"I say assassination and robbery, M. le Baron, and repeat that I am alluding to recent facts. What I have to reveal to you is perfectly unknown and unpublished, and you may perhaps find in it the source of the fortune cleverly offered by Jean Valjean to Madame la Baronne. I say cleverly, for it would not be a stupid act, by a donation of that nature, to step into an honorable house, whose comforts he would share, and at the same time hide the crime, enjoy his robbery, bury his name, and create a family." "I could interrupt you here," Marius observed, "but go on." "Monsieur le Baron, I will tell you all, leaving the reward to your generosity, for the secret is worth its weight in gold. You will say to me, 'Why not apply to Jean Valjean?' For a very simple reason. I know that he has given up all his property in your favor, and I consider the combination ingenious; but he has not a halfpenny left; he would show me his empty hands, and as I want money for my voyage to La Joya, I prefer you, who have everything, to him, who has nothing. As I am rather fatigued, permit me to take a chair." Marius sat down, and made him a sign to do the same. Thénardier installed himself in an easy-chair, took up the newspapers, put them back in the parcel, and muttered as he dug his nail into the _Drapeau Blanc_, "It cost me a deal of trouble to procure this." This done, he crossed his legs, threw himself in the chair in the attitude of men who are certain of what they are stating, and then began his narrative gravely, and laying a stress on his words:-- "Monsieur le Baron, on June 6, 1832, about a year ago, and on the day of the riots, a man was in the Great Sewer of Paris, at the point where the sewer falls into the Seine between the Pont des Invalides and the Pont de Jéna." Marius hurriedly drew his chair closer to Thénardier's. Thénardier noticed this movement, and continued with the slowness of an orator who holds his hearer, and feels his adversary quivering under his words:--