In Which the Reader Will Peruse Two Verses, Which Are of the Devil’s Composition, Possibly — Les Misérables

Before going further, a singular occurrence takes place at about the same epoch in Montfermeil, and it is not lacking in coincidence with certain conjectures of the indictment. There exists in that region a very ancient superstition, all the more precious because a popular superstition in the vicinity of Paris is like an aloe in Siberia. It is thought that the devil, from time immemorial, has selected the forest as a hiding-place for his treasures. Goodwives affirm that it is no rarity to encounter at nightfall a black man with the air of a carter or a wood-chopper, wearing wooden shoes, and recognizable because, instead of a cap, he has two immense horns on his head. This man is habitually engaged in digging a hole. There are three ways of profiting by such an encounter. Speak to him, and he turns out to be a peasant with a dung-fork on his back, and he dies within the week. Watch him, open the trench, and seize the treasure, and you die within the month. Flee without looking, and you die within the year. The second way is the one most generally adopted, because it presents, among other advantages, that of possessing a treasure, if only for a month. What is the devil's treasure? A sou, sometimes a crown-piece, a stone, a skeleton, a bleeding body, sometimes a spectre folded in four like a sheet of paper, sometimes nothing.

A very short time after the prosecuting attorney has decided that Jean Valjean, in his flight of several days, had been prowling around Montfermeil, it is remarked in that village that an old road-labourer named Boulatruelle has peculiar ways in the forest. People think they know that he has been in the galleys. He works at reduced rates as a road-mender on the crossroad from Gagny to Lagny. The district views him with disfavour as too humble, too prompt in removing his cap, trembling and smiling in the presence of the gendarmes. The only thing in his favour is that he is a drunkard. Of late he has been quitting his stone-breaking early and betaking himself to the forest with his pickaxe. Goodwives take him at first for Beelzebub, then they recognise Boulatruelle, and are not in the least reassured. It is said in the village that the devil has appeared, and that Boulatruelle is cunning enough to pocket Lucifer's hoard. The Voltairians add: Will Boulatruelle catch the devil, or will the devil catch Boulatruelle?

Then his manoeuvres cease, and he resumes the road. Some persons remain curious. The most puzzled are the schoolmaster and Thenardier, the proprietor of the tavern, who has not disdained to ally himself with Boulatruelle. He has been in the galleys, says Thenardier. Good God, no one knows who has been there or will be there. They get the old road-mender to drinking. He drinks an enormous amount and says very little. Nevertheless, by comparing the few obscure words he lets escape, this is what they imagine they have made out. One morning at daybreak Boulatruelle has seen a shovel and a pickaxe concealed in the underbrush. That evening, hidden by a large tree, he has seen a person who did not belong in those parts, and whom he knew well, directing his steps toward the densest part of the wood, carrying something square, like a large box or a small trunk. Thenardier's translation: a comrade of the galleys. Boulatruelle obstinately refuses to reveal the name. Two or three hours later, by moonlight, the person emerges carrying no longer the coffer, but a shovel and pick. Boulatruelle does not accost him. The other man is three times as strong, and armed. In the morning the tools are gone. The coffer was too small to contain a body; therefore it contained money. Hence the holes. He has ferreted out nothing. No one in Montfermeil thinks any more about it. A few brave gossips still say that the mender on the Gagny road did not take all that trouble for nothing. He was sure that the devil had come.