Thanks to InspectorPhantom, L'Ael-Inire, and AMZ for their reviews.

Not far north of Place de Louis XV is a church regarded as L'église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine or simply La Madeleine. At the time of the Revolution, the church was not the splendid neo-Greek structure we see today. It was originally a synagogue, but, the good Christian people having rid the place of the Jews, it was converted into a church to St. Mary Magdalene. Some centuries later, the people (or perhaps simply the bishop) wished to get rid of the Hebraic façade the former synagogue still displayed. It was decided that it should be rebuilt in the year 1757. Construction began in 1763. After building the brilliant Greek portico, construction had stopped presumably due to lack of funding or interest on the part of the diocese. This left the building with a great entryway, complete with fluted columns, followed by a flat, open platform where the church should have been.

It was towards this very spot that Javert found himself walking.

The wind was still and the air was cool. No sound, no noise could be heard within a mile of where the inspector walked, save for the slight tap of his own feet against the cobblestones. The space had an unmistakable air of melancholy, almost as if the streets themselves longed to forget the past night and many other such nights before that. The cold breeze blew. Javert found himself, out of habit, trying to pull his great coat tighter around himself only to find that the thick, wet cloth only made the situation worse. Yet still he stopped every few minutes to repeat the action, seeming to forget in his jumbled brain that he had tried it moments before with little to no success. Thus it was with a sort of jerking stumble that he journeyed down the street, continually trying to warm himself and continually finding that, no matter how hard he tried, his coat was still exacerbating the situation.

At length, he reached the corner of Rue Royale and Rue de Saint Honoré. About 150 meters in front of him stood the church which we have previously mentioned. To his left and right was the Honoré district of the city and Place de Vendome, respectively. For some reason (to this day we are still unsure as to why), he chose to head towards the church. We can be sure that no religious sentiments suddenly struck him. That the place offered warmth would likewise be false given its half-finished construction. Ignorance of this could not have shaped his actions as he would have known how the building had been abandoned just out of attentiveness to civic duties. What then could have persuaded him to mount the steps and go into the structure? Could it be that he found some sort of kinship with this half-finished hunk of rock? That he felt drawn to it out of some imperceptible tie of brotherhood? We do not know, nor shall we ever know, for all scraps of evidence towards that knowledge have disappeared with Monsieur le Inspector himself.

When he was about 30 meters from the steps of the church, the inspector stopped and looked up at the portico. "La Madeline," he muttered, snorting a bit at the coincidence.

The irony that he should visit such a place cannot be missed. To visit the church of a prostitute, not to mention one whose name was identical to an alias of his late enemy's, was in of itself enough, but there was still more. She was the one who interceded for the damned. The thought nibbled at the back of Javert's mind as he walked through the marble columns onto the unfinished stone platform behind them.

The grey dawn was still just barely breaking. That strange ethereal light that can only be found around daybreak was fighting to get through the thick mass of blackened clouds. No stars, just barely the sun, could be seen through that mass. Just such a gloom could be said to preside over Javert's mind at this time. Could he really have been so wrong in all his duties? Nonsense. He had done what was asked of him, nothing less. All those men and women he had thrown in jail had deserved their fate. Had he not done it, someone else would have. With these thoughts to comfort him, he set across the stone platform until he was squarely in the middle of it.

As he stared at the open field behind the half-finished church, the wind suddenly picked up, sending a chill though the marrow of the inspector's bones. He grasped at the coat more tightly, only to pull back his hand with a snarl at the feel of the chilled, water-logged cloth. He felt as though ice had begun to form on his nose and legs, or if they had not would do so within seconds now. Granted, such a thing could not possibly be true. Ice in June is not a common phenomenon nor shall it be for some time. Yet to Javert, such things seemed possible, even likely to occur. The capsizing of one's life invariably has such effects on a person. Some ties with reality are lost while others remain perfectly intact.

Of those ties that remained intact in Inspector Javert, all of them seemed to scream out with discomfort. The woolen coat was water-logged to such an extent that it added several pounds to its already heavy weight. This made his back and legs, still worn from the Seine, cry out with sharp, burning agony. The thought occurred to him that he might drop the coat to the ground. He instantly rejected this, telling himself that to do so would be unreasonable. To expose himself to the cold night air for the sake of the weight his coat presented? Such a thing was as weak as it was foolish. Thus, the man stood there, shivering in his boots as he stared blindly and resolutely ahead of him. Several minutes passed this way. Still the inspector did not move. Half an hour passed. The wind had begun to chill even the inside of the fabric. Still the inspector refused to budge. Another hour passed. Suddenly, he threw his gaze to the heavens, his grey eyes searching for something in its vastness—some sign. There was none. The clouds still covered the sky like thick grey wool, letting no celestial body pass through it. He was on the point of crying out.

Then, in an instant, a patch in the clouds appeared, revealing a single star. It was small and dim, what we now would call a white dwarf star. To most, it would barely be called a star at all-- a pinprick in the heavens at most. But to the mind of one who had just fallen from a great height, it was a sign of purpose, of light. It showed that he had not been abandoned. By whom or what he had been abandoned he was not sure. He just knew he had been left alone and that this star showed a return.

At that same instant, his coat dropped to the ground.

He was unaware of its abscence-- only that some weight (be it physical or metaphysical) had fallen from his shoulders. He removed his gaze from the heavens and back down to the alley across from him. With luck, he might be able to make it out of Paris before the clock struck nine. What then? He did not know. First things first, he was to get out of Paris.

Leaving the coat where it had fallen, he marched with new, if somewhat stiff, vigor past the graveyard and beyond to the outskirts of Paris.

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