefect the name of every man I hire, and "Je t'avertis" or "J'avertis" is not exactly something I can put in writing."
The man nodded a little.
"Xavier will do fine."
Xavier. Damn, he knew that. It's only been three years since he checked over those records.
"So, Monsieur Xavier, where have you been for the past..." - Vidocq's brain made some quick calculations - "three years and one month?"
"At war," said the man simply. "Then in the infirmary. Then in captivity. Then on the road. And you can dispense with the 'Monsieur.'"
"Oh? A man of Republican sentiments?"
"No sentiments, just common sense," shrugged the man. "Right now all my worldly possessions fit into two suitcases - whose "sieur" could I possibly be? Just call me Xavier. Or Javert, if you like. I've grown used to hearing it from the fellows in my ward."
The remark made Vidocq smile.
"Where did you fight?" he asked.
"In Russia."
Vidocq's eyebrows rose.
"You've made it back from Russia alive and intact?"
"Aaaeeh, not quite intact, no," exhaled Javert with a sort of mirthless half-laugh.
Vidocq quickly surveyed the seated figure of his prospective agent. Nothing seemed to be missing, save perhaps a few rather needed pounds. Javert caught his eyes and smirked, getting back on his feet and approaching the desk. With an air of grim smugness, he squatted near Vidocq's chair, lowering his face to make the top of his head visible and quitted his leather cap, brushing back strands of untidy black hair. Vidocq took one look and swallowed convulsively.
Javert was missing a great chunk of skull above the left ear.
"As you can see, my sorbonne has lost a faculty," quipped Javert dryly, screwing up his deep-set gray eyes to meet Vidocq's wide blue, then pulled his cap back over his head and sat down again, this time right next to the desk, at Vidocq's feet.
"I'm sorry about your wound," said Vidocq, amending mentally: sorry and not a little perplexed. How can anyone be coherent and coordinated with so much of his head gone?
Javert inclined his head slightly, extended one corner of his large, thin-lipped mouth and lifted his eyebrows once, as if to say: all is in the hands of the Almighty.
"Who did you serve under?"
"Lefebvre."
Vidocq pondered the name for a moment and his eyes widened again.
"You were in the Imperial Guard?"
"Sergeant of the first company of the second battalion of the first regiment of foot grenadiers of the Imperial GuardXavier at your service!" rattled off Javert and mock saluted Vidocq. "I even have the tattoo," he added with a sort of boyish pride.
"Tonnerre!" exclaimed Vidocq. "I ought to be the one saluting in that case: I only made it to corporal before I… got discharged. But how did you manage to get into the Guard?"
"Well, a recruiter came by around the time I was turning twenty-two or so. He and the prison director spent two solid days getting gloriously soused together." (Odd, thought Vidocq, that doesn't sound at all like old Renault.) "Then the next morning some of us – the guards, I mean - were ordered to line up, and the sergeant just went through the ranks."
"And he picked you," finished Vidocq.
Javert grinned like a wolf.
"He sure did. Said I had the mug of a born corporal. And the height didn't hurt either. I was five or six inches taller than the next candidate and he was looking for grenadiers."
"Just how tall are you exactly?" wondered Vidocq.
"Close to six feet standard, maybe an inch or two shorter. I thought was being conscripted for line infantry, but they transferred me to the Guard before I even had time to see the drilling barracks."
"And you made it to sergeant within 6 months?" asked Vidocq incredulously.
Javert shrugged again.
"There was no shortage of opportunities for promotion on the battlefield. To be honest, I probably slaughtered enough Russians to have a real marshal's baton in my knapsack by now instead of a metaphorical one," he said glumly.
"For all the time that's passed, you seem to remember French argot well enough," said Vidocq, deciding it was time for a subject change.
"I can still cant a tune, yeah," smirked Javert, scratching in the back of his misshapen head with two fingers.
He probably brought back Russian lice with him, thought Vidocq with a twinge of displeasure. Ultra-hungry and ultra-vicious. And covered in fur.
God damn it, what am I going to do with him?
For a few long seconds Vidocq stared into the wall ahead and thought very hard.
"I'll be frank with you," he said finally. "I am at a loss. I know I promised you a position here, but when I saw you last fifteen years ago, you and I were about the same height. Never in your replies to my letters did you mention the fact that you grew to be almost a full toise since our last meeting."
"Children grow," remarked Javert with rationality that almost bordered on imbecilic. "I didn't think enough of it to mention."
Vidocq stood up and began pacing the room. There wasn't much room for him to pace, only several feet in either direction from the corner where he was sitting. Javert's heavy gaze followed him like the pendulum of an antique clock.
"Were this just regular police service, there'd be no problem," expounded Vidocq. "Perhaps you ought to look into that career as an alternative. I'm sure you'd excel at it. I foresee that since the Emperor's abdication is pretty much inevitable at this point, it will be demobilized grognards like yourself that will soon start taking up the vacancies within the police force. There are no better men for the job, either: all one needs is obedience and courage, and that's about it."
"No, no," he continued, seeing Javert's eyes narrow. "I wouldn't dream of maligning army men, you understand – I'm an army man myself. But I'll tell you plainly and honestly, as a veteran of Valmy and Jemappes to a veteran of Krasnoi and Beresina: the army does not produce quick men. It produces obedient men and it produces courageous men, and that's good enough if you're a gendarme or an inspector. But that's not what my team is about. We are about" - Vidocq began crooking fingers – "vigilance, ingenuity, initiative, and above all - above all else! – inconspicuousness."
He stopped in the middle of the room and gave Javert's figure another appraising look. Even seated the man was obviously gigantic. Those legs were everywhere.
"And that's really where our previous plan comes apart," continued Vidocq seriously. "You must be able to blend into the crowd to be an effective spy. When you are a head taller than any other inhabitant of a quarter, people will know who you are no matter how much you disguise your appearance..."
He trailed off in mid-sentence. Wait a minute, he thought. Wait just a minute. Why must this necessarily be a bad thing?
