Javert, Inspector First Class Trivia Quiz

Answer: In Montreuil-sur-Mer, as the police-inspector.

Although many - if not all - of the movie adaptations introduce Javert in Toulon, Hugo did otherwise. Javert appears in the chapter titled "Flickers on the Horizon". He has arrived at Montreuil-sur-Mer after Valjean, but before Valjean's appointment as Mayor. It is said in the novel that he owes his appointment to the influence of the Paris Prefect.

Answer: Javert was born in prison. His mother was a gypsy, and his father was a criminal.

Victor Hugo spends only a couple of paragraphs on Javert's past. He tells us that Javert was born to a fortune-teller whose husband was in the galleys. Javert grew up in the galleys, conscious of the fact that he had only two choices of profession open to him. He could become a predator on society like his father, or a protector of society. He chose the latter.
It is rather odd that Hugo does not spend more time on Javert's heritage. As a half-gypsy, he would have experienced a certain ammount of racial prejudice in that time period.

Answer: We are never told

Javert is one of the characters in Les Miserables who is never properly introduced to us. Other characters who seem to have no first name include: Enjolras, M. Gillernormand, and many of the Amis. In much of the novel, Javert's first name appears to be 'Inspector'.

Answer: Never

Due to the musical, the impression has been built that Javert went around the streets of Montreuil-sur-Mer and Paris shouting out 24601 whenever he saw the whites of Valjean's eyes. Oddly enough, in the book Javert never calls the convict by his number.

He does call him 'tu' - a familiar term, considered disrespectful - until Valjean releases him at the barricades. The number, however, does not feature nearly so much in the novel as it does in the musical.

Answer: Javert is called to Paris and helps to re-capture Valjean.

In the novel, Valjean does not escape the clutches of the police easily. Although he manages to escape the local lock-up of Montreuil-sur-Mer (small feat for a man who had escaped Toulon five times), he was re-captured in Paris. Javert was called into Paris for the express purpose of assisting in the search for Valjean, and he performed his duties well. Valjean was sent to Brest, where he eventually faked his own death while saving a sailor. This makes considerably more sense than the frequently portrayed idea that Valjean could merely run off from Montreuil-sur-Mer without much fear of pursuit.

The relative freedom that he managed to gain was due to the fact that he was officially dead.

Answer: Two or three

This is one of the most well-spread myths about Javert. The truth is, the Inspector didn't chase Valjean for very long. He would have spent only a couple of years on the chase in total. The reason it seems to be so much longer, is due to the fact that those few years are spread out across quite a long period of time.
To break down Javert's interactions with Valjean throughout his career:
1. Javert saw Valjean frequently while in Toulon.
2. Javert was posted to Montreuil-sur-Mer, where 'Madeleine' was a wealthy factory owner, and later the Mayor.
3. Javert was called to Paris and helped to find Valjean.
4. Later, Javert went to the Gorbeau Tenements to investigate a suspicious character, and it turned out to be Valjean.
5. Javert organized a clever trap which ultimately failed to catch Valjean.
6. Javert went (about 8 years later) to the Gorbeau tenements to stop a reported crime. The victim was Valjean.
7. Javert went on a mission to the Barricades. Who should turn up? Valjean.
8. Javert chased Thenardier, who disappeared into the sewers. Javert waited. Someone appeared, and it was... you guessed it, Valjean!
Out of all those incidents only about two are actually instigated by the Inspector himself. All the rest are coincidences or plot devices.

Answer: He takes snuff, talks to himself, burns his coat-tails, and fiddles.

Ahem... Yes. I don't think the Inspector is likely to dress up as a woman somehow...
Javert allows himself one single pinch of snuff when he is pleased with himself. This is moderately infrequent.
A couple of times in the book, most especially when Javert is talking to Marius before the Gorbeau Tenements episode, he starts muttering out loud to himself.
Javert is always burning his coat-tails. He even comments on it: "Damn, I've singed my coat. They always make these infernal stoves too hot."
Javert has also been known to fiddle, sometimes at very odd moments. For instance, while requesting his dismissal in Montreuil-sur-Mer, Javert starts to fiddle with the wood shavings on Madeleine's desk.

Answer: A large-bore musket...unloaded

Javert was issued with a musket. When Gavroche un-masked him as a policeman, Gavroche claimed the gun as his own. Oddly enough, Javert was almost the indirect cause of Gavroche's death, as the gun was unloaded. Then again, seeing as Marius saved Gavroche with one of the coups de poing that Javert had given him, this seems to even things up a little.

Answer: I am the law.

Javert never said "I am the Law" in the novel. In fact, he rarely spoke in the way that one would have expected him to speak after reading Hugo's descriptions of him. Javert was frequently sardonic, and almost always informal and casual.
When returning from the Thenardiers' Inn - where he had gone to investigate the disappearance of Cosette - he said to himself : "No, Valjean is dead and I am an ass."
One of Javert's most bizarre lines is when he is adressing Madame Thenardier in the Gorbeau Tenements. She is threatening to brain him with a large paving stone, and he retorts: "You bear yourself like a man, Mistress, but I have a woman's claws." Heaven only knows what the sergents de ville thought.
Finally, Javert chases Thenardier into the sewers after the Barricade incident. Upon realising that his prey has effectively locked him out, he exclaims: "Upon my soul, a government key!" and then, ironically, "Well, well, well, well."

Answer: His world view was shattered by Valjean's mercy, and it was the only way to save Valjean from the galleys.

Javert had two reasons for his suicidal and tragic leap to his death. Firstly, his entire world-view had been shattered by Valjean's act of mercy. Javert began to realise that convicts could become good citizens, and God might have a different view of Mercy and Justice to humans.

He had based his whole life on the pursuit of right and justice as set out by the law. As his opinions were overturned, so was his whole way of living, his whole world. He couldn't handle it. Javert's less well-known second reason is quite simple.

He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Should he betray his duty and let Valjean go free? Or should he betray the man who saved his life and become a Judas? Javert had to obey his duty...unless he was dead. And he was the only person who knew of Valjean's continued existence. Effectively, he was removing from Valjean all danger of being recaptured and sent back to the galleys.