1.C.3.11. NUMBER 9,430 REAPPEARS, AND COSETTE WINS IT IN THE
LOTTERY
JEAN VALJEAN was not dead.
When he fell into the sea, or rather, when he threw himself
into it, he was not ironed, as we have seen. He swam under
water until he reached a vessel at anchor, to which a boat was
moored. He found means of hiding himself in this boat until
night. At night he swam off again, and reached the shore a
little way from Cape Brun. There, as he did not lack money,
he procured clothing. A small country-house in the neighborhood
of Balaguier was at that time the dressing-room of
escaped convicts,— a lucrative specialty. Then Jean Valjean,
like all the sorry fugitives who are seeking to evade the vigilance
of the law and social fatality, pursued an obscure and
undulating itinerary. He found his first refuge at Pradeaux,
near Beausset. Then he directed his course towards Grand-Villard,
near Briancon, in the Hautes-Alpes. It was a fumbling
and uneasy flight,— a mole's track, whose branchings are
untraceable. Later on, some trace of his passage 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 mourning
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 in
isolated taverns, behind hedges; they had changed carriages
frequently; they had travelled short distances on foot. She
made no complaint, but she was weary, and Jean Valjean perceived
it by the way she dragged more and more on his hand
as she walked. He took her on his back. Cosette, without
letting go of Catherine, laid her head on Jean Valjean's
shoulder, and there fell asleep.