Four dormer-windows protected by bars could be seen in it, and they
were the windows of Bel Air; and a chimney passed through the roof,
which was the chimney of the sleeping-wards. Bel Air, the attic-floor
of the Bâtiment Neuf, was a species of large hall, closed with triple
gratings and iron-lined doors, starred with enormous nails. When you
entered by the north end, you had on your left the four dormers, and
on your right facing these, four square and spacious cages, separated
by narrow passages, built up to breast-height of masonry, and the rest
to the roof of iron bars. Thénardier had been confined in solitary
punishment since the night of February 3. It was never discovered
how, or by what connivance, he succeeded in procuring and concealing
a bottle of that prepared wine, invented, so it is said, by Desrues,
in which a narcotic is mixed, and which the band of the Endormeurs
rendered celebrated. There are in many prisons treacherous turnkeys,
half jailers, half robbers, who assist in escapes, sell to the police a
faithless domesticity, and "make the handle of the salad-basket dance."
On this very night, then, when little Gavroche picked up the two
straying children, Brujon and Gueulemer, who knew that Babet, who had
escaped that same morning, was waiting for them in the street with
Montparnasse, gently rose, and began breaking open with a nail which
Brujon had found the stove-pipe against which their beds were. The
rubbish fell on Brujon's bed, so that it was not heard; and the gusts
of wind mingled with the thunder shook the doors on their hinges, and
produced a frightful and hideous row in the prison. Those prisoners who
awoke pretended to fall asleep again, and left Brujon and Gueulemer to
do as they pleased; and Brujon was skilful, and Gueulemer was vigorous.
Before any sound had reached the watchman sleeping in the grated cell
which looked into the ward, the wall was broken through, the chimney
escaladed, the iron trellis-work which closed the upper opening of the
flue forced, and the two formidable bandits were on the roof. The rain
and the wind were tremendous, and the roof was slippery.
"What a fine sorgue [night] for a bolt!" said Brujon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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