ell, I recognize you; do you remember, Brevet?"

He paused, hesitated for an instant, and said:--

"Do you remember the knitted suspenders with a checked pattern which you
wore in the galleys?"

Brevet gave a start of surprise, and surveyed him from head to foot with
a frightened air. He continued:--

"Chenildieu, you who conferred on yourself the name of 'Jenie-Dieu,'
your whole right shoulder bears a deep burn, because you one day laid
your shoulder against the chafing-dish full of coals, in order to efface
the three letters T. F. P., which are still visible, nevertheless;
answer, is this true?"

"It is true," said Chenildieu.

He addressed himself to Cochepaille:--

"Cochepaille, you have, near the bend in your left arm, a date stamped
in blue letters with burnt powder; the date is that of the landing of
the Emperor at Cannes, March 1, 1815; pull up your sleeve!"

Cochepaille pushed up his sleeve; all eyes were focused on him and on
his bare arm.

A gendarme held a light close to it; there was the date.

The unhappy man turned to the spectators and the judges with a smile
which still rends the hearts of all who saw it whenever they think of
it. It was a smile of triumph; it was also a smile of despair.

"You see plainly," he said, "that I am Jean Valjean."

In that chamber there were no longer either judges, accusers, nor
gendarmes; there was nothing but staring eyes and sympathizing hearts.
No one recalled any longer the part that each might be called upon
to play; the district-attorney forgot he was there for the purpose of
prosecuting, the President that he was there to preside, the counsel for
the defence that he was there to defend. It was a striking circumstance
that no question was put, that no authority intervened. The peculiarity
of sublime spectacles is, that they capture all souls and turn witnesses
into spectators. No one, probably, could have explained what he felt;
no one, probably, said to himself that he was witnessing the splendid
outburst of a grand light: all felt themselves inwardly dazzled.

It was evident that they had Jean Valjean before their eyes. That was
clear. The appearance of this man had sufficed to suffuse with light
that matter which had been so obscure but a moment previously, without
any further explanation: the whole crowd, as by a sort of electric
revelation, understood instantly and at a single glance the simple
and magnificent history of a man who was delivering h