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It was a bitter irony, Javert thought, that his recorded date of birth should be on the feast of Saint Valentin.  He had never been a man moved by love, maternal, fraternal, romantic, nor even that general love of man that the philosophers spoke of so ardently. Then again, he thought, it was their very zealousness that seemed to be the water on the seeds of doubt, making up for lack of faith by loud protestations.

Perhaps it was the actual date of his entry into life, perhaps it was not—off by a day or two in either direction.  Paperwork in Saint-Lazare had never been the most punctual, and the least notable of a day’s occurrence would be if one of the lapins had decided to drop its whelp.  But his papers were clear, in the prison sacristy, that Javert, un enfant, male, had been delivered unto the ‘gypsy woman’ on the 14th of February, 1780.

He remembered, with shame, that when he was very young, he’d thought that the celebrations on that day were for him—such is the ego of youth, such is the center of the self.  It was a harmless confusion, and if he had a reason to thank God, it was that he’d never confided this belief to another soul.  Still, for years the thought had boiled up to the top of his consciousness as the day neared, making the day a source of hidden, secret shame to him.  

It galled him, as well, as he grew older, to share the day with such a…pagan festival.  Valentin may have been a Christian saint, but there was precious little Christianity Javert could see in the fripperies—cards decked with ribbons and lace, protestations of ardent, unspiritual love, a whoredom masked in dainty sentiments.

There is a story to be told, perhaps, of a young Javert, on the cusp of fancy, buying up such a card, and delivering it, before dawn, as a proper secret admirer…and receiving  no response, the cold spurning somehow worse than outright denial.  Young women, coquettes or not, can be cruel with their charms, wounding with a smile, killing with a frown, annihilating with what the young today call ‘a cold shoulder’, as though the young lover’s affections did not even strike ground, meteorites burning up before striking the heart.

In short, Inspector Javert had come to loathe this day, long before leaving the first flush of youth. And now, long past that early bloom, it felt only like an old pain, like a scar that ached when it rained, and nothing more.

Or so he told himself.  

He couldn’t deny the twinge of displeasure as the calendar turned, and even the first flush of crocuses and snowdrops, as spring asserted itself on the hills of Montreuil-sur-Mer. If he made any preparations for his natal day, it was simply to ensure himself a considerable workload for the day, an inspection of the jail, or the latest reports from the Assizes at Arras, something promising to fill his whole day in what he could grimly call duty.  

Montreuil-sur-Mer was a small town, despite the flush of prosperity that Monsieur Madeleine had brought with him, and the Mayor seemed to sow peace and lawfulness wherever he stepped. Without poverty, there was no theft, no desperation, no drunkenness that carried the excess of violence on its staggering shoulders.  There were still assaults—a few, and strangers and malcontents who sought to stir up trouble in the town, and found their efforts rewarded by a night on the old straw of the jail.  If it weren’t unchristian, he would wish for a murder, something to pursue, something to hone his faculties on, especially on today of all days.  

There was nothing, there was none but the usual petty list of small-town crimes, gambling and the like, the sort that prosperity and envy held in their shadows, so he’d had to content himself, in the morning, with examining the outside of the jail, the foundations, the bars, the eaves, all the possible weaknesses that might tempt a fallen soul toward escape.  

The day was fine, a warm Zephyr breeze teasing his cheeks as he walked, hands sternly folded behind his back, eyes keen up on the building.  

“Monsieur Javert.”  

The voice behind him made him start, and he whirled, half-feral, before he placed the voice. “Monsier le Maire.” He mastered his voice with effort.  There was something unsettling—uncanny—in how silently the heavyset man could move, could approach him, padding like…a thief. Yes, quite like a thief.  

“I am surprised to see you at work today.”

“Why?” Did M Madeleine honestly think that Javert—of all men—would take a holiday on St Valentin’s?  

“It is your birthday. I’d imagine you’d want—“

“I want only to be useful to the Law. On every day,” Javert said, flatly, but inside, there was something aquiver. How had M Madeleine known?  

“Ah,” M Madeleine said, with a nod. “Well, the weather, at least, is a gift for your commendable devotion to duty, Inspector.”  

He huffed, turning back to the jail’s exterior, wiggling a cornerstone that seemed—perhaps—a bit loose.  What did he care about the weather? Rain or storm, he would be at his post.  All he could want was that today would incline the more quickly toward sunset.

***

It had been a long day: the jail had been inspected, outside and in, the corners swept, bars checked in their foundations, even the small kitchen observed, a labor that had required endurance of the heat as the rough black bread was rising.  He had gone over outstanding warrants, almost lamenting at how pitiful the circuit of crime he had under his hands was: a stolen dog, and wagon borrowed and not returned, a scuffle outside a tavern.  Pitiful stuff, hardly worth his talents.  It was, in short, an entirely depressing day that the early spring’s bright sun seemed to mock.

It was with no small sense of relief that he departed his office, dusk wrapping around him like a cloak, bringing with it a sea-borne fog, as he headed to the rooms he rented above one of the three small inns the town tried to boast of. Dinner, he thought, then a patrol around the town to stretch the hours before bed.  

When he settled in his customary table in the inn’s dining room (he was nothing if not a man of customs), he’d found it had been set for two.  He’d scarce settled himself when his…guest arrived, none other than M Madeleine himself.

“I hope you don’t mind,” the Mayor said, pulling the other chair out. “It seems to me a great shame that a man should dine alone on his birthday.” He thought, of course, of the many years he had dined alone, or dined on nothing but his resentment and rags.  How well he knew the miseries of a solitary holiday!

As if he knew anything of shame, Javert thought, sourly. But he couldn’t send him away, not the Mayor.

“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering,” M Madeleine added, as the host brought forth a pair of chops, well roasted, and a bottle of wine far better than the usual plonk he drank.  “A small indulgence for the day.”

“Small indulgences lead to large ones,” Javert broke his silence.

“Ah, but a man of your character can certainly resist,” the Mayor said, raising his glass in a toast. After Javert grudgingly lifted his own, the Mayor said, “Why don’t you tell me about yourself, the man you were before Montreuil-sur-Mer.”

Exactly the kind of question Javert wanted to ask the Mayor, who kept his past wrapped in a thick mystery, demurring all inquiries, sidestepping all direct questions.  Javert was tempted to refuse, but the wine was loosening his tongue, and perhaps, he thought, he might pull an unguarded clue from the Mayor.  

So he spoke, things that were hardly secrets. He spoke about Bicetre. About Toulon, the hardened criminals there. He told stories of Brevet, the informer; of Palagrave, the infanticide;  the vile arsonist Hevroche; of all the vile and desperate acts of chained men—men who hardly deserved the title of ‘man’.

For his part, M le Maire paled at these tales, hiding his response behind a larger sip of wine, hoping the red vintage would impart the blush of health to his cheeks. In truth, the words stirred up old memories, old companions, the old Valjean.  He had been an evil man, back then, he knew, lost to hatred and darkness, as violent as all the others, callous and uncaring about anything other than his own miserable life. He’d nearly killed a man for stealing his coarse bread, he thought, even as he held a morsel of the inn’s finest white bread in his hand.  He’d assaulted for an insult.  He’d made grim calculations of what it might be worth to get one of these brutal guards alone, filled his mind with fantasies of violence which he then deemed a rough but true justice.

He had been an evil soul, there, and the guards themselves, as he heard Javert’s tales, as he saw himself again through a guard’s eyes, were touched by it, too. Well, he thought, finally, if the two of them had sunk into darkness in the galleys and quarries of Toulon, here he could try to raise Javert’s soul up, at least cast a little light on it, and see if the twisted staff of justice could perhaps grow a little straighter, maybe even flower.

Javert saw none of it: to him, the tales of Toulon were reminders of why he did what he did: some men were criminals, vile and violent, who needed to be treated harshly, reminded constantly that they were not their own masters, that they were not fit for society, for freedom.  They were brutes and thugs and it had been a sacred duty to save the streets from their crimes.

His tongue may have run a little freely, but no one had asked before, no one had shown the slightest interest, and it was a bit like a dam breaking, words beginning to trickle out, then faster, in a stream eager for release and freedom.  He no longer minded the Mayor’s presence, nor the fine chop, nor the salad, nor even the coffee at the end, his mind pulled back to a time when he’d had less status, but more purpose, when his skills were tested and not found wanting.  

“Well,” the Mayor said, when Javert’s stream of words had finally fallen silent.  “The hour is late.”

The hour was indeed late—Javert looked around and full dark had fallen, the fog close around the streetlamps outside. He rose, stiffly, automatically, bowing, thanking M le Maire for his time and thoughtfulness, taking the hint as graciously as he might.  

The Mayor departed, and Javert left, moments later, for his evening walk, stout stick tucked under his arm, the thick fog massing in glittering beads on his broad collar, the brim of his hat.  It was the cool breath of spring, carrying with it the scent of growing things, of new life, the air that brought cheer even with dreariness, a darkness that must be endured before the resurgence of spring proper, the full bloom of flowers and life.  

The weather kept the crimes of the town—if there were any—indoors; the weather and the holiday, he thought. There was no one on the streets, only a skinny cat or two patrolling outside the fishmongers, their eyes catching green fire from the streetlamps as he passed.  

He knew these streets, as was his duty. He knew every house, every window, every name and every crime that had happened in this place since the moment of his arrival.  And it gave him—God forgive him this—a swell of pride to do his duty so thoroughly, to know each man, each corner, at an instant, to know which routes a pickpocket might attempt to escape by, which routes would be avoided in heavy rain for the mud, all the details that ordinary citizens ignored.  

The hour was closing on midnight when he returned to his rooms, feeling strangely…satisfied with the day, for the first time in as long as he could remember about his birthday.  He even tipped his hat at a couple, risking the damp air, trysting chastely on a bench—today, he felt indulgent, even toward love.  

His steps echoed up to his room, the wooden stairs taking the weight of his boots, and he slipped off the damp-heavy overcoat, hanging it on its hook by the door, before he spotted the parcel on the small table in the front of his rooms he used as a desk.  It was wrapped in plain white paper, tied with a dark ribbon.  He turned it over, brow furrowing. Who would? Who might even know?  

He was never a man to endure curiosity well—it was the work of a moment to unknot the ribbon, sturdy grosgrain, and unwrap the crinkling white paper and tip into his hand….

…a watch chain, shining silver, intricate link work, the kind the jewelers of Montreuil-sur-Mer were famous for, after their jetwork.  His watch had a fob, already, but one of crude horsehair, serviceable and sturdy enough, nothing like this.  It was not showy, not immodest, for all that--the kind of watch fob a rising man might wear, one that spoke without shouting.  

Air left his lungs as though he had been struck by the head of his own stick, the chain heavy and sleek between his fingers, rich and important.  

A card fluttered from the white paper, and he stooped to snatch it before it fell, the reflexes from the guard of Toulon still sharp, still able.  

“Inspector Javert,” it read, in plain handwriting, an unadorned script, without flourish or ego, “Permit me this present to one who has taken as his object of devotion the stern mistress of the Law, for the sake and safety of the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer.”  He didn’t need to read the signature—it was M Madeleine, of course.

His mind tumbled, like a ship struck by a sideward wave, and he laid the chain on the table, backing away from it as though it might, at an instant, turn into a serpent from the Bible, a temptation.

There would be a time, not soon hereafter, in the matter of the carter Fauchelevant, when he would finger this chain with suspicion, recalling the pallor of the Mayor as he told of his days in Toulon, and a time, even later, his mind murkier than the storm-swollen Seine, when he felt the chain enough, a gift from a criminal, to weigh him down to the river’s depths.  There would be times of regret and dismay, but tonight, just for tonight, the softly gleaming silver chain made his bed—and his heart—seem a little warmer.