Page 2155 - les-miserables

would only be a waste of time, but that they ought to hasten
towards Saint-Merry; that if there was anything to do, and
any ‘bousingot’ to track out, it was in that quarter.
From time to time, parties re-sole their old insults. In
1832, the word bousingot formed the interim between the
word jacobin, which had become obsolete, and the word
demagogue which has since rendered such excellent ser-
vice.
The sergeant gave orders to turn to the left, towards the
watershed of the Seine.
If it had occurred to them to separate into two squads,
and to go in both directions, Jean Valjean would have been
captured. All hung on that thread. It is probable that the
instructions of the prefecture, foreseeing a possibility of
combat and insurgents in force, had forbidden the patrol
to part company. The patrol resumed its march, leaving
Jean Valjean behind it. Of all this movement, Jean Valjean
perceived nothing, except the eclipse of the lantern which
suddenly wheeled round.
Before taking his departure, the Sergeant, in order to ac-
quit his policeman’s conscience, discharged his gun in the
direction of Jean Valjean. The detonation rolled from echo
to echo in the crypt, like the rumbling of that titanic entrail.
A bit of plaster which fell into the stream and splashed up
the water a few paces away from Jean Valjean, warned him
that the ball had struck the arch over his head.
Slow and measured steps resounded for some time on
the timber work, gradually dying away as they retreated to a
greater distance; the group of black forms vanished, a glim-

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