Jean Valjean had been recaptured.
The reader will be grateful to us if we pass rapidly over the sad
details. We will confine ourselves to transcribing two paragraphs
published by the journals of that day, a few months after the
surprising events which had taken place at M. sur M.
These articles are rather summary. It must be remembered, that at that
epoch the _Gazette des Tribunaux_ was not yet in existence.
We borrow the first from the _Drapeau Blanc_. It bears the date of July
25, 1823.
An arrondissement of the Pas de Calais has just been the theatre of an
event quite out of the ordinary course. A man, who was a stranger in
the Department, and who bore the name of M. Madeleine, had, thanks to
the new methods, resuscitated some years ago an ancient local industry,
the manufacture of jet and of black glass trinkets. He had made his
fortune in the business, and that of the arrondissement as well, we
will admit. He had been appointed mayor, in recognition of his
services. The police discovered that M. Madeleine was no other than an
ex-convict who had broken his ban, condemned in 1796 for theft, and
named Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean has been recommitted to prison. It
appears that previous to his arrest he had succeeded in withdrawing
from the hands of M. Laffitte, a sum of over half a million which he
had lodged there, and which he had, moreover, and by perfectly
legitimate means, acquired in his business. No one has been able to
discover where Jean Valjean has concealed this money since his return
to prison at Toulon.
The second article, which enters a little more into detail, is an
extract from the _Journal de Paris_, of the same date.
A former convict, who had been liberated, named Jean Valjean, has just
appeared before the Court of Assizes of the Var, under circumstances
calculated to attract attention. This wretch had succeeded in escaping
the vigilance of the police, he had changed his name, and had succeeded
in getting himself appointed mayor of one of our small northern towns;
in this town he had established a considerable commerce. He has at last
been unmasked and arrested, thanks to the indefatigable zeal of the
public prosecutor. He had for his concubine a woman of the town, who
died of a shock at the moment of his arrest. This scoundrel, who is
endowed with Herculean strength, found means to escape; but three or
four days after his flight the police laid their hands on him once
more, in Paris itself, at the very moment when he was entering one of
those little vehicles which run between the capital and the village of
Montfermeil (Seine-et-Oise). He is said to have profited by this
interval of three or four days of liberty, to withdraw a considerable
sum deposited by him with one of our leading bankers. This sum has been
estimated at six or seven hundred thousand francs. If the indictment is
to be trusted, he has hidden it in some place known to himself alone,
and it has not been possible to lay hands on it. However that may be,
the said Jean Valjean has just been brought before the Assizes of the
Department of the Var as accused of highway robbery accompanied with
violence, about eight years ago, on the person of one of those honest
children who, as the patriarch of Ferney has said, in immortal verse,
“. . . Arrive from Savoy every year,
And who, with gentle hands, do clear
Those long canals choked up with soot.”
This bandit refused to defend himself. It was proved by the skilful and
eloquent representative of the public prosecutor, that the theft was
committed in complicity with others, and that Jean Valjean was a member
of a band of robbers in the south. Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty
and was condemned to the death penalty in consequence. This criminal
refused to lodge an appeal. The king, in his inexhaustible clemency,
has deigned to commute his penalty to that of penal servitude for life.
Jean Valjean was immediately taken to the prison at Toulon.
The reader has not forgotten that Jean Valjean had religious habits at
M. sur M. Some papers, among others the _Constitutional_, presented
this commutation as a triumph of the priestly party.
Jean Valjean changed his number in the galleys. He was called 9,430.
However, and we will mention it at once in order that we may not be
obliged to recur to the subject, the prosperity of M. sur M. vanished
with M. Madeleine; all that he had foreseen during his night of fever
and hesitation was realized; lacking him, there actually was _a soul
lacking_. After this fall, there took place at M. sur M. that
egotistical division of great existences which have fallen, that fatal
dismemberment of flourishing things which is accomplished every day,
obscurely, in the human community, and which history has noted only
once, because it occurred after the death of Alexander. Lieutenants are
crowned kings; superintendents improvise manufacturers out of
themselves. Envious rivalries arose. M. Madeleine’s vast workshops were
shut; his buildings fell to ruin, his workmen were scattered. Some of
them quitted the country, others abandoned the trade. Thenceforth,
everything was done on a small scale, instead of on a grand scale; for
lucre instead of the general good. There was no longer a centre;
everywhere there was competition and animosity. M. Madeleine had
reigned over all and directed all. No sooner had he fallen, than each
pulled things to himself; the spirit of combat succeeded to the spirit
of organization, bitterness to cordiality, hatred of one another to the
benevolence of the founder towards all; the threads which M. Madeleine
had set were tangled and broken, the methods were adulterated, the
products were debased, confidence was killed; the market diminished,
for lack of orders; salaries were reduced, the workshops stood still,
bankruptcy arrived. And then there was nothing more for the poor. All
had vanished.
The state itself perceived that some one had been crushed somewhere.
Less than four years after the judgment of the Court of Assizes
establishing the identity of Jean Valjean and M. Madeleine, for the
benefit of the galleys, the cost of collecting taxes had doubled in the
arrondissement of M. sur M.; and M. de Villèle called attention to the
fact in the rostrum, in the month of February, 1827.