The reader knows that Javert had returned to Montreuil-sur-Mer immediately after having given his deposition.
Javert was just getting out of bed when the messenger handed him the order of arrest and the command to produce the prisoner.
The messenger himself was a very clever member of the police, who, in two words, informed Javert of what had taken place at Arras. The order of arrest, signed by the district-attorney, was couched in these words: “Inspector Javert will apprehend the body of the Sieur Madeleine, mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer, who, in this day’s session of the court, was recognized as the liberated convict, Jean Valjean.”
Anyone who did not know Javert, and who had chanced to see him at the moment when he penetrated the antechamber of the infirmary, could have divined nothing of what had taken place, and would have thought his air the most ordinary in the world. He was cool, calm, grave, his gray hair was perfectly smooth upon his temples, and he had just mounted the stairs with his habitual deliberation. Anyone who was thoroughly acquainted with him, and who had examined him attentively at the moment, would have shuddered. The buckle of his leather stock was under his left ear instead of at the nape of his neck. This betrayed unwonted agitation.
Javert was a complete character, who never had a wrinkle in his duty or in his uniform; methodical with malefactors, rigid with the buttons of his coat.
That he should have set the buckle of his stock awry, it was indispensable that there should have taken place in him one of those emotions which may be designated as internal earthquakes.