Javert Satisfied — Les Misérables

This is what had taken place. The half-hour after midnight had just struck when he quit the Hall of Assizes in Arras. He regained his inn just in time for the mail-wagon. A little before six he arrived in her native town. His first care was to post a letter to Laffitte, then to enter the infirmary and see Fantine. He had hardly quit the hall when the district-attorney, recovering from his first shock, deplored the mad deed of the honourable mayor, declared his convictions unmodified, and demanded the condemnation of Champmathieu, who was evidently the real Jean Valjean. The persistence was at variance with the public, the court, and the jury. The counsel established that the aspect of the matter had been thoroughly altered. The President joined the defence. In a few minutes the jury threw Champmathieu out of the case. Nevertheless the district-attorney was bent on having a Jean Valjean, and as he had no longer Champmathieu, he took Madeleine.

Immediately after the release he shut himself up with the President. They conferred as to the necessity of seizing the person of the mayor. The President, a kindly royalist, had been shocked to hear the mayor say the Emperor, and not Bonaparte, when alluding to the landing at Cannes. The order was despatched by special messenger at full speed and entrusted to Javert, who had returned immediately after his deposition. Javert was just getting out of bed when the messenger handed him the paper: apprehend the body of the Sieur Madeleine, recognized as the liberated convict Jean Valjean. Anyone who did not know him would have thought his air the most ordinary in the world: cool, calm, grave, grey hair perfectly smooth, habitual deliberation on the stairs. Anyone who knew him would have shuddered. The buckle of his leather stock was under his left ear instead of at the nape of his neck.

He made a requisition for a corporal and four soldiers, left them in the courtyard, and had Fantine's room pointed out by the unsuspecting portress, accustomed as she was to armed men inquiring for the mayor. He turned the handle, pushed the door with the gentleness of a sick-nurse or a police spy, and did not properly enter. He stood erect in the half-open door, hat on, left hand in his coat, the leaden head of his enormous cane in the bend of his elbow. He remained nearly a minute unperceived. Then Fantine raised her eyes and made the mayor turn. The instant their glances encountered, Javert, without stirring, became terrible. No human sentiment can be as terrible as joy. It was the visage of a demon who has just found his damned soul. The humiliation of having lost the scent for Champmathieu was effaced by pride at having so well divined in the first place. He was in heaven. He personified justice, light, and truth in their celestial function of crushing out evil. He flaunted the superhuman bestiality of a ferocious archangel. Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him. Probity, sincerity, conviction may become hideous when wrongly directed, but they remain grand. The honest, pitiless joy of a fanatic preserves a lugubriously venerable radiance. Javert in his formidable happiness was to be pitied, as is every ignorant man who triumphs. Nothing could be so poignant as this face, wherein was displayed the evil of the good.