Javert left the parapet, and with head erect this time walked firmly toward the guard-room indicated by a lantern at one of the corners of the Place du Châtelet. On reaching it he saw through the window a policeman, and went in. The police recognize each other merely by the way in which they push open the door of a guard-room. Javert mentioned his name, showed his card to the sergeant, and sat down at the table on which a candle was burning. There were also on the table a pen, a leaden inkstand, and paper, ready for contingent reports and the records of the night patrols. This table, always completed by a straw chair, is an institution; it exists in all police offices; it is always adorned with a boxwood saucer full of sawdust, and a box of red wafers, and it is the lower stage of the official style. It is here that the State literature commences. Javert took the pen and a sheet of paper and began writing. This is what he wrote:-- "A FEW REMARKS FOR THE GOOD OF THE SERVICE. "1. I beg M. le Préfet to cast his eyes on this. "2. Prisoners when they return from examination at the magistrate's office take off their shoes and remain barefoot on the slabs while they are being searched. Some cough on re-entering prison. This entails infirmary expenses. "3. Tracking is good, with relays of agents at regular distances; but on important occasions two agents at the least should not let each other out of sight, because if for any reason one agent were to fail in his duty, the other would watch him and take his place. "4. There is no explanation why the special rules of the prison of the Madelonnettes prohibit a prisoner from having a chair, even if he pay for it. "5. At the Madelonnettes there are only two gratings to the canteen, which allows the canteen woman to let the prisoners touch her hand. "6. The prisoners called 'barkers,' who call the other prisoners to the visitors' room, demand two sous from each prisoner for crying his name distinctly. This is a robbery. "7. Ten sous are kept back from the pay of a prisoner working in the weaving room for a running thread: this is an abuse on the part of the manager, as the cloth is not the less good. "8. It is annoying that visitors to La Force are obliged to pass through the boys court in proceeding to the speaking-room of Sainte Marie Égyptienne. "9. It is certain that gendarmes are daily heard repeating, in the court-yard of the Préfecture, the examination of prisoners by the magistrates. For a gendarme, who ought to be consecrated, to repeat what he has heard in the examination room is a serious breach of duty. "10. Madame Henry is an honest woman, her canteen is very clean; but it is wrong for a woman to hold the key of the secret cells. This is not worthy of the Conciergerie of a great civilization." Javert wrote these lines in his calmest and most correct handwriting, not omitting to cross a _t_, and making the paper creak firmly beneath his pen. Under the last line he signed,--