Three hundred paces further on, the street forks. It separates into two streets, which run in a slanting line, one to the right and the other to the left. Jean Valjean has before him what resembles the two branches of a Y. Which should he choose? He does not hesitate. He takes the one on the right. Why? Because that to the left runs towards a suburb, towards inhabited regions, and the right branch towards the open country, towards deserted regions. They no longer walk very fast. Cosette's pace retards him. He takes her up and carries her again. Cosette lays her head on the shoulder of the good man and says not a word. He turns round from time to time and looks behind him. He keeps always on the dark side of the street. The street is straight in his rear. The first two or three times that he turns he sees nothing. The silence is profound, and he continues his march somewhat reassured. All at once, on turning round, he thinks he perceives, far off in the obscurity, something which is moving. He rushes forward precipitately rather than walks, hoping to find some side-street, to break his scent once more. He arrives at a wall. The wall does not absolutely prevent further progress. It borders a transverse street in which the one he has taken ends. Here again he is obliged to come to a decision: should he go to the right or to the left. He glances to the right. The fragmentary lane is prolonged between sheds or barns, then ends at a blind alley. The extremity of the cul-de-sac is distinctly visible: a lofty white wall. He glances to the left. On that side the lane is open, and about two hundred paces further on it runs into a street of which it is the affluent. On that side lay safety. At the moment when Jean Valjean is meditating a turn to the left, in an effort to reach that street, he perceives a sort of motionless, black statue at the corner of the lane and the street towards which he was on the point of directing his steps. It is someone, a man, who has evidently just been posted there, and who is barring the passage and waiting. Jean Valjean recoiled.
The point of Paris where he finds himself, situated between the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and la Rapee, is one of those which later improvements have transformed from top to bottom. The market-gardens, the timber-yards, and the old buildings have been effaced. Today there are brand-new wide streets, arenas, circuses, hippodromes, railway stations, and a prison, Mazas, there: progress, as the reader sees, with its antidote. Half a century ago, in that ordinary popular tongue which persists in calling the Institut les Quatre-Nations and the Opera-Comique Feydeau, the precise spot whither Jean Valjean has arrived was called le Petit-Picpus. The Porte Saint-Jacques, the Porte Paris, the Barriere des Sergents, the Porcherons, la Galiote, les Celestins, les Capucins, le Mail, la Bourbe, l'Arbre de Cracovie, la Petite-Pologne: these are the names of old Paris which survive amid the new. The memory of the populace hovers over these relics of the past. Le Petit-Picpus, which hardly ever had any existence, and never was more than the outline of a quarter, had nearly the monkish aspect of a Spanish town. The roads were not much paved. The streets were not much built up. With the exception of two or three streets, all was wall and solitude there. Not a shop, not a vehicle, hardly a candle lighted here and there in the windows. All lights extinguished after ten o'clock. Gardens, convents, timber-yards, marshes; occasional lowly dwellings and great walls as high as the houses. The Revolution snubbed it. The republican government demolished and cut through it. Rubbish shoots were established there. Thirty years ago this quarter was disappearing under new buildings. Today it has been utterly blotted out. The Petit-Picpus, of which no existing plan has preserved a trace, is indicated with sufficient clearness in the plan of 1727, published at Paris by Denis Thierry. Petit-Picpus had a Y of streets, formed by the Rue du Chemin-Vert-Saint-Antoine, which spread out in two branches, taking on the left the name of Little Picpus Street, and on the right the name of the Rue Polonceau. The two limbs of the Y were connected at the apex as by a bar. This bar was called Rue Droit-Mur. The Rue Polonceau ended there. Rue Petit-Picpus passed on. A person coming from the Seine reached the extremity of the Rue Polonceau, and had on his right the Rue Droit-Mur, turning abruptly at a right angle, in front of him the wall of that street, and on his right a truncated prolongation of the Rue Droit-Mur, which had no issue and was called the Cul-de-Sac Genrot.
It was here that Jean Valjean stood. On catching sight of that black silhouette standing on guard at the angle of the Rue Droit-Mur and the Rue Petit-Picpus, he recoiled. There could be no doubt of it. That phantom was lying in wait for him. What was he to do? The time for retreating was passed. That which he had perceived in movement an instant before, in the distant darkness, was Javert and his squad without a doubt. Javert was probably already at the commencement of the street at whose end Jean Valjean stood. Javert, to all appearances, was acquainted with this little labyrinth, and had taken his precautions by sending one of his men to guard the exit. These surmises, which so closely resembled proofs, whirled suddenly, like a handful of dust caught up by an unexpected gust of wind, through Jean Valjean's mournful brain. He examined the Cul-de-Sac Genrot. There he was cut off. He examined the Rue Petit-Picpus. There stood a sentinel. He saw that black form standing out in relief against the white pavement, illuminated by the moon. To advance was to fall into this man's hands. To retreat was to fling himself into Javert's arms. Jean Valjean felt himself caught, as in a net, which was slowly contracting. He gazed heavenward in despair.
