Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER II—EMBRYONIC FORMATION OF CRIMES IN THE INCUBATION OF PRISONS
1752 words | Chapter 308
Javert’s triumph in the Gorbeau hovel seemed complete, but had not been
so.
In the first place, and this constituted the principal anxiety, Javert
had not taken the prisoner prisoner. The assassinated man who flees is
more suspicious than the assassin, and it is probable that this
personage, who had been so precious a capture for the ruffians, would
be no less fine a prize for the authorities.
And then, Montparnasse had escaped Javert.
Another opportunity of laying hands on that “devil’s dandy” must be
waited for. Montparnasse had, in fact, encountered Éponine as she stood
on the watch under the trees of the boulevard, and had led her off,
preferring to play Nemorin with the daughter rather than Schinderhannes
with the father. It was well that he did so. He was free. As for
Éponine, Javert had caused her to be seized; a mediocre consolation.
Éponine had joined Azelma at Les Madelonettes.
And finally, on the way from the Gorbeau house to La Force, one of the
principal prisoners, Claquesous, had been lost. It was not known how
this had been effected, the police agents and the sergeants “could not
understand it at all.” He had converted himself into vapor, he had
slipped through the handcuffs, he had trickled through the crevices of
the carriage, the fiacre was cracked, and he had fled; all that they
were able to say was, that on arriving at the prison, there was no
Claquesous. Either the fairies or the police had had a hand in it. Had
Claquesous melted into the shadows like a snow-flake in water? Had
there been unavowed connivance of the police agents? Did this man
belong to the double enigma of order and disorder? Was he concentric
with infraction and repression? Had this sphinx his fore paws in crime
and his hind paws in authority? Javert did not accept such
comminations, and would have bristled up against such compromises; but
his squad included other inspectors besides himself, who were more
initiated than he, perhaps, although they were his subordinates in the
secrets of the Prefecture, and Claquesous had been such a villain that
he might make a very good agent. It is an excellent thing for
ruffianism and an admirable thing for the police to be on such intimate
juggling terms with the night. These double-edged rascals do exist.
However that may be, Claquesous had gone astray and was not found
again. Javert appeared to be more irritated than amazed at this.
As for Marius, “that booby of a lawyer,” who had probably become
frightened, and whose name Javert had forgotten, Javert attached very
little importance to him. Moreover, a lawyer can be hunted up at any
time. But was he a lawyer after all?
The investigation had begun.
The magistrate had thought it advisable not to put one of these men of
the band of Patron Minette in close confinement, in the hope that he
would chatter. This man was Brujon, the long-haired man of the Rue du
Petit-Banquier. He had been let loose in the Charlemagne courtyard, and
the eyes of the watchers were fixed on him.
This name of Brujon is one of the souvenirs of La Force. In that
hideous courtyard, called the court of the Bâtiment-Neuf (New
Building), which the administration called the court Saint-Bernard, and
which the robbers called the Fosse-aux-Lions (The Lion’s Ditch), on
that wall covered with scales and leprosy, which rose on the left to a
level with the roofs, near an old door of rusty iron which led to the
ancient chapel of the ducal residence of La Force, then turned in a
dormitory for ruffians, there could still be seen, twelve years ago, a
sort of fortress roughly carved in the stone with a nail, and beneath
it this signature:—
BRUJON, 1811.
The Brujon of 1811 was the father of the Brujon of 1832.
The latter, of whom the reader caught but a glimpse at the Gorbeau
house, was a very cunning and very adroit young spark, with a
bewildered and plaintive air. It was in consequence of this plaintive
air that the magistrate had released him, thinking him more useful in
the Charlemagne yard than in close confinement.
Robbers do not interrupt their profession because they are in the hands
of justice. They do not let themselves be put out by such a trifle as
that. To be in prison for one crime is no reason for not beginning on
another crime. They are artists, who have one picture in the salon, and
who toil, nonetheless, on a new work in their studios.
Brujon seemed to be stupefied by prison. He could sometimes be seen
standing by the hour together in front of the sutler’s window in the
Charlemagne yard, staring like an idiot at the sordid list of prices
which began with: _garlic_, 62 _centimes_, and ended with: _cigar_, 5
_centimes_. Or he passed his time in trembling, chattering his teeth,
saying that he had a fever, and inquiring whether one of the eight and
twenty beds in the fever ward was vacant.
All at once, towards the end of February, 1832, it was discovered that
Brujon, that somnolent fellow, had had three different commissions
executed by the errand-men of the establishment, not under his own
name, but in the name of three of his comrades; and they had cost him
in all fifty sous, an exorbitant outlay which attracted the attention
of the prison corporal.
Inquiries were instituted, and on consulting the tariff of commissions
posted in the convict’s parlor, it was learned that the fifty sous
could be analyzed as follows: three commissions; one to the Panthéon,
ten sous; one to Val-de-Grâce, fifteen sous; and one to the Barrière de
Grenelle, twenty-five sous. This last was the dearest of the whole
tariff. Now, at the Panthéon, at the Val-de-Grâce, and at the Barrière
de Grenelle were situated the domiciles of the three very redoubtable
prowlers of the barriers, Kruideniers, alias Bizarro, Glorieux, an
ex-convict, and Barre-Carosse, upon whom the attention of the police
was directed by this incident. It was thought that these men were
members of Patron Minette; two of those leaders, Babet and Gueulemer,
had been captured. It was supposed that the messages, which had been
addressed, not to houses, but to people who were waiting for them in
the street, must have contained information with regard to some crime
that had been plotted. They were in possession of other indications;
they laid hand on the three prowlers, and supposed that they had
circumvented some one or other of Brujon’s machinations.
About a week after these measures had been taken, one night, as the
superintendent of the watch, who had been inspecting the lower
dormitory in the Bâtiment-Neuf, was about to drop his chestnut in the
box—this was the means adopted to make sure that the watchmen performed
their duties punctually; every hour a chestnut must be dropped into all
the boxes nailed to the doors of the dormitories—a watchman looked
through the peep-hole of the dormitory and beheld Brujon sitting on his
bed and writing something by the light of the hall-lamp. The guardian
entered, Brujon was put in a solitary cell for a month, but they were
not able to seize what he had written. The police learned nothing
further about it.
What is certain is, that on the following morning, a “postilion” was
flung from the Charlemagne yard into the Lions’ Ditch, over the
five-story building which separated the two court-yards.
What prisoners call a “postilion” is a pallet of bread artistically
moulded, which is sent _into Ireland_, that is to say, over the roofs
of a prison, from one courtyard to another. Etymology: over England;
from one land to another; _into Ireland_. This little pellet falls in
the yard. The man who picks it up opens it and finds in it a note
addressed to some prisoner in that yard. If it is a prisoner who finds
the treasure, he forwards the note to its destination; if it is a
keeper, or one of the prisoners secretly sold who are called _sheep_ in
prisons and _foxes_ in the galleys, the note is taken to the office and
handed over to the police.
On this occasion, the postilion reached its address, although the
person to whom it was addressed was, at that moment, in solitary
confinement. This person was no other than Babet, one of the four heads
of Patron Minette.
The postilion contained a roll of paper on which only these two lines
were written:—
“Babet. There is an affair in the Rue Plumet. A gate on a garden.”
This is what Brujon had written the night before.
In spite of male and female searchers, Babet managed to pass the note
on from La Force to the Salpêtrière, to a “good friend” whom he had and
who was shut up there. This woman in turn transmitted the note to
another woman of her acquaintance, a certain Magnon, who was strongly
suspected by the police, though not yet arrested. This Magnon, whose
name the reader has already seen, had relations with the Thénardier,
which will be described in detail later on, and she could, by going to
see Éponine, serve as a bridge between the Salpêtrière and Les
Madelonettes.
It happened, that at precisely that moment, as proofs were wanting in
the investigation directed against Thénardier in the matter of his
daughters, Éponine and Azelma were released. When Éponine came out,
Magnon, who was watching the gate of the Madelonettes, handed her
Brujon’s note to Babet, charging her to look into the matter.
Éponine went to the Rue Plumet, recognized the gate and the garden,
observed the house, spied, lurked, and, a few days later, brought to
Magnon, who delivers in the Rue Clocheperce, a biscuit, which Magnon
transmitted to Babet’s mistress in the Salpêtrière. A biscuit, in the
shady symbolism of prisons, signifies: Nothing to be done.
So that in less than a week from that time, as Brujon and Babet met in
the circle of La Force, the one on his way to the examination, the
other on his way from it:—
“Well?” asked Brujon, “the Rue P.?”
“Biscuit,” replied Babet. Thus did the fœtus of crime engendered by
Brujon in La Force miscarry.
This miscarriage had its consequences, however, which were perfectly
distinct from Brujon’s programme. The reader will see what they were.
Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite
another.
Reading Tips
Use arrow keys to navigate
Press 'N' for next chapter
Press 'P' for previous chapter