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TO WIT, THE PLAN OF PARIS IN 1727
Three hundred paces further on, he arrived at a point where
the street forked.
It separated into two streets, which ran in a slanting line,
one to the right, and the other to the left.
Jean Valjean had before him what resembled the two branches
of a Y. Which should he choose?
He did not hesitate, but took the one on the right.
Why?
Because that to the left ran towards a suburb, that is to
say, towards inhabited regions, and the right branch towards the
open country, that is to say, towards deserted regions.
However, they no longer walked very fast.
Cosette's pace retarded Jean Valjean's.
He took her up and carried her again.
Cosette laid her head on the shoulder of the good man and
said not a word.
He turned round from time to time and looked behind him. He
took care to keep always on the dark side of the street. The street
was straight in his rear.
The first two or three times that he turned round he saw nothing;
the silence was profound, and he continued his march somewhat
reassured.
All at once, on turning round, he thought he perceived in
the portion of the street which he had just passed through, far
off in the obscurity, something which was moving.
He rushed forward precipitately rather than walked, hoping
to find some side-street, to make his escape through it, and thus
to break his scent once more.
He arrived at a wall.
This wall, however, did not absolutely prevent further progress;
it was a wall which bordered a transverse street, in which the
one he had taken ended.
Here again, he was obliged to come to a decision; should he
go to the right or to the left.
He glanced to the right.
The fragmentary lane was prolonged between buildings which
were either sheds or barns, then ended at a blind alley.
The extremity of the cul-de-sac was distinctly visible,--
a lofty white wall.
He glanced to the left.
On that side the lane was open, and about two hundred paces
further on, ran into a street of which it was the affluent.
On that side lay safety.
At the moment when Jean Valjean was meditating a turn to the
left, in an effort to reach the street which he saw at the end
of the lane, he perceived a sort of motionless, black statue at
the corner of the lane and the street towards which he was on
the point of directing his steps.
It was some one, a man, who had evidently just been posted
there, and who was barring the passage and waiting.
Jean Valjean recoiled.
The point of Paris where Jean Valjean found himself, situated
between the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and la Rapee, is one of those
which recent improvements have transformed from top to bottom,--
resulting in disfigurement according to some, and in a transfiguration
according to others.
The market-gardens, the timber-yards, and the old buildings
have been effaced.
To-day, there are brand-new, wide streets, arenas, circuses,
hippodromes, railway stations, and a prison, Mazas, there; progress,
as the reader sees, with its antidote.
Half a century ago, in that ordinary, popular tongue, which
is all compounded of traditions, which persists in calling the
Institut les Quatre-Nations, and the Opera-Comique Feydeau, the
precise spot whither Jean Valjean had arrived was called le Petit
Picpus. The Porte Saint-Jacques, the Porte Paris, the Barriere
des Sergents, the Porcherons, la Galiote, les Celestins, les Capucins,
le Mail, la Bourbe, l'Arbre de Cracovie, la Petite-Pologne--these
are the names of old Paris which survive amid the new.
The memory of the populace hovers over these relics of the
past.
Le Petit-Picpus, which, moreover, hardly ever had any existence,
and never was more than the outline of a quarter, had nearly the
monkish aspect of a Spanish town.
The roads were not much paved; the streets were not much built
up.
With the exception of the two or three streets, of which we
shall presently speak, all was wall and solitude there.
Not a shop, not a vehicle, hardly a candle lighted here and
there in the windows; all lights extinguished after ten o'clock.
Gardens, convents, timber-yards, marshes; occasional lowly dwellings
and great walls as high as the houses.
Such was this quarter in the last century.
The Revolution snubbed it soundly.
The republican government demolished and cut through it. Rubbish
shoots were established there.
Thirty years ago, this quarter was disappearing under the
erasing process of new buildings. To-day, it has been utterly
blotted out.
The Petit-Picpus, of which no existing plan has preserved
a trace, is indicated with sufficient clearness in the plan of
1727, published at Paris by Denis Thierry, Rue Saint-Jacques,
opposite the Rue du Platre; and at Lyons, by Jean Girin, Rue Merciere,
at the sign of Prudence. Petit-Picpus had, as we have just mentioned,
a Y of streets, formed by the Rue du Chemin-Vert-Saint-Antoine,
which spread out in two branches, taking on the left the name
of Little Picpus Street, and on the right the name of the Rue
Polonceau. The two limbs of the Y were connected at the apex as
by a bar; this bar was called Rue Droit-Mur. The Rue Polonceau
ended there; Rue Petit-Picpus passed on, and ascended towards
the Lenoir market. A person coming from the Seine reached the
extremity of the Rue Polonceau, and had on his right the Rue Droit-Mur,
turning abruptly at a right angle, in front of him the wall of
that street, and on his right a truncated prolongation of the
Rue Droit-Mur, which had no issue and was called the Cul-de-Sac
Genrot.
It was here that Jean Valjean stood.
As we have just said, on catching sight of that black silhouette
standing on guard at the angle of the Rue Droit-Mur and the Rue
Petit-Picpus, he recoiled.
There could be no doubt of it. That phantom was lying in wait
for him.
What was he to do?
The time for retreating was passed.
That which he had perceived in movement an instant before,
in the distant darkness, was Javert and his squad without a doubt.
Javert was probably already at the commencement of the street
at whose end Jean Valjean stood. Javert, to all appearances, was
acquainted with this little labyrinth, and had taken his precautions
by sending one of his men to guard the exit.
These surmises, which so closely resembled proofs, whirled
suddenly, like a handful of dust caught up by an unexpected gust
of wind, through Jean Valjean's mournful brain. He examined the
Cul-de-Sac Genrot; there he was cut off. He examined the Rue Petit-Picpus;
there stood a sentinel.
He saw that black form standing out in relief against the
white pavement, illuminated by the moon; to advance was to fall
into this man's hands; to retreat was to fling himself into Javert's
arms.
Jean Valjean felt himself caught, as in a net, which was slowly
contracting; he gazed heavenward in despair.
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