Page 725 - les-miserables

branchings are untraceable. Later on, some trace of his pas-
sage into Ain, in the territory of Civrieux, was discovered;
in the Pyrenees, at Accons; at the spot called Grange-de-
Doumec, near the market of Chavailles, and in the environs
of Perigueux at Brunies, canton of La Chapelle-Gonaguet.
He reached Paris. We have just seen him at Montfermeil.
His first care on arriving in Paris had been to buy mourn-
ing clothes for a little girl of from seven to eight years of
age; then to procure a lodging. That done, he had betaken
himself to Montfermeil. It will be remembered that already,
during his preceding escape, he had made a mysterious trip
thither, or somewhere in that neighborhood, of which the
law had gathered an inkling.
However, he was thought to be dead, and this still further
increased the obscurity which had gathered about him. At
Paris, one of the journals which chronicled the fact fell into
his hands. He felt reassured and almost at peace, as though
he had really been dead.
On the evening of the day when Jean Valjean rescued
Cosette from the claws of the Thenardiers, he returned to
Paris. He re-entered it at nightfall, with the child, by way of
the Barrier Monceaux. There he entered a cabriolet, which
took him to the esplanade of the Observatoire. There he
got out, paid the coachman, took Cosette by the hand, and
together they directed their steps through the darkness,—
through the deserted streets which adjoin the Ourcine and
the Glaciere, towards the Boulevard de l’Hopital.
The day had been strange and filled with emotions for
Cosette. They had eaten some bread and cheese purchased

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