On the day of June 6 a battue of the sewers was ordered, for it was
feared lest the conquered should fly to them as a refuge, and Prefect
Gisquet ordered occult Paris to be searched, while General Bugeaud
swept public Paris,--a double connected operation, which required a
double strategy of the public force, represented above by the army and
beneath by the police. Three squads of agents and sewer-men explored
the subway of Paris,--the first the right bank, the second the left
bank, and the third the Cité. The agents were armed with carbines,
bludgeons, swords, and daggers, and what was at this moment pointed at
Jean Valjean was the lantern of the round of the right bank. This round
had just inspected the winding gallery and three blind alleys which
are under the Rue du Cadran. While the lantern was moved about at the
bottom of these blind alleys, Jean Valjean in his progress came to the
entrance of the gallery, found it narrower than the main gallery, and
had not entered it. The police, on coming out of the Cadran gallery,
fancied that they could hear the sound of footsteps in the direction of
the engirdling sewer, and they were really Jean Valjean's footsteps.
The head sergeant of the round raised his lantern, and the squad began
peering into the mist in the direction whence the noise had come.
It was an indescribable moment for Jean Valjean; luckily, if he saw the
lantern well the lantern saw him badly, for it was the light and he
was the darkness. He was too far off, and blended with the blackness
of the spot, so he drew himself up against the wall and stopped.
However, he did not explain to himself what was moving behind him, want
of sleep and food and emotion having made him pass into a visionary
state. He saw a flash, and round this flash, spectres. What was it?
He did not understand. When Jean Valjean stopped the noise ceased;
the police listened and heard nothing, they looked and saw nothing,
and hence consulted together. There was at that period at that point
in the Montmartre sewer a sort of square called _de service_, which
has since been done away with, owing to the small internal lake which
the torrents of rain formed there, and the squad assembled on this
square. Jean Valjean saw them make a sort of circle, and then bull-dog
heads came together and whispered. The result of this council held by
the watch-dogs was that they were mistaken, that there had been no
noise, that there was nobody there, that it was useless to enter the
surrounding sewer, that it would be time wasted, but that they must
hasten to the St. Merry drain; for if there were anything to be done
and any "boussingot" to track, it would be there. From time to time
parties new-sole their old insults. In 1832 the word "boussingot"
formed the transition between the word "jacobin," no longer current,
and the word "demagogue," at that time almost unused, and which
has since done such excellent service. The sergeant gave orders to
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