rotests he was
tried as Jean Valjean, and was about to be remanded to prison--this
time for life. Unless some one cleared him he must go to the galleys.
Only Jean Valjean himself can clear the stranger. How clear him? By
confessing his identity and going himself.

In that hour the mayor's brain reeled. He retired to his inner room.
Then the tempest raged in his brain as a cyclone rages through the
trees, twisting off the branches and pulling up the roots. Must he go
back again to the galleys with their profanity and obscenity? Must he
resign his mayoralty and his wealth? Must he give up his life, so
useful and helpful, and all to save a possible year or two of life for
this old man? Were not these two young wards whom he was supporting
more than this one old wreck? Fate had decided. Let the old man go to
the galleys.

Then with muscles tense as steel, with jugular vein all swollen and
purple, Jean Valjean took the two candlesticks given him by the
Bishop, his thorn cane, the coin taken from the boy, and cast all upon
the blazing coals. Soon the flames had licked all up. Then Victor Hugo
says: "Jean Valjean heard a burst of internal laughter." What was it
in him jeering and mocking? At midnight from sheer exhaustion the
mayor slept. Dreaming, he seemed to be in a hall of justice where an
old man was being tried. There were roses in the vase, only sin had
bleached the crimson petals gray. The sunlight came through the
window, only sin had washed the color from the sunbeam and left the
golden rays ashen pale. All the people were silent. At length an
officer touched the mayor and said: "Do you know you have been dead a
long while? Your body lives, but you died when you slew your
conscience." Suddenly a voice said: "Jean Valjean, you may melt the
candlestick, burn your clothes, change your face, but God sees you."
Afterward came a second burst of internal laughter. Then the mayor
arose swiftly, took his horse, drove hard all night and reached the
distant village to enter the courtroom just as the old man was about
to be sent to the galleys. Ascending the prisoner's dock, he confessed
his identity. Victor Hugo tells us that in that hour the judge and the
lawyer saw a strange light upon the mayor's face, and felt a light
within dazzling their hearts. It was the same light that fell on the
German monk's face when before the Emperor at Worms he said: "I cannot
and will not recant!" and then boldly fronted death. Conscience
sh