On the next day Jean Valjean decamped; but the noise of the five-franc piece which he let drop was noticed by the old woman, who supposed that he was about to leave, and hastened to warn Javert. Hence, when Jean Valjean left the house at night, Javert was waiting for him behind the trees with two men. Javert had requested assistance at the Prefecture, but had not mentioned the name of the individual whom he hoped to seize. That was his secret, and he kept it for three reasons: first, because the slightest indiscretion might give Jean Valjean the alarm; secondly, because laying hands on an old escaped convict supposed to be dead, on a condemned man whom justice had already classified forever among "the malefactors of the most dangerous class," was a magnificent success, which the older policemen of Paris would certainly not leave to a new-comer like Javert,--and he was afraid lest he might be robbed of his galley-slave; lastly, because Javert, having artistic tastes, was fond of anything unexpected. He hated those successes which are deflowered by being talked of a long time beforehand, and he liked to elaborate his masterpieces in the darkness and suddenly unveil them. Javert followed Jean Valjean from tree to tree, and then from street corner to street corner, and had not once taken his eye off him; even at the moment when Jean Valjean fancied himself the safest, Javert's eye was upon him. Why did Javert not arrest him, though? Because he was still in doubt. It must be borne in mind that at this period the police were not exactly at their ease, and the free press annoyed them. A few arbitrary arrests, denounced by the newspapers, had found an echo in the Chambers, and rendered the Prefecture timid. Attacking individual liberty was a serious matter; the agents were afraid of being deceived, for the Prefect made them answerable, and a mistake was dismissal. Just imagine the effect which would have been produced in Paris by the following short paragraph reproduced by twenty papers,--"Yesterday an old white-haired grandfather, a respectable fund-holder, who was taking a walk with his granddaughter, eight years of age, was arrested and taken to the House of Detention as an escaped convict." Let us repeat also that Javert had scruples of his own; the warnings of his conscience were added to those of the Prefect, and he really doubted. Jean Valjean had his back turned to him, and was walking in the dark; sorrow, anxiety, despondency, the fresh misfortune of being compelled to fly by night and seek a chance refuge for Cosette and himself in Paris, the necessity of regulating his pace by that of a child,--all this had unconsciously changed Jean Valjean's demeanor, and imparted to him such a senility, that the very police, incarnated in Javert, might be deceived and were deceived. The impossibility of approaching close, his attire as an old émigré tutor, Thénardier's statement which made him out a grandpapa, and lastly, the belief in his death