Part II, Book 3, Chapter 6
Which May Prove Boulatrelle’s Intelligence
Obviously, Cosette’s savior is Jean Valjean, and we now need to catch up on what he’s been up to and how he got here.
So Hugo does a little record scratch and jumps us back earlier in the day, where on Christmas Eve in Paris, a shabby but dignified man is walking down the street. He appears to be a “gentleman beggar”—his clothes are worn, but his appearance is clean and respectable, and he carries himself with a gravitas that implies he has a background of intellectual refinement. (How far you’ve come, Valjean, from being an ignorant and illiterate tree pruner!)
Now, King Louis XVIII likes to go on a spirited coach ride down the boulevard every afternoon, but this man, who is clearly not from around here, is unaware. When the streets clear in anticipation of the king’s little outing, our poor gentleman beggar is still just strolling around, which apparently makes him a very suspicious person. This is like TSA logic.
The king’s captain of the guard spots Clueless Valjean and sends a policeman after him—Valjean goes down a side street and gives the policeman the slip, and after shaking his tail he happens upon a coach about to set off from an inn, and pays full fare for the trip to Lagny (I just checked and that’s a 32-mile journey on modern roads).
When the coach stops at Chelles to rest the horses (that’s 12 miles into the journey, according to Apple Maps), Valjean hops off and disappears into the darkness, and doesn’t return for the continuation of the journey. The coachman can’t believe this guy, who looks like someone who can’t throw money around, yet pays for a long trip and peaces out one-third of the way through.
From Chelles, Valjean goes on foot toward the village of Montfermeil, hiding every time other people go by. Instead of going straight into town, he goes into the forest, where he checks a spot in between a pile of stones and a tree marked with a band, and confirms that the ground in that spot has not been disturbed.
I just have to say that these seem like pretty obvious markers to me, and I don’t know what Boulatrelle—who is name-checked in the title of this chapter—was doing, digging randomly in the forest. A pile of stones and a banded tree?? Those are OBVIOUS X-marks-the-spot signs, Bouly! Valjean, I thought you were more cunning than that!
When I first read this chapter I assumed that the title, “Which May Prove Boulatrelle’s Intelligence,” was meant to validate Boulatrelle’s hunch that Jean Valjean buried something valuable in the forest. On my second read, I’m now wondering if the title is actually a snarky little pot-shot at Boulatrelle’s inability to find a very obviously marked spot.
Anyway. On his way out of the forest, Valjean encounters Cosette struggling with her bucket. And now we’re all caught up.
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