nd that of the
Abattoir, form a square. Between these four ways, a less sagacious man
would have remained undecided. Jean Valjean selected the broadest, that
is to say, the belt-sewer. But here the question again came up--should
he descend or ascend? He thought that the situation required haste, and
that he must now gain the Seine at any risk. In other terms, he must
descend. He turned to the left.

It was well that he did so, for it is an error to suppose that the
belt-sewer has two outlets, the one in the direction of Bercy, the other
towards Passy, and that it is, as its name indicates, the subterranean
girdle of the Paris on the right bank. The Grand Sewer, which is, it
must be remembered, nothing else than the old brook of Menilmontant,
terminates, if one ascends it, in a blind sack, that is to say, at its
ancient point of departure which was its source, at the foot of the
knoll of Menilmontant. There is no direct communication with the
branch which collects the waters of Paris beginning with the Quartier
Popincourt, and which falls into the Seine through the Amelot sewer
above the ancient Isle Louviers. This branch, which completes the
collecting sewer, is separated from it, under the Rue Menilmontant
itself, by a pile which marks the dividing point of the waters, between
upstream and downstream. If Jean Valjean had ascended the gallery he
would have arrived, after a thousand efforts, and broken down with
fatigue, and in an expiring condition, in the gloom, at a wall. He would
have been lost.

In case of necessity, by retracing his steps a little way, and entering
the passage of the Filles-du-Calvaire, on condition that he did not
hesitate at the subterranean crossing of the Carrefour Boucherat, and by
taking the corridor Saint-Louis, then the Saint-Gilles gut on the left,
then turning to the right and avoiding the Saint-Sebastian gallery, he
might have reached the Amelot sewer, and thence, provided that he did
not go astray in the sort of F which lies under the Bastille, he might
have attained the outlet on the Seine near the Arsenal. But in order
to do this, he must have been thoroughly familiar with the enormous
madrepore of the sewer in all its ramifications and in all its openings.
Now, we must again insist that he knew nothing of that frightful drain
which he was traversing; and had any one asked him in what he was, he
would have answered: "In the night."

His instinct served him well. To descend was, in