Page 1377 - les-miserables

ing glow.
The judicial examination to which the ambush in the
Gorbeau house eventually gave rise, established the fact that
a large sou piece, cut and worked in a peculiar fashion, was
found in the garret, when the police made their descent on
it. This sou piece was one of those marvels of industry, which
are engendered by the patience of the galleys in the shadows
and for the shadows, marvels which are nothing else than
instruments of escape. These hideous and delicate products
of wonderful art are to jewellers’ work what the metaphors
of slang are to poetry. There are Benvenuto Cellinis in the
galleys, just as there are Villons in language. The unhappy
wretch who aspires to deliverance finds means sometimes
without tools, sometimes with a common wooden-handled
knife, to saw a sou into two thin plates, to hollow out these
plates without affecting the coinage stamp, and to make a
furrow on the edge of the sou in such a manner that the
plates will adhere again. This can be screwed together and
unscrewed at will; it is a box. In this box he hides a watch-
spring, and this watch-spring, properly handled, cuts
good-sized chains and bars of iron. The unfortunate convict
is supposed to possess merely a sou; not at all, he possesses
liberty. It was a large sou of this sort which, during the sub-
sequent search of the police, was found under the bed near
the window. They also found a tiny saw of blue steel which
would fit the sou.
It is probable that the prisoner had this sou piece on his
person at the moment when the ruffians searched him, that
he contrived to conceal it in his hand, and that afterward,

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