Page 456 - les-miserables

indulgence of his judges; the counsel had advised him to do
this; but the accused had obstinately refused, thinking, no
doubt, that he would save everything by admitting nothing.
It was an error; but ought not the paucity of this intelligence
to be taken into consideration? This man was visibly stupid.
Long-continued wretchedness in the galleys, long misery
outside the galleys, had brutalized him, etc. He defended
himself badly; was that a reason for condemning him? As
for the affair with Little Gervais, the counsel need not dis-
cuss it; it did not enter into the case. The lawyer wound up
by beseeching the jury and the court, if the identity of Jean
Valjean appeared to them to be evident, to apply to him the
police penalties which are provided for a criminal who has
broken his ban, and not the frightful chastisement which
descends upon the convict guilty of a second offence.
The district-attorney answered the counsel for the de-
fence. He was violent and florid, as district-attorneys usually
are.
He congratulated the counsel for the defence on his ‘loy-
alty,’ and skilfully took advantage of this loyalty. He reached
the accused through all the concessions made by his law-
yer. The advocate had seemed to admit that the prisoner was
Jean Valjean. He took note of this. So this man was Jean
Valjean. This point had been conceded to the accusation
and could no longer be disputed. Here, by means of a clever
autonomasia which went back to the sources and causes of
crime, the district-attorney thundered against the immo-
rality of the romantic school, then dawning under the name
of the Satanic school, which had been bestowed upon it by

456 Les Miserables