Page 2153 - les-miserables

CHAPTER II

EXPLANATION

On the day of the sixth of June, a battue of the sewers had
been ordered. It was feared that the vanquished might have
taken to them for refuge, and Prefect Gisquet was to search
occult Paris while General Bugeaud swept public Paris; a
double and connected operation which exacted a double
strategy on the part of the public force, represented above
by the army and below by the police. Three squads of agents
and sewermen explored the subterranean drain of Paris, the
first on the right bank, the second on the left bank, the third
in the city. The agents of police were armed with carabines,
with bludgeons, swords and poignards.
That which was directed at Jean Valjean at that moment,
was the lantern of the patrol of the right bank.
This patrol had just visited the curving gallery and the
three blind alleys which lie beneath the Rue du Cadran.
While they were passing their lantern through the depths
of these blind alleys, Jean Valjean had encountered on his
path the entrance to the gallery, had perceived that it was
narrower than the principal passage and had not penetrated
thither. He had passed on. The police, on emerging from the

2153