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In the upper part of Montreuil sur Mer, the Abbey-Church of Saint-Saulve held benevolent watch over the town. This monument to the glory of the Lord had survived more destruction and calamity over the years than the rest of Montreuil combined. It was built in the twelfth century on the ruins of a destroyed monastery, and since its creation it seemed to have known nothing but misfortune. Ruined by fire and looted by insurgents, the abbey's choir and transept were torn down and its most precious relics were lost. And yet, stripped to its barest parts, it possessed an undeniable dignity.
Standing beneath the chiselled eyes of the saints that guarded the grand arched doorway, a gaunt and hollow-eyed Javert could only hope the same might be said of him. His hand drifted to his coat pocket, where a string of rosary beads curled around the folded letter from the bishop of Arras, but he did not reach within.
It was nearly noon. Javert did not enter the abbey, but he lingered, pacing the small square of cobbles beneath the arch. In his rare talkative moods, Father Madeleine liked to describe a release from suffering that could only be found through prayer. Javert had never known it himself, but the familiar rhythms of invocation brought a welcome order to his thoughts. Monseigneur Chabouillet had once confided in him that most of the faithful would be glad of even that, and this was enough to satisfy him. He offered up what he had to the church's use, and consoled himself that there was no purpose in wishing for grace that was not granted. He achieved all that his nature allowed of him and more, and he accepted that some things would always be beyond his reach.
He had been despatched to Montreuil almost three years ago, but he still bore the seal of Arras around his neck. He and Monseigneur Chabouillet exchanged letters concerning the upkeep of the town, the nature of duty and prayer, and the curious behaviour of Montreuil's solitary priest. It was the bishop who had first taken notice of the chaplain's errand boy in Toulon, and he had monitored Javert's progress ever since. Until six weeks before, Javert’s loyalty to Monseigneur Chabouillet had not interfered with his work in any way. The incident with the woman had changed that.
Javert took a backwards step, craning his neck to take in the scale of the abbey. Through the open doors, he could make out nothing but the distant glimmer of the altar and the pillars that flanked the murky interior. Some light streamed through the high, narrow windows, but not enough. He blinked. The morning sun, high in a cloudless sky, glared off the pale stone of the abbey facade, dazzling him. He adjusted the brim of his hat and shaded his eyes with the back of his hand. It was no good. He turned from the building, dashing his boots against the stone steps as he was propelled downwards.
He did not turn back, instead taking a sharp turn into an alley, hands buried in his pockets and the brim of his hat pulled low over his eyes. He passed the school and the hospital, where he turned his eyes bitterly ahead and kept on without pause. The road opened up into the market square, where he moved as a shadow with long and silent strides. Someone caught at the tail of his coat, and he turned to see a small boy, whose mischievous grin fell away when he caught sight of Javert’s expression. Javert snatched his coat from the child's hand and marched on, throat heating.
The darker alleys of Montreuil were longer and more twisted than the main roads of the town, but Javert had come to know them better and he could move more easily through them. It was not long before he came to the row of bushes that surrounded the abbey's small garden. He scowled. Of all the things this town had taught him, his capacity for treachery had been the hardest lesson. Madeleine had once laid a hand upon his shoulder and asked him - Javert, how is it that you've dedicated your life to the church but never considered taking the order yourself? The touch had not warmed as it should or burned as Javert wished it might, and Javert's stomach had churned. He had mustered his will, at last, and replied that men of his kind were not suited to the priesthood.
It is enough to serve, Javert had said, that day. And that was true enough, but it was not all. His father had been a convict and a brute - this was been plain for anyone to see - and as the boy Javert grew, he recognised those brutal qualities in himself. He had done what he might to smooth them away, but they told in his eyes and the sharpness at the edge of his mouth. He was not as other men were and would not presume to be so. Perhaps this had been his undoing. The image of a convict elevated in sacred vestments had stirred a corrupting black rage within him.
At the very least, he told himself, that danger was past. He had been wrong, and he would accept the consequences. This brought a curious relief to him, and he ascribed it thus: the priest of Montreuil sur Mer is none other than Father Madeleine. The convict Valjean will be returned to jail and the disloyal servant Javert is to be dealt with. There was a simplicity to this which soothed Javert, even at this lowest of moments.
Through the bushes, Javert could make out a shadow that may have been the hunched outline of a man's figure. His hand was out of his pocket and reaching to push a branch aside before he caught himself, and he yanked back his hand as if burned. He took a moment, and then walked the perimeter of the hedgerow until he came to the tall wooden gate and rapped on it. There was a moment's silence. Javert imagined Madeleine rousing himself from prayer or toil or study. He had witnessed all three through the gap in the branches, and Madeleine had never suspected.
‘Who's there?’ the voice sounded from behind the gate.
‘Javert,’ he replied. ‘I must speak with you. Urgently.’
A shuffling. ‘By all means, come in. The gate is open.’
The garden was small enough to make Javert's elbows itch once the gate was closed behind him. There was room for only two dozen men. Perhaps more if they were made to stand and packed tightly enough. The garden itself was little more than an untamed square of grass. It was edged with bushes reaching high enough for some privacy but not enough to keep the sunshine from warming the flowers. Madeleine knelt in a corner, his expression serene as he tended the wild bluebells, apparently at ease with the enclosed space. There had not been monks in the abbey for hundreds of years, but it occurred to Javert that, as fine a priest as Madeleine was, he would have been better suited to the cloisters of a monastery.
Perhaps this would be the best place to confess. He had no wish to be forgiven, but perhaps Madeleine himself might be more comfortable in this lush and secret place. It would be easier here, in a way. Already away from the order and structures he was to be exiled from, surrounded by beasts and plants as man once was before succumbing to temptation and his own foul nature. He would kneel among the things of the Earth and be counted among the most unworthy of creatures. And then, if Madeleine should want to take revenge- Javert imagined a large hand upon his shoulder, and then fingers working the buttons of his coat, pushing it back and away to confiscate the bishop's seal, perhaps, or else- no. No.
Madeleine's cassock was tracked with soil. His hands were rough - not from labour at the galleys, as Javert had once imagined, but from honest effort and devotion. Javert's blood sped at the sight of so good a man. In the distance, the abbey bells rang out the hour. The sun was at its highest point in the sky. Madeleine raised his head and sat back on his heels, and Javert clenched his fists at his sides. There was a dignity in what he did, he reminded himself.
‘Monsieur le Curé, I must speak with you at once.’
‘Go ahead, then, and tell me what you must.’ There was an edge to Madeleine's tone, which Javert took to be impatience. All the worse, then, that he would not be able to conduct the interview here.
‘At the abbey,’ he insisted, breath coming harsh on the last word. It was as much as he had spoken to another person since waking in the morning. ‘If you please,’ he added.
He drew back his shoulders, watching as Madeleine inclined his head and took to his feet. Madeleine moved with an agility which had surprised Javert at first, though now he knew it to be a God-given grace, and not the artfulness of a criminal. Keeping his back stiff, Javert followed Madeleine out of the garden, remaining half a pace behind as they stepped out into the town. Madeleine must have sensed the seriousness of the matter, because he allowed this without protest.
They returned by the exposed streets, and Javert did not shade his eyes from the burning sun. Madeleine stopped twice on the way to the abbey, peeling aside in the market square to exchange quiet words with a factory woman who clutched a leatherbound book. And again, to press a coin to the palm of a beggar. Javert withstood the wait as a prisoner delayed by a trifle on the road to his execution. Some local children clustered about them; Madeleine laughed - a curious breaking sound - and murmured a blessing before returning to the path. For a moment, turning back, his mouth seemed to be flattened into a tense line before he caught sight of Javert and let his expression fall slack. Javert cursed himself under his breath. It was a dangerous instinct he had cultivated, this unwholesome observation. Madeleine’s rich scent still caught at his throat, and he could no longer put a name to the quickening of his pulse.
When they passed the hospital, Madeleine bowed his head and Javert gritted his teeth but bore the sight without comment or protest. It was no matter now. The protection of the abbey was no longer his concern.
The stone facade, still harsh with the radiance of the sun, beckoned them back, and they crossed the threshold in silence. The abbey was as still and dark as it had been on the day Javert first arrived in Montrueil sur Mer, when he had sought it out as if by instinct. The two day walk from Arras had left him exhausted and unshaven and his aching limbs had carried him to the church's eventide service. Weary, but upright still, he had haunted the back of the nave and tried to see past the burning ache of his legs and the dim light. No good. All he could make out was the distant glimmer of gold on the altar. So too today - the brightness without made the gloom within murkier still, and his only option was to take his hat in his hand and glance in the direction of the wooden confessionals at the back of the church. Madeleine followed his eyes, nodded and set off, and Javert followed. He did not stumble and his limbs did not ache. The only thing an observer may have remarked upon, had they seen this solemn procession, would be that Javert's knuckles were pale on the brim of his hat.
They passed the place between two pillars, directly before the altar. Javert's eyes strayed to the floor, and for a moment he fancied he could still see the woman Fantine. She was as he remembered – her mud-splattered bodice was scarlet against her white flesh, an insult to the church and the society it protected. The howling centre of his anger was muted now, but it was not gone. He genuflected and continued in Madeleine's footprints.
The morning’s service was nearly four hours ago, but the scent of incense still lingered in the air. Madeleine turned and regarded Javert. He seemed to see well enough in the dark, though Javert could only make out the outline of shoulders that had tormented his nights. It was not decent, he had thought at first, before he had suspected. Not decent for a man of the church to be built so powerfully. And then, correcting his error, it is not decent that a servant should dare to set eyes on a man of the church. But still he had watched, and the more he watched, the more he had wondered.
Madeleine pulled back the door to his side of the confessional, but still he hesitated. In a low voice, he said, ‘Javert, you seem ill at ease. This confession you wish to make: is it to the Lord or to me?’
‘The both are one, are they not?’ Javert returned, impatient to be done. A wild part of him was almost glad to be free once and for all of Father Madeleine, his gentle voice and his powerful broad back. Taking a final bow, he stepped into the darkness and settled himself on the cushioned kneeler. The door clicked shut at his back, and he was alone.
‘Forgive me, Father,’ he began. ‘I come to report a serious transgression. I have committed the mortal sins of pride and wrath against the person of my superior, your servant: Father Madeleine.’
There was no response, but he could make out the faint intake of breath from the other side of the booth. Javert would have preferred to disappear into a void without sound or sense, only the ache in his knees and his own sincere penitence. As it was, he was glad that Madeleine did not interrupt him.
‘A sin in thought is as grave an error as a sin in deed,’ Javert continued, ‘so to confess my injury alone is not enough. The action taken - the crime itself - is no small thing, but that still leaves the months of suspicion and rebellious planning. The sinful act itself is one thing, but it is not the whole of the crime.’ He paused, passing a hand over this face. ‘Enough. Let this be the start of it, and the rest will follow: six weeks ago, after the incident with the woman in this abbey, I returned to my lodgings and composed a letter to Monseigneur Chabouillet.’
No sound came from behind the grille.
‘You may wonder what cause I had to write such a letter. I wonder as much myself. I should perhaps have asked to be returned to his service. Monseigneur, I beg to be taken away from this good man who so vexes me. But I wrote no such thing. Instead I reported my suspicion that Madeleine of Montreuil sur Mer was none other than a certain Jean Valjean. This Valjean was a galley slave I had occasion to know when I served the chaplain at Toulon - you may remember, Monsieur, I told you once that I have served in prisons for most of my life.’ He broke off. ‘My apologies, I forget myself.’
If Madeleine was angered, he was holding his peace until Javert had made his full confession to God. Javert, who made no effort to distinguish between the two, choked on the beginnings of a bitter laugh.
‘Lord almighty,’ he resumed, ‘I did not take this decision lightly, but neither did I take it in good conscience. I was unhappy – angry, in fact - with your decision to shelter a dangerous fugitive.’ The woman who forced her way into the abbey was no innocent. Witnesses had confirmed her assault on a member of the town. Even speaking the words, his stomach clenched. ‘I will not go into details,’ Javert added. ‘Suffice it to say that I was enraged by your decision, and I sent the letter in anger. I know now, as I should have known then, that I was wrong to suspect my superior.’
He sat back on his knees. ‘For these and all the sins of my past life, I ask pardon of God, penance and absolution from you, Monsieur le Curé.’ He paused. ‘And as part of my penance I must beg that you have me removed from my position at once.’
Still there was no sound from behind the grill. Javert closed his eyes. The incense burned a dry path through him, leaving his throat scratchy and his lungs burning.
At length, he made out Madeleine's voice, lower and more shaken than before.
‘This Jean Valjean. How was it that you came to take me for him?’
Javert gestured vaguely. ‘These things cannot be defined so easily. I barely knew the man - he used to sit up late at night in Toulon, the villain, hunched over some book or other. God himself could not tell you what he thought to find in the things. If I passed him, he'd look up and drive his hatred through me with only his eyes. Those eyes were all I ever saw of him. He was the type who ran - over and over, and even when he was released on parole it was not enough for him. He broke his ban in Digne. You yourself, Monsieur, have links to Digne. This was what set off my thoughts, nothing more. Your connection to the bishop. Your letters to Faverolles. Nothing of consequence.’
He paused. ‘I made enquiries. I still have connections at Toulon - it did not take much to convince them to tell me about my Jean Valjean. And I studied you. You yourself must have known the way I hounded your every step.’
There was more to it, but he hoped that would be enough. That he would not have to reveal how long he spent with his eyes on Madeleine. He had observed the man from each available angle - circling him from a distance to measure his height, the stoop of the back, the drag of a leg. He had dared to imagine ways he might contrive to see Madeleine’s cassock torn away so that Valjean's shame might be exposed. He could still see the convict's form in his mind - scarred and wrought as gnarled iron, bent beneath the torment of back-breaking labour. But now he understood that the body in his mind was not that of Father Madeleine. Madeleine would be smooth, he thought. Clothed in comfortable robes befitting his status; blissfully untouched by harsher things. It was a pleasant thought, for a moment.
It was disgraceful. He did not deserve his secrets. ‘I watched you,’ he said. ‘I watched you in your private places, and I watched you in this very church. When I served at Toulon - on those occasions when the Bishop came to say mass, that is - I made a habit of keeping one eye on the galleys at all times - my duty there was to protect the bishop from the beasts in the galleys. Here I believed I was defending a flock of sheep from a cloaked wolf. I kept you in my sight and I imagined things that I could not have seen.’ He could have sworn, on one occasion, that he had watched Madeleine turn his back to the congregation, press the Eucharist to his lips and then slip it into a palm. Impossible. ‘I spoke with your critics, for all the good it did me. Do Monsieur le Cure's hands always shake when he handles the offerings? I would ask. How is it that he has so many admirers and so few confidantes? None of the answers were satisfactory.’
The day's weariness seemed to catch up with him all at once. He lowered his head.
‘I've never been more than a servant,’ he said. ‘But I have the nature and instincts of a spy. I always knew that one day I would betray myself this way. There is no use denying it. Cast me out and have done with it. The court of Arras has its man. Leave him to his fate and me to mine.’
Through the grille, at last, a startled noise.
‘What was that?’
‘You must cast me out,’ Javert repeated.
‘No,’ Madeleine's voice was clear now, and sharp edged as it had not been since six weeks before. ‘Who is this man in Arras, what will become of him?’
‘Valjean will stand trial for breaking his parole,’ Javert replied. ‘Most likely be put to death, considering the danger he is and the trouble he's caused. You would do well to pray for him, if I may be so bold,’ he added, as an afterthought.
Through the confessional wall, Javert heard an abrupt clatter. The creak of hinges and then the sound of footsteps on stone. For a moment Javert wondered if Madeleine would walk out of the abbey and away. He raised his voice, unsure whether or not he still had an audience. ‘I am ready for my penance, Monsieur le Curé.’
No response. The footsteps outside the booth froze and then resumed without explanation. Javert tried to ignore the sound. If Madeleine needed time to consider Javert's sins, that was only to be expected. He knelt in silence and the words of familiar prayers would not come to him. The angry black space within him had split apart and widened into a shimmering greyness.
The silence continued to unbearable lengths, and still Madeleine's wrath did not come. Nor did the Lord descend in fire to scorch the abbey clean of him. Instead, this lurching instability that would not settle.
He did not know how long he waited, only that the moments stretched uninterrupted. He could not make sense of things, and so instead he knelt. His mind emptied of anger and even despair, and he did not move because he had not been given leave. His knees began to throb. The silence was filled with the howling of uncertainty. He clasped his hands together to keep them steady. He imagined his sin as livid as red marks across a face. He bent his head low before the grille. Only give me an answer, he prayed, if you are truly loving, then be merciful and make an end of me.
A click, behind him. A swathe of light across the grille. Javert twisted around to see Madeleine framed in the door to the confessional. ‘Javert, please stand,’ he said, and his voice was pained. Madeleine offered a hand to help him to his feet and Javert recoiled from the extended palm. He pushed himself up, a seasick feeling rising within him.
‘Your mistake was an insult to me only,’ Madeleine said. ‘You should not have brought it here. Say a rosary if it weighs upon your conscience, but do not worry about vengeance or restitution.’
Javert began to speak, but Madeleine raised a hand and he snapped his mouth shut, heart racing.
‘You are a good man and you have served me well,’ Madeleine told him. He pressed a cool hand to Javert's shoulder. ‘Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention.’
He stepped away from Javert, and turned towards the centre of the abbey, approaching the altar with halting steps. For a moment, Javert could do nothing but watch, insensible, as he dropped to his knees on the stone floor. A splinter of sunlight split the gloom, warming the curve of his bowed back. He bent his head over clasped hands and the silver of his hair was illuminated. Javert stood frozen, unwilling to leave Madeleine's presence but not daring to interrupt his prayer.
He tried to reconstruct his day, the following week, the month that would continue on as his months before had done. The day to day duties that he had imagined behind him: the petitions from parishioners, the records of the priest’s irresponsible finances, the repair of small accidents that were forever springing up. The protection of the abbey and the guardianship of the bishop. How could he, wanting as he was, perform these tasks now? But then, if this was still his duty, how could he abandon it?
A low and breathy sound interrupted his thoughts. Madeleine was still on his knees, and when Javert looked up, he observed the tremor that ran down the vulnerable curve of his spine. Javert shuddered and closed the distance between them with two long strides. But, finding himself at Madeleine's side beneath the great dome of the abbey, he did not know what was needed of him or what might be permitted. He stood at attention, therefore, and waited in silence.
Madeleine sat back on his knees. In the gleam of the altar, Javert could see that his face, even turned up to the light, had lost its colour.
‘Did you know,’ Madeleine murmured, low enough that Javert was forced to take a step closer. ‘This town was once a kind of sanctuary.’ The word sent a jolt through Javert, even after six weeks, but he held his tongue. Madeleine had unclasped his hands and they hung open at his sides, palms turned heavenwards.
‘This abbey was built on the ruins of a monastery. In the tenth century, the clergy in Brittany was besieged by Vikings. Landevennec Abbey was burned to the ground, its treasures seized and its graves desecrated. The surviving monks fled to Montreuil. I have read the manuscripts they left here. The descriptions of the flames are-’ his voice seemed to die in his throat. ‘Those men knew untold suffering.’
‘These monks, exiled from their home and driven south, came in search of protection and solitude. They found it. They built the town's monastery, and when it was destroyed, another was built in its place. I have thought about them often since I arrived in this town. It is a fortunate thing to find shelter and be allowed to remain.’
Javert bowed his head. Madeleine's eyes were fixed on the crucifix that hung above the altar.
‘When I came to Montreuil there was no school,’ Madeleine said, and Javert was not certain the words were for him to hear. ‘The hospital was small and wanted for funds. The people were not nourished. What was this place before I arrived?’ He flattened his palm against the flat stone and sighed. ‘There is always more to be done. We provide shelter where we can. We welcome the troubled and those in need; we do not drive them away. We correct our mistakes. What happened six weeks ago - what almost happened - you will not allow it to happen again.’
‘Monsieur,’ Javert said, controlling his tone with some difficulty, ‘you cannot equate these men of God with the criminal who-’
Madeleine did not turn his head, but his tone was grave. ‘Javert. If the lowest of the human race is granted shelter and the chance to do good, they will take it. Remember that above all else.’
The words echoed and rang against the high walls of the abbey, and Javert's protest died on his lips.
Madeleine turned to regard him, ‘Return to your work,’ he said. He stood. ‘I must make a journey tonight. And I do not know how long I will be gone.’
Javert watched as Madeleine got to his feet. And then, not fully understanding why he did it, he lifted Madeleine's hand in his own and pressed his lips to the man's scarred knuckles. Afterwards, he would not be able to explain the impulse. Madeleine watched in silence, his expression unhappy.
Javert genuflected and turned silently on his heel, his throat parched. He set his hat back on his head, and stepped into the fearful sunlight, where the clean stone of the abbey shone brighter than morning.