In a space of time which was longer than a second, but not by very much, a sort of enchantment had descended over the square. It was as if time itself had slowed down to enquire what all the fuss was about, leaving, for just a moment, the whole scene devoid of impetus, sound muted and images sharper, the only energy that of potential so that it could be observed at leisure like a wax tableau and throwing some details - red hair in the breeze, the torn hem of a girl's dress - into intense relief .
The only way to describe the process is with a lexicon unavailable to those who were experiencing it; that of film. The idea of slow motion, of freeze frame, would be as unthinkable to them as it is as unthinkable to us to picture such an incident without it.
Only three of those present had any instinctive understanding of the phenomenon. The first was Gavroche, who frequented every theatre in town with great regularity and thus was well used to, and took great delight in, scenes from life that were not quite like life at all.
The second was the young girl in the large bonnet and the torn dress, who suddenly felt that she was seeing things with the sort of clarity that she had never experienced in her waking life before. That she should have this understanding was unusual since she had never so much as been to the theatre before.
The third of these was, naturally, Maitre Javert himself, whose mental faculties were well honed when it came to observing and processing what went on around him. Javert, like Gavroche, had a naturally theatrical bent and, had he not chosen a career dissecting the world around him, might have done well in the theatre putting new worlds together on stage.
Instinct now told Javert that this moment of shocked calm could not hold: already those closest to the excitement were trying to back away from it, their progress away from the scene impeded by those further off trying to move closer and get a good look. The gendarmes (most of them hot-headed idiots) were panicking, drawing weapons and poising themselves for action. Javert knew that the civilians around him could be divided into two categories by their reactions to such actions on the part of the police - those who would choose flight, and those who would choose fight. Both were liable to lead to chaos. A sergeant de ville drew his sword and instinct told Javert that all hell was about to break loose.
At that moment another shot rang out across the square and he was proved right.
The freeze frame was over, live action was restored and the square rapidly descended into a free for all street battle. Gendarme coshed student, workman attacked cogne, gamin kicked the shins of anybody within reach. The original centre of the commotion, the fallen Goliath and his avenging angel, were obscured in a maelstrom of legs, arms, canes, swords, irate fishwives, bleeding revolutionaries, spooked horses, grim faced policemen, sticks, stones and a whole variety of obscene insults. And the chaos grew, threatening to suck all Paris in like Charybdis.
Although no longer mere observers, something did occur in the back of the minds of Gavroche, Javert and the girl in the large bonnet that no-one else had noticed.
Their observation was simply this: neither shot had been fired by anyone standing within the square. The unknown marksman had to be somewhere outside the chaos he had created.