Page 799 - les-miserables

Angles. M. Chabouillet, who had, moreover, already been
Javert’s patron, had the inspector of M. sur M. attached to
the police force of Paris. There Javert rendered himself use-
ful in divers and, though the word may seem strange for
such services, honorable manners.
He no longer thought of Jean Valjean,—the wolf of to-
day causes these dogs who are always on the chase to forget
the wolf of yesterday,—when, in December, 1823, he read
a newspaper, he who never read newspapers; but Javert, a
monarchical man, had a desire to know the particulars of
the triumphal entry of the ‘Prince Generalissimo’ into Bay-
onne. Just as he was finishing the article, which interested
him; a name, the name of Jean Valjean, attracted his atten-
tion at the bottom of a page. The paper announced that the
convict Jean Valjean was dead, and published the fact in
such formal terms that Javert did not doubt it. He confined
himself to the remark, ‘That’s a good entry.’ Then he threw
aside the paper, and thought no more about it.
Some time afterwards, it chanced that a police report
was transmitted from the prefecture of the Seine-et-Oise to
the prefecture of police in Paris, concerning the abduction
of a child, which had taken place, under peculiar circum-
stances, as it was said, in the commune of Montfermeil. A
little girl of seven or eight years of age, the report said, who
had been intrusted by her mother to an inn-keeper of that
neighborhood, had been stolen by a stranger; this child an-
swered to the name of Cosette, and was the daughter of a
girl named Fantine, who had died in the hospital, it was not
known where or when.

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