Fantine, at the sound of Javert's voice, trembled, and let go the hasp, as a detected thief lets fall the stolen article. At Madeleine's voice she turned, and from this moment, without uttering a word, without even daring to breathe freely, her eye wandered from Madeleine to Javert, and from Javert to Madeleine, according as each spoke. It was evident that Javert must have been "lifted off the hinges," as people say, when he ventured to address the sergeant as he had done, after the Mayor's request that Fantine should be set at liberty. Had he gone so far as to forget the Mayor's presence? Did he eventually declare to himself that it was impossible for "an authority" to have given such an order, and that the Mayor must certainly have said one thing for another without meaning it? Or was it that, in the presence of all the enormities he had witnessed during the last two hours, he said to himself that he must have recourse to a supreme resolution, that the little must become great, the detective be transformed into the magistrate, and that, in this prodigious extremity, order, law, morality, government, and society were personified in him, Javert? However this may be, when M. Madeleine said "I did," the Inspector of Police could be seen to turn to the Mayor, pale, cold, with blue lips, with a desperate glance, and an imperceptible tremor all over him, and--extraordinary circumstance!--to say to him, with downcast eye, but in a fierce voice,-- "Monsieur le Maire, that cannot be." "Why so?" "This creature has insulted a gentleman." "Inspector Javert," M. Madeleine replied with a conciliating and calm accent, "listen to me. You are an honest man, and I shall have no difficulty in coming to an explanation with you. The truth is as follows: I was crossing the market-place at the time you were leading this girl away; a crowd was still assembled; I inquired, and know all. The man was in the wrong, and, in common justice, ought to have been arrested instead of her." Javert objected,-- "The wretched creature has just insulted M. le Maire." "That concerns myself," M. Madeleine said; "my insult is, perhaps, my own, and I can do what I like with it." "I ask your pardon, sir; the insult does not belong to you, but to the Judicial Court." "Inspector Javert," Madeleine replied, "conscience is the highest of all courts. I have heard the woman, and know what I am doing." "And I, Monsieur le Maire, do not know what I am seeing." "In that case, be content with obeying." "I obey my duty; my duty orders that this woman should go to prison for six months." M. Madeleine answered gently,-- "Listen to this carefully; she will not go for a single day." On hearing these decided words, Javert ventured to look fixedly at the Mayor, and said to him, though still with a respectful accent,--