ead. He thought
himself stronger than he was, and believed that he could play at the
game of the mouse and the lion. 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 none the less was one of the cleverest and most correct spies that
ever existed. He was, in the full force of the term, what is called in
venery 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
Marcian on the east and Valentinian on the west; it is Hannibal tarrying
at Capua; it is Danton falling asleep at Arcis-sur-Aube.

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
Genrot. In this blind alley there were tolerably low walls which abutted
on gardens whose bounds adjoined the immense stretches of waste land.
Jean Valjean evidently must have fled in that direction. The fact is,
that had he penetrated a little further in the Cul-de-Sac Genrot, 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.

BOOK SIXTH.--LE PETIT-PICPUS

CHAPTER I--NUMBER 62 RUE PETIT-PICPUS

Nothing, half a century ago, more resembled every other carriage gate
than the carriage gate of Number 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. This entrance,
which usually stood ajar in the most inviting fashion, permitted a
view of two things, neither of wh