Jean Valjean had been recaptured. The journals of that day, a few months after the surprising events in her native town, print two short paragraphs. The Drapeau Blanc of 25 July 1823 records that a stranger named Madeleine had resuscitated the manufacture of jet and black glass, made his fortune and that of the arrondissement, and been appointed mayor. The police discovered that Madeleine was an ex-convict who had broken his ban, condemned in 1796 for theft, named Jean Valjean. He has been recommitted to prison. Before his arrest he had withdrawn from Laffitte over half a million, acquired by legitimate means. No one has been able to discover where he has concealed this money since his return to Toulon.
The Journal de Paris enters a little more into detail. This wretch had changed his name and got himself appointed mayor of a small northern town. He has been unmasked thanks to the indefatigable zeal of the public prosecutor. He had for his concubine a woman of the town, who died of a shock at the moment of his arrest. He escaped, and three or four days later the police laid their hands on him in Paris, as he was entering a vehicle for Montfermeil. He is said to have used those days to withdraw six or seven hundred thousand francs. He has been brought before the Assizes of the Var as accused of highway robbery, about eight years ago, on a Savoyard child. This bandit refused to defend himself. The prosecutor proved he was a member of a band of robbers in the south. He was condemned to death. He refused to lodge an appeal. The king, in his inexhaustible clemency, commuted the penalty to penal servitude for life. He was taken at once to Toulon. Some papers presented this commutation as a triumph of the priestly party. Jean Valjean changed his number in the galleys. He was called 9,430.
The prosperity of that town vanished with Madeleine. All that he had foreseen during his night of fever and hesitation was realised. Lacking him, there actually was a soul lacking. Superintendents improvised manufacturers out of themselves. Envious rivalries arose. The vast workshops were shut. The buildings fell to ruin. The workmen were scattered. Some quit the country. Others abandoned the trade. Thenceforth everything was done on a small scale, for lucre instead of the general good. There was no longer a centre. Everywhere there was competition and animosity. No sooner had he fallen than each pulled things to himself. The spirit of combat succeeded to the spirit of organisation. Bitterness succeeded to cordiality. The threads he had set were tangled and broken. The methods were adulterated. The products were debased. Confidence was killed. The market diminished. Salaries were reduced. The workshops stood still. Bankruptcy arrived. And then there was nothing more for the poor. All had vanished. The state itself perceived that some one had been crushed somewhere. Less than four years after the judgment that established the identity of Jean Valjean and Madeleine, for the benefit of the galleys, the cost of collecting taxes had doubled in that arrondissement, and Villele called attention to the fact in the rostrum, in the month of February, 1827.
Coming Up in Chapter 91
Before proceeding further, a singular occurrence takes place at about the same epoch in Montfermeil. There is an ancient superstition in that forest: the devil hides his treasures there. A black man with horns is seen digging a hole at nightfall. There are three ways of meeting him, and all three end in a death.
