On the afternoon of that same Christmas Day, 1823, a man has walked for rather a long time in the most deserted part of the Boulevard de l'Hopital in Paris. He has the air of a person who is seeking lodgings, and he seems to halt, by preference, at the most modest houses on that dilapidated border of the faubourg Saint-Marceau. We shall see further on that this man has, in fact, hired a chamber in that isolated quarter. In his attire, as in all his person, he realises the type of what may be called the well-bred mendicant: extreme wretchedness combined with extreme cleanliness. He wears a very old and very well brushed round hat, a coarse coat worn perfectly threadbare, of an ochre yellow, a large waistcoat of a venerable cut, black breeches worn grey at the knee, stockings of black worsted, and thick shoes with copper buckles. He would have been pronounced a preceptor in some good family, returned from the emigration. He would have been taken for more than sixty from his perfectly white hair, his wrinkled brow, his livid lips, and his countenance, where everything breathes depression and weariness of life. Judging from his firm tread, from the singular vigour which stamps all his movements, he would have hardly been thought fifty. There is in the depth of his glance an indescribable melancholy serenity. In his left hand he carries a little bundle tied up in a handkerchief. In his right he leans on a sort of cudgel, cut from some hedge, carefully trimmed, with a coral-like head made from red wax. It is a cudgel, and it seems to be a cane.
At that epoch King Louis the Eighteenth goes nearly every day to Choisy-le-Roi. Towards two o'clock the royal carriage and cavalcade pass at full speed along the Boulevard de l'Hopital. This serves in lieu of a watch to the poor women of the quarter. The promenader in the yellow coat evidently does not belong in the quarter, and probably does not belong in Paris, for he is ignorant of this detail. When the royal carriage, surrounded by a squadron of the body-guard, debouches on the boulevard after the turn of the Salpetriere, he appears surprised and almost alarmed. There is no one but himself in this cross-lane. He draws up hastily behind the corner of the wall of an enclosure, though this does not prevent the Duc de Havre from spying him out. The duke, captain of the guard on duty, seated opposite the king, says to his Majesty that yonder is an evil-looking man. Members of the police take equal note of him. One of them receives an order to follow him. But the man plunges into the deserted little streets of the faubourg, and as twilight is beginning to fall, the agent loses trace of him, as is stated in a report addressed that same evening to the Prefect of Police. When the man in the yellow coat has thrown the agent off his track, he redoubles his pace, not without turning round many a time. At a quarter-past four he passes in front of the theatre of the Porte Saint-Martin, where The Two Convicts is being played that day. This poster, illuminated by the theatre lanterns, strikes him. Although he is walking rapidly, he halts to read it. An instant later he is in the blind alley of La Planchette, and he enters the Pewter Platter, where the office of the coach for Lagny is then situated. The coach sets out at half-past four. The man inquires whether they have a place. Only one, beside me on the box, says the coachman. I will take it. Before setting out, the coachman casts a glance at the traveller's shabby dress, at the diminutive size of his bundle, and makes him pay his fare. Are you going as far as Lagny? Yes, says the man. The traveller paid to Lagny.
They start. When they have passed the barrier, the coachman tries to enter into conversation, but the traveller only replies in monosyllables. Towards six o'clock they reach Chelles. The coachman draws up in front of the carters' inn installed in the ancient buildings of the Royal Abbey. I get down here, says the man. He takes his bundle and his cudgel and jumps down. An instant later he has disappeared. He does not enter the inn. When the coach sets out for Lagny a few minutes later, it does not encounter him in the principal street. The coachman turns to the inside travellers. There, said he, is a man who does not belong here, for I do not know him. He had not the air of owning a sou, but he does not consider money. He pays to Lagny, and he goes only as far as Chelles. It is night. All the houses are shut. He does not enter the inn, and he is not to be found. So he has dived through the earth. The man has not plunged into the earth. He has gone with great strides through the dark, down the principal street of Chelles, then turned to the right before reaching the church, into the crossroad leading to Montfermeil, like a person who was acquainted with the country and had been there before. At the spot where the road is intersected by the old tree-bordered road from Gagny to Lagny, he hears people coming. He conceals himself precipitately in a ditch. The precaution is nearly superfluous. It is a very dark December night. Not more than two or three stars are visible. He does not return to the road to Montfermeil. He strikes across the fields to the right and enters the forest with long strides. Once in the forest he slackens his pace and begins a careful examination of all the trees, advancing step by step as though seeking a mysterious road known to himself alone. He arrives at a clearing where there is a great heap of whitish stones. He examines them attentively through the mists of night. A large tree covered with those excrescences which are the warts of vegetation stands a few paces distant. He passes his hand over the bark of the trunk as though seeking to recognise and count all the warts. Opposite this ash there is a chestnut-tree, suffering from a peeling of the bark, to which a band of zinc has been nailed by way of dressing. He raises himself on tiptoe and touches this band of zinc. Then he treads about for a while on the ground between the tree and the heap of stones, like a person who is trying to assure himself that the soil has not recently been disturbed. That done, he takes his bearings and resumes his march through the forest. It is the man who has just met Cosette. As he walks through the thicket in the direction of Montfermeil, he has espied that tiny shadow moving with a groan, depositing a burden on the ground, then taking it up and setting out again. He draws near, and perceives that it is a very young child, laden with an enormous bucket of water. Then he approached the child, and silently grasped the handle of the bucket.
