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_ On the afternoon of that same Christmas Day, 1823, a man had walked
for rather a long time in the most deserted part of the Boulevard
de l'Hopital in Paris. This man had the air of a person who is
seeking lodgings, and he seemed to halt, by preference, at the most
modest houses on that dilapidated border of the faubourg Saint-Marceau.
We shall see further on that this man had, in fact, hired a chamber
in that isolated quarter.
This man, in his attire, as in all his person, realized the type
of what may be called the well-bred mendicant,--extreme wretchedness
combined with extreme cleanliness. This is a very rare mixture which
inspires intelligent hearts with that double respect which one feels
for the man who is very poor, and for the man who is very worthy.
He wore a very old and very well brushed round hat; a coarse coat,
worn perfectly threadbare, of an ochre yellow, a color that was
not in the least eccentric at that epoch; a large waistcoat with
pockets of a venerable cut; black breeches, worn gray at the knee,
stockings of black worsted; and thick shoes with copper buckles.
He would have been pronounced a preceptor in some good family,
returned from the emigration. He would have been taken for more than
sixty years of age, from his perfectly white hair, his wrinkled brow,
his livid lips, and his countenance, where everything breathed
depression and weariness of life. Judging from his firm tread,
from the singular vigor which stamped all his movements,
he would have hardly been thought fifty. The wrinkles on his brow
were well placed, and would have disposed in his favor any one
who observed him attentively. His lip contracted with a strange
fold which seemed severe, and which was humble. There was in
the depth of his glance an indescribable melancholy serenity.
In his left hand he carried a little bundle tied up in a handkerchief;
in his right he leaned on a sort of a cudgel, cut from some hedge.
This stick had been carefully trimmed, and had an air that was not
too threatening; the most had been made of its knots, and it had
received a coral-like head, made from red wax: it was a cudgel,
and it seemed to be a cane.
There are but few passers-by on that boulevard, particularly in
the winter. The man seemed to avoid them rather than to seek them,
but this without any affectation.
At that epoch, King Louis XVIII. went nearly every day to
Choisy-le-Roi: it was one of his favorite excursions. Towards two
o'clock, almost invariably, the royal carriage and cavalcade
was seen to pass at full speed along the Boulevard de l'Hopital.
This served in lieu of a watch or clock to the poor women of the quarter
who said, "It is two o'clock; there he is returning to the Tuileries."
And some rushed forward, and others drew up in line, for a passing king
always creates a tumult; besides, the appearance and disappearance
of Louis XVIII. produced a certain effect in the streets of Paris.
It was rapid but majestic. This impotent king had a taste for a
fast gallop; as he was not able to walk, he wished to run: that cripple
would gladly have had himself drawn by the lightning. He passed,
pacific and severe, in the midst of naked swords. His massive couch,
all covered with gilding, with great branches of lilies painted on
the panels, thundered noisily along. There was hardly time to cast
a glance upon it. In the rear angle on the right there was visible
on tufted cushions of white satin a large, firm, and ruddy face,
a brow freshly powdered a l'oiseau royal, a proud, hard, crafty eye,
the smile of an educated man, two great epaulets with bullion
fringe floating over a bourgeois coat, the Golden Fleece, the cross
of Saint Louis, the cross of the Legion of Honor, the silver
plaque of the Saint-Esprit, a huge belly, and a wide blue ribbon:
it was the king. Outside of Paris, he held his hat decked with white
ostrich plumes on his knees enwrapped in high English gaiters;
when he re-entered the city, he put on his hat and saluted rarely;
he stared coldly at the people, and they returned it in kind.
When he appeared for the first time in the Saint-Marceau quarter,
the whole success which he produced is contained in this remark of an
inhabitant of the faubourg to his comrade, "That big fellow yonder is
the government."
This infallible passage of the king at the same hour was, therefore,
the daily event of the Boulevard de l'Hopital.
The promenader in the yellow coat evidently did not belong in
the quarter, and probably did not belong in Paris, for he was ignorant
as to this detail. When, at two o'clock, the royal carriage,
surrounded by a squadron of the body-guard all covered with
silver lace, debouched on the boulevard, after having made the turn
of the Salpetriere, he appeared surprised and almost alarmed.
There was no one but himself in this cross-lane. He drew
up hastily behind the corner of the wall of an enclosure,
though this did not prevent M. le Duc de Havre from spying him out.
M. le Duc de Havre, as captain of the guard on duty that day,
was seated in the carriage, opposite the king. He said to his
Majesty, "Yonder is an evil-looking man." Members of the police,
who were clearing the king's route, took equal note of him:
one of them received an order to follow him. But the man plunged
into the deserted little streets of the faubourg, and as twilight
was beginning to fall, the agent lost trace of him, as is stated
in a report addressed that same evening to M. le Comte d'Angles,
Minister of State, Prefect of Police.
When the man in the yellow coat had thrown the agent off his track,
he redoubled his pace, not without turning round many a time to assure
himself that he was not being followed. At a quarter-past four,
that is to say, when night was fully come, he passed in front of the
theatre of the Porte Saint-Martin, where The Two Convicts was being
played that day. This poster, illuminated by the theatre lanterns,
struck him; for, although he was walking rapidly, he halted to read it.
An instant later he was in the blind alley of La Planchette, and he
entered the Plat d'Etain [the Pewter Platter], where the office
of the coach for Lagny was then situated. This coach set out at
half-past four. The horses were harnessed, and the travellers,
summoned by the coachman, were hastily climbing the lofty iron ladder
of the vehicle.
The man inquired:--
"Have you a place?"
"Only one--beside me on the box," said the coachman.
"I will take it."
"Climb up."
Nevertheless, before setting out, the coachman cast a glance at
the traveller's shabby dress, at the diminutive size of his bundle,
and made him pay his fare.
"Are you going as far as Lagny?" demanded the coachman.
"Yes," said the man.
The traveller paid to Lagny.
They started. When they had passed the barrier, the coachman
tried to enter into conversation, but the traveller only replied
in monosyllables. The coachman took to whistling and swearing
at his horses.
The coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak. It was cold.
The man did not appear to be thinking of that. Thus they passed
Gournay and Neuilly-sur-Marne.
Towards six o'clock in the evening they reached Chelles. The coachman
drew up in front of the carters' inn installed in the ancient
buildings of the Royal Abbey, to give his horses a breathing spell.
"I get down here," said the man.
He took his bundle and his cudgel and jumped down from the vehicle.
An instant later he had disappeared.
He did not enter the inn.
When the coach set out for Lagny a few minutes later, it did not
encounter him in the principal street of Chelles.
The coachman turned to the inside travellers.
"There," said he, "is a man who does not belong here, for I do not
know him. He had not the air of owning a sou, but he does not
consider money; he pays to Lagny, and he goes only as far as Chelles.
It is night; all the houses are shut; he does not enter the inn,
and he is not to be found. So he has dived through the earth."
The man had not plunged into the earth, but he had gone with great
strides through the dark, down the principal street of Chelles,
then he had turned to the right before reaching the church,
into the cross-road leading to Montfermeil, like a person who was
acquainted with the country and had been there before.
He followed this road rapidly. At the spot where it is intersected
by the ancient tree-bordered road which runs from Gagny to Lagny,
he heard people coming. He concealed himself precipitately in
a ditch, and there waited until the passers-by were at a distance.
The precaution was nearly superfluous, however; for, as we have
already said, it was a very dark December night. Not more than two
or three stars were visible in the sky.
It is at this point that the ascent of the hill begins. The man did
not return to the road to Montfermeil; he struck across the fields
to the right, and entered the forest with long strides.
Once in the forest he slackened his pace, and began a careful
examination of all the trees, advancing, step by step, as though
seeking and following a mysterious road known to himself alone.
There came a moment when he appeared to lose himself, and he paused
in indecision. At last he arrived, by dint of feeling his way inch
by inch, at a clearing where there was a great heap of whitish stones.
He stepped up briskly to these stones, and examined them attentively
through the mists of night, as though he were passing them in review.
A large tree, covered with those excrescences which are the warts
of vegetation, stood a few paces distant from the pile of stones.
He went up to this tree and passed his hand over the bark of the trunk,
as though seeking to recognize and count all the warts.
Opposite this tree, which was an ash, there was a chestnut-tree,
suffering from a peeling of the bark, to which a band of zinc
had been nailed by way of dressing. He raised himself on tiptoe
and touched this band of zinc.
Then he trod about for awhile on the ground comprised in the space
between the tree and the heap of stones, like a person who is trying
to assure himself that the soil has not recently been disturbed.
That done, he took his bearings, and resumed his march through
the forest.
It was the man who had just met Cosette.
As he walked through the thicket in the direction of Montfermeil,
he had espied that tiny shadow moving with a groan, depositing a
burden on the ground, then taking it up and setting out again.
He drew near, and perceived that it was a very young child,
laden with an enormous bucket of water. Then he approached the child,
and silently grasped the handle of the bucket. _
Read next: VOLUME II - COSETTE: BOOK THIRD - ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN: CHAPTER VII. Cosette Side by Side with the Stranger in the Dark
Read previous: VOLUME II - COSETTE: BOOK THIRD - ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN: CHAPTER V. The Little One All Alone
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