ct who have been dubbed by common consent, prowlers of the barriers;
people of equivocal face, of suspicious monologues, who present the
air of having evil minds, and who generally sleep in the daytime, which
suggests the supposition that they work by night.

These two men, standing there motionless and in conversation, in the
snow which was falling in whirlwinds, formed a group that a policeman
would surely have observed, but which Marius hardly noticed.

Still, in spite of his mournful preoccupation, he could not refrain from
saying to himself that this prowler of the barriers with whom Jondrette
was talking resembled a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias
Bigrenaille, whom Courfeyrac had once pointed out to him as a very
dangerous nocturnal roamer. This man's name the reader has learned in
the preceding book. This Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille,
figured later on in many criminal trials, and became a notorious rascal.
He was at that time only a famous rascal. To-day he exists in the state
of tradition among ruffians and assassins. He was at the head of
a school towards the end of the last reign. And in the evening, at
nightfall, at the hour when groups form and talk in whispers, he was
discussed at La Force in the Fosse-aux-Lions. One might even, in
that prison, precisely at the spot where the sewer which served the
unprecedented escape, in broad daylight, of thirty prisoners, in 1843,
passes under the culvert, read his name, PANCHAUD, audaciously carved
by his own hand on the wall of the sewer, during one of his attempts at
flight. In 1832, the police already had their eye on him, but he had not
as yet made a serious beginning.

CHAPTER XI--OFFERS OF SERVICE FROM MISERY TO WRETCHEDNESS

Marius ascended the stairs of the hovel with slow steps; at the moment
when he was about to re-enter his cell, he caught sight of the elder
Jondrette girl following him through the corridor. The very sight of
this girl was odious to him; it was she who had his five francs, it was
too late to demand them back, the cab was no longer there, the fiacre
was far away. Moreover, she would not have given them back. As for
questioning her about the residence of the persons who had just been
there, that was useless; it was evident that she did not know, since the
letter signed Fabantou had been addressed "to the benevolent gentleman
of the church of Saint-Jacquesdu-Haut-Pas."

Marius entered his room and pushed the