Page 2285 - les-miserables

the sentence pronounced against the escaped and contuma-
cious accomplices.
Thenardier, the head and leader, had been, through con-
tumacy, likewise condemned to death.
This sentence was the only information remaining about
Thenardier, casting upon that buried name its sinister light
like a candle beside a bier.
Moreover, by thrusting Thenardier back into the very
remotest depths, through a fear of being re-captured, this
sentence added to the density of the shadows which envel-
oped this man.
As for the other person, as for the unknown man who
had saved Marius, the researches were at first to some extent
successful, then came to an abrupt conclusion. They suc-
ceeded in finding the carriage which had brought Marius
to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire on the evening of the 6th
of June.
The coachman declared that, on the 6th of June, in obedi-
ence to the commands of a police-agent, he had stood from
three o’clock in the afternoon until nightfall on the Quai
des Champs-Elysees, above the outlet of the Grand Sewer;
that, towards nine o’clock in the evening, the grating of the
sewer, which abuts on the bank of the river, had opened;
that a man had emerged therefrom, bearing on his shoul-
ders another man, who seemed to be dead; that the agent,
who was on the watch at that point, had arrested the living
man and had seized the dead man; that, at the order of the
police-agent, he, the coachman, had taken ‘all those folks’
into his carriage; that they had first driven to the Rue des

2285