________________________________________________
_ Jean Valjean was not dead.
When he fell into the sea, or rather, when he threw himself into it,
he was not ironed, as we have seen. He swam under water until
he reached a vessel at anchor, to which a boat was moored.
He found means of hiding himself in this boat until night.
At night he swam off again, and reached the shore a little way from
Cape Brun. There, as he did not lack money, he procured clothing.
A small country-house in the neighborhood of Balaguier was at that
time the dressing-room of escaped convicts,--a lucrative specialty.
Then Jean Valjean, like all the sorry fugitives who are seeking to
evade the vigilance of the law and social fatality, pursued an obscure
and undulating itinerary. He found his first refuge at Pradeaux,
near Beausset. Then he directed his course towards Grand-Villard,
near Briancon, in the Hautes-Alpes. It was a fumbling and uneasy flight,--
a mole's track, whose branchings are untraceable. Later on, some trace
of his passage into Ain, in the territory of Civrieux, was discovered;
in the Pyrenees, at Accons; at the spot called Grange-de-Doumec,
near the market of Chavailles, and in the environs of Perigueux
at Brunies, canton of La Chapelle-Gonaguet. He reached Paris.
We have just seen him at Montfermeil.
His first care on arriving in Paris had been to buy mourning clothes
for a little girl of from seven to eight years of age; then to procure
a lodging. That done, he had betaken himself to Montfermeil.
It will be remembered that already, during his preceding escape,
he had made a mysterious trip thither, or somewhere in that neighborhood,
of which the law had gathered an inkling.
However, he was thought to be dead, and this still further
increased the obscurity which had gathered about him. At Paris,
one of the journals which chronicled the fact fell into his hands.
He felt reassured and almost at peace, as though he had really
been dead.
On the evening of the day when Jean Valjean rescued Cosette from
the claws of the Thenardiers, he returned to Paris. He re-entered
it at nightfall, with the child, by way of the Barrier Monceaux.
There he entered a cabriolet, which took him to the esplanade
of the Observatoire. There he got out, paid the coachman,
took Cosette by the hand, and together they directed their steps
through the darkness,--through the deserted streets which adjoin
the Ourcine and the Glaciere, towards the Boulevard de l'Hopital.
The day had been strange and filled with emotions for Cosette.
They had eaten some bread and cheese purchased in isolated taverns,
behind hedges; they had changed carriages frequently; they had
travelled short distances on foot. She made no complaint, but she
was weary, and Jean Valjean perceived it by the way she dragged
more and more on his hand as she walked. He took her on his back.
Cosette, without letting go of Catherine, laid her head on Jean
Valjean's shoulder, and there fell asleep. _
Read next: VOLUME II - COSETTE: BOOK FOURTH - THE GORBEAU HOVEL: CHAPTER I. Master Gorbeau
Read previous: VOLUME II - COSETTE: BOOK THIRD - ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN: CHAPTER X. He who seeks to better himself may render his Situation Worse
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