A Place Where Convictions Are in Process of Formation — Les Misérables

He advances a pace, closes the door, and stands. A vast, badly lighted hall: threadbare judges gnawing their nails, a ragged crowd, yellow serge, smoky lamps, and from all this an austere impression, for one feels the law and that grand divine thing called justice. No one looks at him. All glances go to a wooden bench on the President's left. On this bench, between two gendarmes, sits a man. This man was the man. He does not seek him; his eyes go there as if they had known the place. He thinks he is looking at himself grown old: bristling hair, a wild uneasy eye, the blouse of the day he entered D, full of hatred. Good God, shall I become like that again? The creature seems at least sixty, coarse, stupid, frightened. The President and the attorney-general salute the mayor; he hardly perceives it. Twenty-seven years fall back. Real gendarmes, real judges, a real crowd. He shuts his eyes and says, Never. By a tragic play it is another self of his that is there. All call that man Jean Valjean. God had been absent when he was judged; a crucifix now hangs above the President. He drops into a chair and hides his face behind cardboard boxes. He can see without being seen. Bamatabois is one of the jurors. He looks for Javert and cannot see the witnesses.

The defence has just finished. For three hours the crowd has watched a strange man bending under a terrible likeness. Found in a field with a branch of apples from the Pierron orchard. The accusation: not a marauder; a bandit, an old offender, Jean Valjean, and later Little Gervais under article 383. The accused seems astonished, makes signs of No, stares at the ceiling; his whole person is a denial. Imbecility or craft? The counsel has spoken in the old provincial tongue in which a husband is a consort and Paris the centre of art. The apples are not circumstantially proved. No one saw him scale the wall. Four witnesses recognize him as Valjean; the counsel can oppose only the denial of an interested party. Even if he were Valjean, that would not prove the apples. A bad system of defence: he denies everything. He is visibly stupid. For Little Gervais the counsel need not discuss it; it is not in the case. Apply, at most, the penalties for a broken ban, not the second offence.

The district-attorney congratulates the counsel on his loyalty and takes the concession: so this man is Jean Valjean. He thunders against the Satanic school, describes a monster, and the jury shudders. Four witnesses: Javert, Brevet, Chenildieu, Cochepaille. What does he offer? His denial. What obduracy. The accused listens open-mouthed, with a sort of amazement that a man can talk like that, and two or three times those nearest hear, That is what comes of not having asked Baloup. The prosecutor calls the attitude craft. He demands a severe sentence. At that time it is penal servitude for life. The counsel rises, compliments the admirable speech, and replies as best he can. He weakens. The ground is slipping away from under his feet.