Jean Valjean maneuvers through the back streets of Paris like a hunted deer. He has no destination, no plan; he simply wants to throw Javert off the scent. Instead of leading him to freedom, his labyrinthine escape route brings him to a police station, where Javert picks up three allies and gives the alarm.
Valjean beats a hasty retreat and momentarily confuses his pursuers. When he reaches the Austerlitz Bridge, he is detained at the tollgate and consequently observed by the gatekeeper. He continues his headlong flight, but Cosette's exhaustion impedes his progress. Then, tragically, he is trapped. The street he is following forms a "T" with another street, terminating on the right in a dead end and barred on the left by a police lookout. Behind him, invisible but terribly present, Javert inexorably advances.
Frantically casting around for an avenue of escape, Valjean notices a vast building that might possibly serve as a refuge, but the windows are barred, the pipes rickety, the doors unyielding. In his desperation, he decides to climb the walls and miraculously finds a rope to aid him — the rope that lowers and raises the gas street-lanterns so that they can easily be lit. He cuts it, ties it around Cosette's body, takes the other end between his teeth, throws his shoes and socks over the wall, and then climbs it like a cat-burglar at the spot where the wall forms an angle with another building.
