“They are chim?ras.
The confidence with which Monsieur le Baron honors me renders it my duty to tell him so.
Truth and justice before all things.
I do not like to see folks accused unjustly.
Monsieur le Baron, Jean Valjean did not rob M. Madeleine and Jean Valjean did not kill Javert.”
“This is too much!
How is this?”
“For two reasons.”
“What are they?
Speak.”
“This is the first: he did not rob M. Madeleine, because it is Jean Valjean himself who was M. Madeleine.”
“What tale are you telling me?”
“And this is the second: he did not assassinate Javert, because the person who killed Javert was Javert.”
“What do you mean to say?”
“That Javert committed suicide.”
“Prove it! prove it!” cried Marius beside himself.
Thenardier resumed, scanning his phrase after the manner of the ancient Alexandrine measure:
“Police-agent-Ja-vert-was-found-drowned-un-der-a-boat-of-the-Pont-au-Change.”
“But prove it!”
Thenardier drew from his pocket a large envelope of gray paper, which seemed to contain sheets folded in different sizes.
“I have my papers,” he said calmly. And he added:
“Monsieur le Baron, in your interests I desired to know Jean Valjean thoroughly.
I say that Jean Valjean and M. Madeleine are one and the same man, and I say that Javert had no other assassin than Javert.
If I speak, it is because I have proofs.
Not manuscript proofs—writing is suspicious, handwriting is complaisant,—but printed proofs.”
As he spoke, Thenardier extracted from the envelope two copies of newspapers, yellow, faded, and strongly saturated with tobacco.
One of these two newspapers, broken at every fold and falling into rags, seemed much older than the other.
“Two facts, two proofs,” remarked Thenardier. And he offered the two newspapers, unfolded, to Marius.
The reader is acquainted with these two papers.
One, the most ancient, a number of the Drapeau Blanc of the 25th of July, 1823, the text of which can be seen in the first volume, established the identity of M. Madeleine and Jean Valjean.
The other, a Moniteur of the 15th of June, 1832, announced the suicide of Javert, adding that it appeared from a verbal report of Javert to the prefect that, having been taken prisoner in the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, he had owed his life to the magnanimity of an insurgent who, holding him under his pistol, had fired into the air, instead of blowing out his brains.
Marius read.
He had evidence, a certain date, irrefragable proof, these two newspapers had not been printed expressly for the purpose of backing up Thenardier’s statements; the note printed in the Moniteur had been an administrative communication from the Prefecture of Police.
Marius could not doubt.
The information of the cashier-clerk had been false, and he himself had been deceived.
Jean Valjean, who had suddenly grown grand, emerged from his cloud.
Marius could not repress a cry of joy.
“Well, then this unhappy wretch is an admirable man! the whole of that fortune really belonged to him! he is Madeleine, the providence of a whole countryside! he is Jean Valjean, Javert’s savior! he is a hero! he is a saint!”
“He’s not a saint, and he’s not a hero!” said Thenardier. “He’s an assassin and a robber.” And he added, in the tone of a man who begins to feel that he possesses some authority: “Let us be calm.”
Robber, assassin—those words which Marius thought had disappeared and which returned, fell upon him like an ice-cold shower-bath.
“Again!” said he.
“Always,” ejaculated Thenardier.
“Jean Valjean did not rob Madeleine, but he is a thief. He did not kill Javert, but he is a murderer.”
“Will you speak,” retorted Marius, “of that miserable theft, committed forty years ago, and expiated, as your own newspapers prove, by a whole life of repentance, of self-abnegation and of virtue?”
“I say assassination and theft, Monsieur le Baron, and I repeat that I am speaking of actual facts.
What I have to reveal to you is absolutely unknown.
It belongs to unpublished matter.
And perhaps you will find in it the source of the fortune so skilfully presented to Madame la Baronne by Jean Valjean.
I say skilfully, because, by a gift of that nature it would not be so very unskilful to slip into an honorable house whose comforts one would then share, and, at the same stroke, to conceal one’s crime, and to enjoy one’s theft, to bury one’s name and to create for oneself a family.”
“I might interrupt you at this point,” said Marius, “but go on.”