Page 455 - les-miserables

not been circumstantially proved. His client, whom he, in
his character of counsel, persisted in calling Champma-
thieu, had not been seen scaling that wall nor breaking that
branch by any one. He had been taken with that branch
(which the lawyer preferred to call a bough) in his posses-
sion; but he said that he had found it broken off and lying on
the ground, and had picked it up. Where was there any proof
to the contrary? No doubt that branch had been broken off
and concealed after the scaling of the wall, then thrown
away by the alarmed marauder; there was no doubt that
there had been a thief in the case. But what proof was there
that that thief had been Champmathieu? One thing only.
His character as an ex-convict. The lawyer did not deny that
that character appeared to be, unhappily, well attested; the
accused had resided at Faverolles; the accused had exercised
the calling of a tree-pruner there; the name of Champma-
thieu might well have had its origin in Jean Mathieu; all
that was true,— in short, four witnesses recognize Champ-
mathieu, positively and without hesitation, as that convict,
Jean Valjean; to these signs, to this testimony, the counsel
could oppose nothing but the denial of his client, the denial
of an interested party; but supposing that he was the con-
vict Jean Valjean, did that prove that he was the thief of the
apples? that was a presumption at the most, not a proof. The
prisoner, it was true, and his counsel, ‘in good faith,’ was
obliged to admit it, had adopted ‘a bad system of defence.’
He obstinately denied everything, the theft and his char-
acter of convict. An admission upon this last point would
certainly have been better, and would have won for him the

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