Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the one hundred eighteenth chapter of Les Miserables.

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>> Brie Carlisle: Take a look, in the book and let's see

what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter. One

fight M at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

to give word for word, line by

line, one bite at a time.

>> Brie Carlisle: Welcome to bite at a time books where we read you your

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing.

Les miserables M by Victor

Hugo chapter

ten which explains how Javert got

on the scent, the

events of which we have just beheld. The reverse side, so

to speak, had come about in the simplest

possible manner. When Jean

Valjean, on the evening of the very day when

Javert had arrested him beside fantines

deathbed, had escaped from the town jail of M.

Sur Mde. The M police had

supposed that he had betaken himself to Paris.

Paris is a maelstrom where everything is lost and

everything disappears. In this belly of the world,

as in the belly of the sea, no

forest hides a man as does that crowd.

Fugitives of every sort know this. They go to

Paris as, to an abyss. There are gulfs which

save. The police know it also. And it

is in Paris that they seek what they have lost. Elsewhere

they sought. The ex mayor of Imser, M.

Javert, was summoned to Paris to throw light on their

researches. Javert had in

fact rendered powerful assistance in the recapture of Jean

Valjean Javerts zeal and intelligence

on that occasion had been remarked by Monsieur Chaboulet,

secretary of the prefecture under Count Anglis.

Monsieur Chaboulet, who had, moreover, already been

Javerts patron, had, the inspector of M.

Sur m attached to the police force of Paris.

There Javert rendered himself useful in divers

and though the word may seem strange for such

services, honorable manners,

he no longer thought of Jean Valjean. The wolf

of today causes these dogs who are always on the chase to

forget the wolf of yesterday,

when in December 1823, he

read a newspaper, he who never read

newspapers much,

a monarchical man had a desire to know the

particulars of the triumphal entry of the prince

Generalissimo into Bayonne.

Just as he was finishing the article which

interested him, a name, the

name of Jean Valjean attracted his attention. At the bottom of

a page, the paper announced that the

convict Jean Valjean was dead. I and published

the fact in such formal terms that Javert did not doubt

it. He confined himself to the remark.

Thats a good entry. Then he threw aside

the paper and thought no more about it.

Sometime afterwards, it chanced that a

police report was transmitted from the prefecture

of the sign et Oys to the prefecture of police

of Paris concerning the abduction of a child

which had taken place under peculiar circumstances,

as it was said in the commune of Montremille.

A little girl of seven or eight years of age, the report

said, who had been entrusted by her mother to an

innkeeper of that neighborhood, had been stolen by a

stranger. This child answered to the name

of Cosette and was the daughter of a girl named

Fantine who had died in the hospital. It was not known where

or when. This report

came under Javerts eye and set him to thinking.

The name of Fantine was well known to him.

He remembered that Jean Valjean had made him.

Javert burst into laughter by asking him for a respite

of three days for the purpose of going to fetch that

creatures child. He recalled the fact that

Jean Valjean had been arrested in Paris at the very moment

when he was stepping into the coach for Montfermeier.

Some signs had made him suspect at the time that this was

the second occasion of his entering that coach and that he

had already on the previous day made an excursion

to the neighborhood of that village, for he had not been seen in

the village itself. What had he been

intending to do in that region of Mont Fermier?

It could not even be surmised. Javert

understood it now. Fantine's daughter was

there. Jean Valjean was going there in search of

her. And now this child had been stolen by a

stranger. Who could that stranger

be? Could it be Jean Valjean?

But Jean Valjean was dead. Javert,

without saying anything to anybody, took the coach from the pewter

platter, called a sack de la Planchet, and

made a trip to Montfermeil. He expected to

find a great deal of light on the subject. There he

found a great deal of obscurity. For the first

few days, the thenardiers had chattered in their rage.

The disappearance of the lark had created a sensation in the

village. He immediately obtained numerous versions

of the story which ended in the abduction of a child.

Hence the police report. But their

first vexation having passed off.

Thenardier, with his wonderful instinct, had very quickly

comprehended that it is never advisable to stir up the prosecutor

of the crown, and that his complaints with regard to

the abduction of Cosette would have as their first results to

fix upon himself and upon many dark affairs

which he had on hand the glittering eye of justice.

The last thing that owls desire is to have a candle brought to

them. And in the first place,

how explain the 1500 francs which he had

received? He turned squarely

around, put a gag on his wifes mouth, and feigned

astonishment when the stolen child was mentioned to

him. He understood nothing about

it. No doubt he had grumbled for a while at having that dear

little creature taken from him so hastily.

He should have liked to keep her two or three days longer out of

tenderness that her grandfather

had come for her in the most natural way in the world.

He added the grandfather, which produced a good

effect. This was the story that Javert hit

upon when he arrived at Montremille. The

grandfather caused Jean Valjean to vanish.

Nevertheless, Javert dropped a few questions, like plummets

into Thenardier's history. Who was that

grandfather, and what was his name?

Thenardier replied with simplicity. Hes a

wealthy farmer. I saw his passport. I think its

name was Monsieur Guillermet Lambert.

Lambert is a respectable and extremely reassuring

name. Thereupon Javert returned to

Paris. Jean Valjean is certainly

dead, said he, and I am a

ninny. He had again begun to forget this

history when in the course of March

1824, he heard of a singular

personage who dwelt in the parish of St. Bendard

and who had been surnamed the mendicant. Who gives

alms. This person, the story

ran, was a man of means whose name no one knew

exactly, and who lived alone with a little girl of

eight years, who knew nothing about herself, save

that she had come from Montfermeil.

Montfermeil. That name was always

coming up and it made Javert prick up his ears.

An old beggar police spy, an ex beadle to

whom this person had given alms, added a few more

details. This gentleman of property was

very shy, never coming out except in the

evening, speaking to no one except

occasionally to the poor, and never

allowing anyone to approach him. He wore a

horrible old yellow frock coat which was worth many

millions, being all wadded with bank bills.

This piqued Javerts curiosity in a decided

manner. In order to get a close look at this

fantastic gentleman. Without alarming him, he

borrowed the Beatles outfit for a day in the place where the old spy

was in the habit of crouching every evening, whining

orsons through his nose and playing the spy

under cover of prayer. The suspected

individual did indeed approach Javert, thus

disguised, and bestow alms on him.

At that moment, Javert raised his head and the shock which Jean

Valjean received on recognizing Javert was

equal to the one received by Javert. When he thought he recognized

Jean Valjean, however, the darkness might

have misled him. Jean Valjeans death was

official. Javert cherished very

grave doubts. And when in doubt,

Javert, the man of scruples, never laid a finger on anyones

collar. He followed his man to the Gorbeau house

and got the old woman to talking, which was no difficult

matter. The old woman confirmed m the fact regarding

the coat lined with millions and narrated to him the episode of the

thousand franc Bill. She had seen it,

she had handled it. Javert hired a room

that evening. He installed himself in it. He came

and listened at the mysterious lodgers door, hoping to catch the sound

of his voice. But Jean Valjean saw his

candle through the keyhole and foiled the spy by keeping

silent. On the following day,

Jean Valjean decamped. But the noise made

by the fall of the five franc piece was noticed by the old woman

who, hearing the rattling of coins, suspected that he might be intending

to leave and made haste to warn Javert.

At night, when Jean Valjean came out, Javert was waiting

for him behind the trees of the boulevard with two men.

Javert had demanded assistance at the prefecture,

but he had not mentioned the name of the individual whom he

hoped to seize. That was his

secret and he had kept it for three.

In the first place, because the slightest indiscretion might put

Jean Valjean on the alert next,

because to lay hands on an ex convict who had made his escape

and was reputed dead on. A criminal whom justice

had formerly classed forever as among male factors.

The most dangerous sort was a magnificent

success which the old members of the parisian police would

assuredly not leave to a newcomer like Javert.

And he was afraid of being deprived of his convict.

And lastly, because Javert, being an artist,

had a taste for the unforeseen, he hated

those well heralded successes which are talked

of long in advance and have had the bloom brushed

off. He preferred to elaborate his

masterpieces in the dark and unveil them. Suddenly, at the

last, Javert had followed Jean Valjean

from tree to tree, then from corner

to corner of the street, and had not lost sight of him

for a single instant. Even at the moments

when Jean Valjean believed himself to be the most secure

javerts eye had been on him. Why

had not Javert arrested Jean Valjean?

Because he was still in doubt. It must be

remembered that at that epoch the police was not

precisely at its ease. The free press

embarrassed it. Several arbitrary

arrests denounced by the newspapers had echoed even as far

as the chambers and had rendered the prefecture

timid. Interference with individual

liberty was a grave matter. The police

agents were afraid of making a mistake. The

prefect laid the blame on them. A mistake

meant dismissal. the reader can imagine the effect which this

brief paragraph reproduced by 20

newspapers would have caused. In Paris yesterday,

an aged grandfather with white hair, a respectable

and well to do gentleman who was walking with his grandchild,

aged eight, was arrested and conducted to the

agency of the prefecture as an escaped convict.

Let us repeat, in addition, that Javert had scruples of his

own. Injunctions of his conscience were added

to the injunctions of the prefect. He was

really in doubt. Jean Valjean turned his

back on him and walked in the dark.

Sadness, uneasiness, anxiety,

depression, this fresh misfortune of being

forced to flee by night to seek a chance refuge in

Paris for Cosette and himself, the necessity of

regulating his pace to the pace of the child.

All this, without his being aware of it,

had altered Jean Valjeans walk and impressed

on its bearing such senility that the police

themselves incarnate in the person of Javert,

might and did, in fact, make a

mistake. The impossibility of approaching too

close his costume of an migr

preceptor, the declaration of thenardier,

which made a grandfather of him, and finally,

the belief in his death in prison added still

further to the uncertainty which gathered thick in Javerts

mind. For an instant it occurred to him to

make an abrupt demand for his papers. But

if the man was not Jean Valjean,

and if this man was not a good, honest old fellow

living on his income, he was probably some

merry blade, deeply and cunningly implicated in the

obscure web of parisian misdeeds, some

chief of a dangerous band who gave alms to conceal his other

talents, which was an old dodge.

He had trusty fellows, accomplices,

retreats in case of emergencies in which he

would no doubt take refuge.

All these turns which he was making through the streets seemed

to indicate that he was not a simple and honest man.

To arrest him too hastily would be to kill the hen that laid

the golden eggs. Where was the inconvenience

in waiting? Javert was very sure that he would

not escape. Thus he proceeded in

a tolerably perplexed state of mind, putting to

himself a hundred questions about this enigmatical

personage. It was only quite late in

the rue des Pontois, but thanks to the

brilliant light thrown from a dram shop, he

decidedly recognized Jean Valjean.

There are in this world two beings who give a

profound the mother who recovers her

child and the tiger who recovers its prey.

Javert gave that profound start as, soon

as he had positively recognized Jean Valjean, the

formidable convict, he perceived that there were only three

of them, and he asked for reinforcements. At the police station of the rue des

Pontois, one puts on gloves before

grasping a thorn cudgel. This

delay in the halt at the care for Roland

to consult with his agents came near, causing him to lose the

trail. He speedily divined, however, that

Jean Valjean would want to put the river between his pursuers and

himself. He bent his head and reflected like

a bloodhound who puts his nose to the ground to make sure hes on

the right scent. Javert,

with his powerful rectitude of instinct,

went straight to the bridge of Austerlitz.

A word with the toll keeper furnished with him the information which he

required. Have you seen a man with a little

girl? I made him pay two sous,

replied the toll keeper. Javert reached the

bridge in season to see Jean Valjean traverse the small

illuminated spot on the other side of the water.

Leading Cosette by the hand, he saw him

enter the rude Isham invert Saint Antoine. He

remembered the cul de sac Ginrod arranged there like a trap,

and of the sole exit of the rue droit mur into the rue

petit picpiss. He made sure of his

back burrows, as huntsmen say. He

hastily dispatched one of his agents by a roundabout way to

guard that issue, a patrol which was returning to

the arsenal post having passed him, he made a

requisition on it and caused it to accompany

him. In such games, soldiers are

aces. Moreover, the principle is

that in order to get the best of a wild boar,

one must employ the science of a venery and plenty of

dogs. These combinations having been

affected, feeling that Jean Valjean was caught between the blind

ally Genrot on the right, his agent on the left, and

himself, Javert, in the rear, he took a pinch

of snuff. Then he began the

game. He experienced one ecstatic

and infernal moment. He allowed his man to go on

ahead, knowing that he had him safe, but desirous of

postponing the moment of arrest as long as possible,

happy at the thought that he was taken and yet at seeing him

free, gloating over him with his gaze, with that

voluptuousness of the spider which allows the fly to

flutter, and of the cat which lets the mouse

run. Claws and talons

possess monstrous sensuality, the obscure

movements of the creature imprisoned in their pincers.

What a delight this strangling is.

Javert was enjoying himself. The meshes of

his net were stoutly knotted. He was sure of

success. All he had to do now was to close his

hand. Accompanied as he was,

the very idea of resistance was impossible.

However vigorous, energetic and desperate

Jean Valjean might be.

Javert advanced slowly,

sounding, searching on his way, all the nooks of the

street, like so many pockets of thieves.

When he reached the center of the web, he found the fly no longer

there. His exasperation can be

imagined. He interrogated his sentinel of the

rudroit mur and petite Picpus, that

agent who had remained imperturbably at his post, had not

seen the man passed. It sometimes

happens that a stag has lost head and horns.

That is to say, he escapes, although he has the pack on his

very heels, and the oldest huntsmen know not

what to say. Duvier,

Ligneville and espress halt short.

In a discomfiture of this sort, Artem

exclaims, it was not a stag, but a

sorcerer. Javert would have liked to utter the

same cry. His disappointment bordered

for a moment on despair and rage.

It is certain that Napoleon made mistakes during the war with

Russia, that Alexander committed blunders in the war in

India, that Caesar made mistakes in the war in

Africa, that Cyrus was at fault in the war in

Scythia, and that Javert blundered in this campaign

against Jean Valjean. He was wrong.

Perhaps in hesitating in his recognition of the ex

convict. The first glance should have

sufficed him. He was wrong in not arresting

him purely and simply in the old building.

He was wrong in not arresting him when he positively

recognized him in the rue des Pontois. He was wrong

in taking counsel with his auxiliaries in the full light of the

moon. In the kufferin Rollin

advice is certainly useful. It is a good

thing to know and to interrogate those of the dogs who

deserve confidence. But the hunter cannot

be too cautious when he is chasing uneasy animals like the

wolf and the convict.

Javert, by taking too much thought as

to how he should set the bloodhounds of the pack on the trail,

alarmed the beast by giving him wind of the dart and

so made him run. Above all, he was wrong in

that after he had picked up the Sentigan on the bridge of

Austerlitz, he played that formidable and

puerile game of keeping such a man at the end of a

thread. He thought himself stronger than he was

and believed that he could play at the game of the mouse and the

lionhead. At the same time, he

reckoned himself as too weak when he judged it necessary to

obtain reinforcement. Fatal

precaution. Waste of precious

time. Javert committed all these blunders

and nonetheless was one of the cleverest and most correct

spies that ever existed. He was

in the full force of the term, what is called a

knowing dog.

But what is there that is perfect?

Great strategists have their eclipses. The

greatest follies are often composed like the largest

ropes of a multitude of strands.

Take the cable thread by thread. Take all

the petty determining motives separately, and you can break

them one after the other. And you say, that is all there is of

it. Braid them, twist them together.

The result is enormous. It is Attila

hesitating between Martian on the east and

Valentinian on the west. It is Hannibal

tearing at Capua. It is Daunton falling

asleep at Arsisu Abbey. However

that may be, even at the moment

when he saw that Jean Valjean had escaped him,

Javert did not lose his head. Sure

that the convict who had broken his ban could not be far

off, he established sentinels.

He organized traps and ambuscades and beat

the quarter all that night. The first thing he saw

was the disorder in the street lantern whose rope had been cut,

a precious sign which, however, led him astray, since

it caused him to turn all his researches in the direction of the cul de sac.

Gin rot. In this blind alley, there

were tolerably low walls which abutted on gardens

whose bounds adjoined the immense, stretches of wasteland.

Jean Valjean evidently must have fled in that direction.

The fact is that had he

penetrated a little further in the cul de sac gen

rot, he would probably have done so and have been

lost. Javert explored these gardens

and these waste stretches as though he had been hunting for a

needle. At daybreak, he left two

intelligent men on the outlook and returned to the

prefecture of police, as much ashamed as a police spy who

had been captured by a robber might have been.

Thank you for joining bite at a time books today

while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlisle, and I

hope you come back tomorrow, for the next bite

of Le Miserable.

>> Brie Carlisle: Don'T forget to sign up for our

newsletter@biteoutimebooks.com comma. And

check out the shop. You can check out the show notes

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>> Brie Carlisle: M

take it chapter by chapter,

one at a time.

So many adventures and

mountains we can climb

take it word for word, line by

line, one bite at a time.

>> Brie Carlisle: Sadeena.