" said he, and he set out to follow
them at a distance. Two things were left on his hands, an irony in
the shape of the paper signed Fantine, and a consolation, the fifteen
hundred francs.

The man led Cosette off in the direction of Livry and Bondy. He walked
slowly, with drooping head, in an attitude of reflection and sadness.
The winter had thinned out the forest, so that Thenardier did not lose
them from sight, although he kept at a good distance. The man turned
round from time to time, and looked to see if he was being followed.
All at once he caught sight of Thenardier. He plunged suddenly into
the brushwood with Cosette, where they could both hide themselves. "The
deuce!" said Thenardier, and he redoubled his pace.

The thickness of the undergrowth forced him to draw nearer to them. When
the man had reached the densest part of the thicket, he wheeled
round. It was in vain that Thenardier sought to conceal himself in the
branches; he could not prevent the man seeing him. The man cast upon him
an uneasy glance, then elevated his head and continued his course. The
inn-keeper set out again in pursuit. Thus they continued for two or
three hundred paces. All at once the man turned round once more; he saw
the inn-keeper. This time he gazed at him with so sombre an air that
Thenardier decided that it was "useless" to proceed further. Thenardier
retraced his steps.

CHAPTER XI--NUMBER 9,430 REAPPEARS, AND COSETTE WINS IT IN THE LOTTERY

Jean Valjean was not dead.

When he fell into the sea, or rather, when he threw himself into it, he
was not ironed, as we have seen. He swam under water until he reached a
vessel at anchor, to which a boat was moored. He found means of hiding
himself in this boat until night. At night he swam off again, and
reached the shore a little way from Cape Brun. There, as he did not lack
money, he procured clothing. A small country-house in the neighborhood
of Balaguier was at that time the dressing-room of escaped convicts,--a
lucrative specialty. Then Jean Valjean, like all the sorry fugitives
who are seeking to evade the vigilance of the law and social fatality,
pursued an obscure and undulating itinerary. He found his first
refuge at Pradeaux, near Beausset. Then he directed his course towards
Grand-Villard, near Briancon, in the Hautes-Alpes. It was a fumbling and
uneasy flight,--a mole's track, whose branchings are untraceable. Later
on, some trace of his passage into Ain, in the t