ALWAYS BEGIN BY ARRESTING THE VICTIMS.
Javert posted his men at nightfall, and ambushed himself behind the
trees of the Rue de la Barrière des Gobelins, which joins No. 50-52
on the other side of the boulevard. He had begun by opening his
"pocket," in order to thrust into it the two girls ordered to watch
the approaches to the den, but he had only "nailed" Azelma. As for
Éponine, she was not at her post; she had disappeared, and he had not
been able to seize her. Then Javert took up his post, and listened for
the appointed signal. The departure and return of the hackney coach
greatly perplexed him; at length he grew impatient, and feeling sure
that there "was a nest there," and of being in "luck's way," and having
recognized several of the bandits who went in, he resolved to enter
without waiting for the pistol-shot. It will be remembered that he had
Marius's latch-key.
He arrived just in time.
The startled bandits dashed at the weapons, which they had thrown into
corners at the moment of their attempted escape; and in less than
a second these seven men, formidable to look at, were grouped in a
posture of defence,--one with his pole-axe, another with his key, a
third with his life-preserver, the others with crowbar, shears, and
hammer, and Thénardier with his knife in his fist. The woman picked up
an enormous paving-stone which lay in the angle of the room and served
her daughter as a footstool. Javert restored his hat to his head, and
walked into the room with folded arms, his cane hanging from his wrist,
and his sword in his scabbard.
"Halt!" he shouted; "you will not leave by the window but by the door,
which is not so unhealthy. You are seven and we are fifteen, so do not
let us quarrel like water-carriers, but behave like gentlemen."
Bigrenaille drew a pistol from under his blouse, and placed it in
Thénardier's hand, as he whispered,--
"It is Javert, and I dare not fire at that man. Dare you?"
"I should think so," Thénardier answered.
"Well, fire!"
Thénardier took the pistol and aimed at Javert; the Inspector, who was
only three paces from him, looked at him fixedly, and contented himself
with saying,--
"Don't fire, for the pistol won't go off."
Thénardier pulled the trigger; there was a flash in the pan.
"Did I not tell you so?" Javert remarked.
Bigrenaille threw his life-preserver at Javert's feet. "You are the
Emperor of the devils, and I surrender."
"And you?" Javert asked the other bandits.
They answered, "We too."
Javert remarked calmly,--
"That is all right; I begged you to behave like gentlemen."
"I only ask one thing," Bigrenaille remarked,--"that my tobacco may
n't be stopped while I'm in solitary confinement."
"Granted," said Javert.
Then he turned and shouted, "You can come in now!"
A squad of police, sword in hand, and agents armed with bludgeons and
sticks, rushed in at Javert's summons, and bound the robbers. This
crowd of men, scarce illumined by the candle, filled the den with
shadows.
"Handcuff them all!" Javert cried.
"Just come this way!" a voice shouted, which was not that of a man,
but of which no one could have said, "It is a woman's voice." Mother
Thénardier had intrenched herself in one of the angles of the window,
and it was she from whom this roar had come. The police and the
agents fell back; she had thrown off her shawl and kept her bonnet
on: her husband, crouching behind her, almost disappeared under the
fallen shawl, and she covered him with her body, while raising the
paving-stone above her head with both hands, like a giantess about to
heave a rock.
"Heads below!" she screeched.
All fell back upon the passage, and there was a large open space in
the centre of the garret. The hag took a glance at the bandits, who
had suffered themselves to be bound, and muttered, in a hoarse and
guttural voice,--"The cowards!"
Javert smiled, and walked into the open space which the woman guarded
with her eyes.
"Don't come nearer," she shrieked, "or I'll smash you. Be off!"
"What a grenadier!" said Javert; "the mother! You have a beard like a
man, but I have claws like a woman."
And he continued to advance. Mother Thénardier, with flying hair and
terrible looks, straddled her legs, bent back, and wildly hurled
the paving-stone at Javert. He stooped, the stone passed over him,
struck the wall, from which it dislodged a mass of plaster, and then
ricochetted from angle to angle till it fell exhausted at Javert's
feet. At the same moment Javert reached the Thénardiers; one of his
large hands settled on the wife's shoulder, the other on the husband's
head.
"Handcuffs here!" he shouted.
The policemen flocked in, and in a few seconds Javert's orders were
carried out. The woman, quite crushed, looked at her own and her
husband's manacled hands, fell on the ground, and bursting into tears,
cried,--
"My daughters!"
"Oh, they are all right!" said Javert.
By this time the police had noticed the drunken man sleeping behind the
door, and shook him; he woke up and stammered,--
"Is it all over, Jondrette?"
"Yes," Javert answered.
The six bound bandits were standing together, with their spectral
faces, three daubed with black, and three masked.
"Keep on your masks," said Javert
And, passing them in review, like a Frederick II. at a Potsdam parade,
he said to the three "sweeps,"--
"Good-day, Bigrenaille." "Good-day, Brujon." "Good-day, Deux Milliards."
Then turning to the three masks he said to the man with the pole-axe,
"Good-day, Gueulemer," and to the man with the cudgel, "Good-day,
Babet," and to the ventriloquist, "Here's luck, Claquesous!"
At this moment he noticed the prisoner, who had not said a word since
the arrival of the police, and held his head down.
"Untie the gentleman," said Javert, "and let no one leave the room."
After saying this he sat down in a lordly way at the table, on which
the candle and the inkstand were still standing, took a stamped paper
from his pocket, and began writing his report. When he had written a
few lines, which are always the same formula, he raised his eyes.
"Bring the gentleman here whom these gentlemen had tied up."
The agents look around.
"Well," Javert asked, "where is he?"
The prisoner of the bandits, M. Leblanc, M. Urbain Fabre, the father
of Ursule or the Lark, had disappeared. The door was guarded, but the
window was not. So soon as he found himself released, and while Javert
was writing, he took advantage of the trouble, the tumult, the crowd,
the darkness, and the moment when attention was not fixed upon him,
to rush to the window. An agent ran up and looked out; he could see
nobody, but the rope-ladder was still trembling.
"The devil!" said Javert between his teeth; "he must have been the best
of the lot."