"Yes, sir, I was the first who recognized him, and I adhere to it. This
man is Jean Valjean, who came to Toulon in 1796 and left in 1815. I
came out a year later. He looks like a brute now, but in that case age
has brutalized him, for he was cunning at the hulks. I recognize him
positively."
"Go and sit down," said the President. "Prisoner, remain standing."
Chenildieu was next brought in, a convict for life, as was shown by his
red jacket and green cap. He was serving his time at Toulon, whence he
had been fetched for this trial. He was a little man of about fifty
years of age, quick, wrinkled, thin, yellow, bold, and feverish, who
had in all his limbs and his whole person a sort of sickly weakness,
and immense strength in his look. His mates at the galleys had surnamed
him Je-nie-Dieu. The President addressed him much as he had done
Brevet. At the moment when he reminded him that his degradation robbed
him of the right of taking an oath, Chenildieu raised his head and
looked boldly at the crowd. The President begged him to reflect, and
asked him if he still persisted in recognizing the prisoner. Chenildieu
burst into a laugh:--
"I should think I do! Why, we were fastened to the same chain for five
years! So you are sulky, old fellow?"
"Go and sit down," said the President.
The usher brought in Cochepaille. This second convict for life,
who had been fetched from the galleys and was dressed in red like
Chenildieu, was a peasant of Lourdes and a half-bear of the Pyrenees.
He had guarded sheep in the mountains, and had gradually drifted into
brigandage. Cochepaille was no less savage, and appeared even more
stupid, than the prisoner; he was one of those wretched men whom nature
has outlined as wild beasts and whom society finishes as galley-slaves.
The President tried to move him by a few grave and pathetic words, and
asked him, like the two others, whether he still persisted, without any
hesitation or trouble, in recognizing the man standing before him.
"It is Jean Valjean," said Cochepaille. "He was nicknamed Jean the
Jack, because he was so strong."
Each of the affirmations of these three men, evidently sincere and
made in good faith, had aroused in the audience a murmur of evil omen
for the prisoner,--a murmur which grew louder and more prolonged
each time that a new declaration was added to the preceding one.
The prisoner himself listened to them with that amazed face which,
according to the indictment, was his principal means of defence. At
the first the gendarmes heard him mutter between his teeth, "Well,
there's one!" after the second he said rather louder, and with an air
of satisfaction, "Good!" at the third he exclaimed, "Famous!" The
President addressed him,--
"You have heard the evidence, prisoner; have you any answer to make?"
He answered,--
"I say--famous!"
A laugh broke out in the audience and almost affected the jury. It was
plain that the man was lost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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