The night of the 16th to the 17th of February, 1833, was a blessed night. Above its shadows heaven stood open. It was the wedding night of Marius and Cosette. The day had been adorable. It had not been the grand festival dreamed by the grandfather, a fairy spectacle worthy to form the subject of a painting over a door, but it had been sweet and smiling. In that year a wedding was still a private and social festival. People married in their own homes. The marriage took place, therefore, at the grandfather's house. They could not get ready before the 16th of February. It chanced that the 16th fell on Shrove Tuesday. The aunt had hesitations. The grandfather quoted a proverb and would not delay. Marius would not delay. Accordingly the marriage took place on the 16th, notwithstanding the public merrymaking. It rained that day, but there is always in the sky a tiny scrap of blue at the service of happiness, which lovers see, even when the rest of creation is under an umbrella. On the preceding evening, Jean Valjean handed to Marius, in the presence of the grandfather, the five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs. The papers had been simple. Toussaint was of no use to Jean Valjean now. Cosette inherited her and promoted her to the rank of lady's maid. A beautiful chamber in the house had been furnished expressly for him, and Cosette had almost persuaded him to promise that he would come and occupy it. A few days before the marriage, an accident happened to Jean Valjean. He crushed the thumb of his right hand. This was not a serious matter. He had not allowed any one to trouble himself about it, nor to dress it, nor even to see his hurt, not even Cosette. Nevertheless, this had forced him to swathe his hand in a linen bandage, and to carry his arm in a sling, and had prevented his signing. The grandfather, in his capacity of supervising guardian, had supplied his place.
The page will not follow the pair to the mayor's office or to the church. It notes only an incident which, though unnoticed by the wedding party, marked the transit from the grandfather's street to the church. The northern end of the way was in process of repaving and barred off. The wedding carriages were obliged to turn through the boulevard. One of the invited guests observed that it was Shrove Tuesday, and that there would be a jam of vehicles because of the maskers. Capital, said the grandfather. These young folks are about to enter the serious part of life. This will prepare them for seeing a bit of the masquerade. They went by way of the boulevard. The first wedding coach held Cosette and the aunt, the grandfather and Jean Valjean. Marius, still separated from his betrothed according to usage, did not come until the second. The nuptial train became entangled in a long procession of vehicles which formed an endless chain from one monument to the other. Maskers abounded. In the good humour of that winter, the city had disguised itself as Venice. The sidewalks overflowed. Police sergeants maintained two interminable parallel files, moving in contrary directions. The wedding carriages were in the file proceeding toward the Bastille. At the top of a bridge there was a stoppage. Nearly at the same moment the other file halted also. At that point of the file there was a carriage-load of maskers.
Chance ordained that this shapeless cluster of masked men and women, dragged about on a vast calash, should halt on the left of the boulevard, while the wedding train halted on the right. Two maskers said it was a wedding, then a sham wedding, and turned their eyes elsewhere, fearing the police. Two others did not. A Spaniard with an enormous nose, an elderly air, and huge black moustache, and a gaunt fishwife who was quite a young girl, masked with a loup, held a dialogue in a low voice. Their aside was covered by the tumult. The gusts of rain had drenched the front of the vehicle. The fishwife, clad in a low-necked gown, shivered, laughed, and coughed. The Spaniard was sure he knew the old cove in the first wedding-cart, the one with his arm hung up in a black cravat. He was willing to have his throat cut if he did not know that Parisian. He told the girl to get off and follow the wedding, to find out where it went and what it was. She could not quit the vehicle. She was hired. She owed her fishwife day to the prefecture. If she left the cart, the first inspector who got his eye on her would arrest her. She was bought by the government for that day. All the same, that old fellow bothered him. Tomorrow there would be no more maskers. It would be Ash Wednesday. He would have to sneak back into his hole. She was freer than he. She must try to find out where that wedding party went, who that old cove belonged to, and where that wedding pair lived. A pin in a hay-mow, she said. It was not possible. That does not matter, he said. You must try. You understand me, Azelma. The two files resumed their movement on both sides of the boulevard, in opposite directions, and the carriage of the maskers lost sight of the trap of the bride.
