1.C.3.6. WHICH POSSIBLY PROVES BOULATRUELLE'S INTELLIGENCE
ON the afternoon of that same Christmas Day, 1823, a man
had walked for rather a long time in the most deserted part
of the Boulevard de l'Hopital in Paris. This man had the air
of a person who is seeking lodgings, and he seemed to halt, by
preference, at the most modest houses on that dilapidated
border of the faubourg Saint-Marceau.
We shall see further on that this man had, in fact, hired a
chamber in that isolated quarter.
This man, in his attire, as in all his person, realized the type
of what may be called the well-bred mendicant,— extreme
wretchedness combined with extreme cleanliness. This is a
very rare mixture which inspires intelligent hearts with that
double respect which one feels for the man who is very poor,
and for the man who is very worthy. He wore a very old and
very well brushed round hat; a coarse coat, worn perfectly
threadbare, of an ochre yellow, a color that was not in the
least eccentric at that epoch; a large waistcoat with pockets
of a venerable cut; black breeches, worn gray at the knee,
stockings of black worsted; and thick shoes with copper
buckles. He would have been pronounced a preceptor in some
good family, returned from the emigration. He would have
been taken for more than sixty years of age, from his perfectly
white hair, his wrinkled brow, his livid lips, and his countenance,
where everything breathed depression and weariness of
life. Judging from his firm tread, from the singular vigor
which stamped all his movements, he would have hardly been
thought fifty. The wrinkles on his brow were well placed, and
would have disposed in his favor any one who observed him
attentively. His lip contracted with a strange fold which
seemed severe, and which was humble. There was in the depth
of his glance an indescribable melancholy serenity. In his
left hand he carried a little bundle tied up in a handkerchief;
in his right he leaned on a sort of a cudgel, cut from some
hedge. This stick had been carefully trimmed, and had an
air that was not too threatening; the most had been made of
its knots, and it had received a coral-like head, made from red
wax: it was a cudgel, and it seemed to be a cane.
There are but few passersby on that boulevard, particularly
in the winter. The man seemed to avoid them rather than to
seek them, but this without any affectation.
At that epoch, King Louis XVIII. went nearly every day
to Choisy-le-Roi: it was one of his favorite excursions. Towards
two o'clock, almost invariably, the royal carriage and
cavalcade was seen to pass at full speed along the Boulevard
de l'Hopital.
This served in lieu of a watch or clock to the poor women
of the quarter who said, "It is two o'clock; there he is returning
to the Tuileries."
And some rushed forward, and others drew up in line, for a
passing king always creates a tumult; besides, the appearance
and disappearance of Louis XVIII. produced a certain effect
in the streets of Paris. It was rapid but majestic. This impotent
king had a taste for a fast gallop; as he was not able to
walk, he wished to run: that cripple would gladly have had
himself drawn by the lightning. He passed, pacific and severe,
in the midst of naked swords. His massive couch, all covered
with gilding, with great branches of lilies painted on the
panels, thundered noisily along. There was hardly time to
cast a glance upon it. In the rear angle on the right there
was visible on tufted cushions of white satin a large, firm, and
ruddy face, a brow freshly powdered a l'oiseau royal, a proud,
hard, crafty eye, the smile of an educated man, two great
epaulets with bullion fringe floating over a bourgeois coat, the
Golden Fleece, the cross of Saint Louis, the cross of the Legion
of Honor, the silver plaque of the Saint-Esprit, a huge belly,
and a wide blue ribbon: it was the king. Outside of Paris, he
held his hat decked with white ostrich plumes on his knees
enwrapped in high English gaiters; when he re-entered the
city, he put on his hat and saluted rarely; he stared coldly at
the people, and they returned it in kind. When he appeared
for the first time in the Saint-Marceau quarter, the whole
success which he produced is contained in this remark of an
inhabitant of the faubourg to his comrade, "That big fellow
yonder is the government."
This infallible passage of the king at the same hour was,
therefore, the daily event of the Boulevard de l'Hopital.
The promenader in the yellow coat evidently did not belong
in the quarter, and probably did not belong in Paris, for he
was ignorant as to this detail. When, at two o'clock, the royal
carriage, surrounded by a squadron of the body-guard all
covered with silver lace, debouched on the boulevard, after
having made the turn of the Salpetriere, he appeared surprised
and almost alarmed. There was no one but himself in this
cross-lane. He drew up hastily behind the corner of the wall
of an enclosure, though this did not prevent M. le Duc de
Havre from spying him out.
M. le Duc de Havre, as captain of the guard on duty that
day, was seated in the carriage, opposite the king. He said to
his Majesty, "Yonder is an evil-looking man." Members of
the police, who were clearing the king's route, took equal note
of him: one of them received an order to follow him. But the
man plunged into the deserted little streets of the faubourg,
and as twilight was beginning to fall, the agent lost trace of
him, as is stated in a report addressed that same evening
to M. le Comte d'Angles, Minister of State, Prefect of
Police.
When the man in the yellow coat had thrown the agent off
his track, he redoubled his pace, not without turning round
many a time to assure himself that he was not being followed.
At a quarter-past four, that is to say, when night was fully
come, he passed in front of the theatre of the Porte Saint-Martin,
where The Two Convicts was being played that day.
This poster, illuminated by the theatre lanterns, struck him;
for, although he was walking rapidly, he halted to read it. An
instant later he was in the blind alley of La Planchette,
and he entered the Plat d'Etain [the Pewter Platter], where
the office of the coach for Lagny was then situated. This
coach set out at half-past four. The horses were harnessed,
and the travellers, summoned by the coachman, were hastily
climbing the lofty iron ladder of the vehicle.
The man inquired:—
"Have you a place?"
"Only one— beside me on the box," said the coachman.
"I will take it."
"Climb up."
Nevertheless, before setting out, the coachman cast a glance
at the traveller's shabby dress, at the diminutive size of his
bundle, and made him pay his fare.
"Are you going as far as Lagny?" demanded the coachman.
"Yes," said the man.
The traveller paid to Lagny.
They started. When they had passed the barrier, the coachman
tried to enter into conversation, but the traveller only replied
in monosyllables. The coachman took to whistling and
swearing at his horses.
The coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak. It was
cold. The man did not appear to be thinking of that. Thus
they passed Gournay and Neuilly-sur-Marne.
Towards six o'clock in the evening they reached Chelles.
The coachman drew up in front of the carters' inn installed in
the ancient buildings of the Royal Abbey, to give his horses a
breathing spell.
"I get down here," said the man.
He took his bundle and his cudgel and jumped down from
the vehicle.
An instant later he had disappeared.
He did not enter the inn.
When the coach set out for Lagny a few minutes later, it
did not encounter him in the principal street of Chelles.
The coachman turned to the inside travellers.
"There," said he, "is a man who does not belong here, for
I do not know him. He had not the air of owning a sou, but
he does not consider money; he pays to Lagny, and he goes
only as far as Chelles. It is night; all the houses are shut; he
does not enter the inn, and he is not to be found. So he has
dived through the earth."
The man had not plunged into the earth, but he had gone
with great strides through the dark, down the principal street
of Chelles, then he had turned to the right before reaching the
church, into the cross-road leading to Montfermeil, like a
person who was acquainted with the country and had been
there before.
He followed this road rapidly. At the spot where it is
intersected by the ancient tree-bordered road which runs from
Gagny to Lagny, he heard people coming. He concealed himself
precipitately in a ditch, and there waited until the passersby
were at a distance. The precaution was nearly superfluous,
however; for, as we have already said, it was a very dark
December night. Not more than two or three stars were
visible in the sky.
It is at this point that the ascent of the hill begins. The
man did not return to the road to Montfermeil; he struck
across the fields to the right, and entered the forest with long
strides.
Once in the forest he slackened his pace, and began a careful
examination of all the trees, advancing, step by step, as
though seeking and following a mysterious road known to himself
alone. There came a moment when he appeared to lose
himself, and he paused in indecision. At last he arrived, by
dint of feeling his way inch by inch, at a clearing where there
was a great heap of whitish stones. He stepped up briskly to
these stones, and examined them attentively through the mists
of night, as though he were passing them in review. A large
tree, covered with those excrescences which are the warts of
vegetation, stood a few paces distant from the pile of stones.
He went up to this tree and passed his hand over the bark of
the trunk, as though seeking to recognize and count all the
warts.
Opposite this tree, which was an ash, there was a chestnut-tree,
suffering from a peeling of the bark, to which a band of
zinc had been nailed by way of dressing. He raised himself
on tiptoe and touched this band of zinc.
Then he trod about for awhile on the ground comprised in
the space between the tree and the heap of stones, like a person
who is trying to assure himself that the soil has not recently
been disturbed.
That done, he took his bearings, and resumed his march
through the forest.
It was the man who had just met Cosette.
As he walked through the thicket in the direction of Montfermeil,
he had espied that tiny shadow moving with a groan,
depositing a burden on the ground, then taking it up and setting
out again. He drew near, and perceived that it was a very
young child, laden with an enormous bucket of water. Then
he approached the child, and silently grasped the handle of the
bucket.