through an air-hole in a cellar, before which the passersby come
and go. On arriving at the window, Jean Valjean examined it.
It had no grating; it opened in the garden and was fastened,
according to the fashion of the country, only by a small pin.
He opened it; but as a rush of cold and piercing air penetrated
the room abruptly, he closed it again immediately. He scrutinized
the garden with that attentive gaze which studies rather than looks.
The garden was enclosed by a tolerably low white wall, easy to climb.
Far away, at the extremity, he perceived tops of trees, spaced at
regular intervals, which indicated that the wall separated the garden
from an avenue or lane planted with trees.

Having taken this survey, he executed a movement like that of a man
who has made up his mind, strode to his alcove, grasped his knapsack,
opened it, fumbled in it, pulled out of it something which he placed
on the bed, put his shoes into one of his pockets, shut the whole
thing up again, threw the knapsack on his shoulders, put on his cap,
drew the visor down over his eyes, felt for his cudgel, went and
placed it in the angle of the window; then returned to the bed,
and resolutely seized the object which he had deposited there.
It resembled a short bar of iron, pointed like a pike at one end.
It would have been difficult to distinguish in that darkness
for what employment that bit of iron could have been designed.
Perhaps it was a lever; possibly it was a club.

In the daytime it would have been possible to recognize it as nothing
more than a miner's candlestick. Convicts were, at that period,
sometimes employed in quarrying stone from the lofty hills which
environ Toulon, and it was not rare for them to have miners' tools at
their command. These miners' candlesticks are of massive iron,