What then! the world was dismantled from top to bottom and absolutely disconcerted! In what could men trust, when what they felt convinced of was crumbling away! What! the flaw in the cuirass of society could be formed by a magnanimous scoundrel! What! an honest servant of the law could find himself caught between two crimes,--the crime of letting a man escape and the crime of arresting him! All was not certain, then, in the orders given by the State to the official! There could be blind alleys in duty! What then? all this was real! Was it true that an ex-bandit, bowed under condemnations, could draw himself up, and end by being in the right? Was this credible? Were there, then, cases in which the law must retire before transfigured crime, and stammer its apologies? Yes, it was so! and Javert saw it, and Javert touched it! And not only could he not deny it, but he had a share in it. These were realities, and it was abominable that real facts could attain such a deformity. If facts did their duty they would restrict themselves to bring proofs of the law, for facts are sent by God. Was, then, anarchy about to descend from on high? Thus, both in the exaggeration of agony and the optical illusion of consternation, everything which might have restricted and corrected his impression faded away, and society, the human race, and the universe henceforth were contained for his eyes in a simple and hideous outline. Punishment, the thing tried, the strength due to the legislature, the decrees of sovereign courts, the magistracy, the government, prevention and repression, official wisdom, legal infallibility, the principle of authority, all the dogmas on which political and civil security, the sovereignty, justice, logic flowing from the code and public truth, were a heap of ruins, chaos. He himself, Javert, the watcher of order, incorruptibility in the service of the police, the trusty mastiff of society, conquered and hurled to the ground; and on the summit of all this ruin stood a man in a green cap, and with a glory round his brow,--such was the state of overthrow he had reached, such the frightful vision which he had in his mind. Was this endurable? No, it was a violent state, were there ever one, and there were only two ways of escaping from it: one was to go resolutely to Jean Valjean and restore to the dungeon the man of the galleys; the other--