You can conceive that this surprised me, as I fancied that I held my Jean Valjean here. I wrote to the magistrates, who sent for me, and Champmathieu was brought in." "Well?" M. Madeleine interrupted him. Javert answered with his incorruptible and sad face,-- "Monsieur le Maire, truth is truth: I am sorry, but that man is Jean Valjean: I recognized him too." M. Madeleine said in a very low voice,-- "Are you sure?" Javert burst into that sorrowful laugh which escapes from a profound conviction,-- "Oh! certain." He stood for a moment pensive, mechanically taking pinches of saw-dust out of the sprinkler in the inkstand, and added,-- "And now that I have seen the real Jean Valjean, I cannot understand how I could have believed anything else. I ask your pardon, M. le Maire." While addressing these supplicating words to the person who six weeks previously had humiliated him so deeply and bidden him leave the room, this haughty man was unconsciously full of dignity and simplicity. M. Madeleine merely answered his entreaty with the hurried question,-- "And what does this man say?" "Well, Monsieur le Maire, it is an ugly business, for if he is Jean Valjean, he is an escaped convict. Scaling a wall, breaking a branch, and stealing apples is a peccadillo with a child, an offence in a man, but a crime in a convict. It is no longer a matter for the police courts, but for the assizes; it is no longer imprisonment for a few days, but the galleys for life. And there is the matter with the Savoyard, which, I trust, will be brought up again. There is enough to settle a man, is there not? But Jean Valjean is artful, and in that I recognize him too. Any other man would find it warm; he would struggle, cry out, refuse to be Jean Valjean, and so on. He pretends though not to understand, and says, "I am Champmathieu, and I shall stick to it." He has a look of amazement, and plays the brute-beast, which is better. Oh! he is a clever scoundrel! But no matter, the proofs are ready to hand; he has been recognized by four persons, and the old scoundrel will be found guilty. He is to be tried at Arras assizes, and I have been summoned as a witness." M. Madeleine had turned round to his desk again, taken up his papers, and was quietly turning over the leaves, and busily reading and writing in turn. He now said to the Inspector,--