“Yes, Mr. President, I was the first to recognize him, and I stick to it; that man is Jean Valjean, who entered at Toulon in 1796, and left in 1815.
I left a year later.
He has the air of a brute now; but it must be because age has brutalized him; he was sly at the galleys: I recognize him positively.”
“Take your seat,” said the President. “Prisoner, remain standing.”
Chenildieu was brought in, a prisoner for life, as was indicated by his red cassock and his green cap.
He was serving out his sentence at the galleys of Toulon, whence he had been brought for this case.
He was a small man of about fifty, brisk, wrinkled, frail, yellow, brazen-faced, feverish, who had a sort of sickly feebleness about all his limbs and his whole person, and an immense force in his glance.
His companions in the galleys had nicknamed him I-deny-God (Je-nie Dieu, Chenildieu).
The President addressed him in nearly the same words which he had used to Brevet.
At the moment when he reminded him of his infamy which deprived him of the right to take an oath, Chenildieu raised his head and looked the crowd in the face.
The President invited him to reflection, and asked him as he had asked Brevet, if he persisted in recognition of the prisoner.
Chenildieu burst out laughing.
“Pardieu, as if I didn’t recognize him!
We were attached to the same chain for five years.
So you are sulking, old fellow?”
“Go take your seat,” said the President.
The usher brought in Cochepaille.
He was another convict for life, who had come from the galleys, and was dressed in red, like Chenildieu, was a peasant from Lourdes, and a half-bear of the Pyrenees.
He had guarded the flocks among the mountains, and from a shepherd he had slipped into a brigand.
Cochepaille was no less savage and seemed even more stupid than the prisoner.
He was one of those wretched men whom nature has sketched out for wild beasts, and on whom society puts the finishing touches as convicts in the galleys.
The President tried to touch him with some grave and pathetic words, and asked him, as he had asked the other two, if he persisted, without hesitation or trouble, in recognizing the man who was standing before him.
“He is Jean Valjean,” said Cochepaille. “He was even called Jean-the-Screw, because he was so strong.”
Each of these affirmations from these three men, evidently sincere and in good faith, had raised in the audience a murmur of bad augury for the prisoner,—a murmur which increased and lasted longer each time that a fresh declaration was added to the proceeding.
The prisoner had listened to them, with that astounded face which was, according to the accusation, his principal means of defence; at the first, the gendarmes, his neighbors, had heard him mutter between his teeth:
“Ah, well, he’s a nice one!” after the second, he said, a little louder, with an air that was almost that of satisfaction,
“Good!” at the third, he cried,
“Famous!”
The President addressed him:—
“Have you heard, prisoner?
What have you to say?”
He replied:—
“I say,
‘Famous!’”
An uproar broke out among the audience, and was communicated to the jury; it was evident that the man was lost.
“Ushers,” said the President, “enforce silence!
I am going to sum up the arguments.”
At that moment there was a movement just beside the President; a voice was heard crying:—
“Brevet! Chenildieu! Cochepaille! look here!”
All who heard that voice were chilled, so lamentable and terrible was it; all eyes were turned to the point whence it had proceeded.
A man, placed among the privileged spectators who were seated behind the court, had just risen, had pushed open the half-door which separated the tribunal from the audience, and was standing in the middle of the hall; the President, the district-attorney, M. Bamatabois, twenty persons, recognized him, and exclaimed in concert:—
“M. Madeleine!”
CHAPTER XI—CHAMPMATHIEU MORE AND MORE ASTONISHED
It was he, in fact.
The clerk’s lamp illumined his countenance.
He held his hat in his hand; there was no disorder in his clothing; his coat was carefully buttoned; he was very pale, and he trembled slightly; his hair, which had still been gray on his arrival in Arras, was now entirely white: it had turned white during the hour he had sat there.
All heads were raised: the sensation was indescribable; there was a momentary hesitation in the audience, the voice had been so heart-rending; the man who stood there appeared so calm that they did not understand at first.
They asked themselves whether he had indeed uttered that cry; they could not believe that that tranquil man had been the one to give that terrible outcry.
This indecision only lasted a few seconds.
Even before the President and the district-attorney could utter a word, before the ushers and the gendarmes could make a gesture, the man whom all still called, at that moment, M. Madeleine, had advanced towards the witnesses Cochepaille, Brevet, and Chenildieu.