She made no reply; she did not remove her eyes from the object which
she seemed to see. She removed one hand from his arm, and with the other
made him a sign to look behind him.

He turned, and beheld Javert.

CHAPTER III--JAVERT SATISFIED

This is what had taken place.

The half-hour after midnight had just struck when M. Madeleine quitted
the Hall of Assizes in Arras. He regained his inn just in time to set
out again by the mail-wagon, in which he had engaged his place. A little
before six o'clock in the morning he had arrived at M. sur M., and his
first care had been to post a letter to M. Laffitte, then to enter the
infirmary and see Fantine.

However, he had hardly quitted the audience hall of the Court of
Assizes, when the district-attorney, recovering from his first shock,
had taken the word to deplore the mad deed of the honorable mayor of
M. sur M., to declare that his convictions had not been in the least
modified by that curious incident, which would be explained thereafter,
and to demand, in the meantime, the condemnation of that Champmathieu,
who was evidently the real Jean Valjean. The district-attorney's
persistence was visibly at variance with the sentiments of every one, of
the public, of the court, and of the jury. The counsel for the defence
had some difficulty in refuting this harangue and in establishing that,
in consequence of the revelations of M. Madeleine, that is to say, of
the real Jean Valjean, the aspect of the matter had been thoroughly
altered, and that the jury had before their eyes now only an innocent
man. Thence the lawyer had drawn some epiphonemas, not very fresh,
unfortunately, upon judicial errors, etc., etc.; the President, in his
summing up, had joined the counsel for the defence, and in a few minutes
the jury had thrown Champmathieu out of the case.

Nevertheless, the district-attorney was bent on having a Jean Valjean;
and as he had no longer Champmathieu, he took Madeleine.

Immediately after Champmathieu had been set at liberty, the
district-attorney shut himself up with the President. They conferred "as
to the necessity of seizing the person of M. le Maire of M. sur M."
This phrase, in which there was a great deal of of, is the
district-attorney's, written with his own hand, on the minutes of his
report to the attorney-general. His first emotion having passed off, the
President did not offer many objections. Justice must, after all, take
its course. And then