You exaggerate your fault.
Moreover, this is an offence which concerns me. Javert, you deserve promotion instead of degradation.
I wish you to retain your post."
Javert gazed at M. Madeleine with his candid eyes, in whose depths his not very enlightened but pure and rigid conscience seemed visible, and said in a tranquil voice:--
"Mr. Mayor, I cannot grant you that."
"I repeat," replied M. Madeleine, "that the matter concerns me."
But Javert, heeding his own thought only, continued:--
"So far as exaggeration is concerned, I am not exaggerating.
This is the way I reason:
I have suspected you unjustly.
That is nothing. It is our right to cherish suspicion, although suspicion directed above ourselves is an abuse.
But without proofs, in a fit of rage, with the object of wreaking my vengeance, I have denounced you as a convict, you, a respectable man, a mayor, a magistrate! That is serious, very serious.
I have insulted authority in your person, I, an agent of the authorities!
If one of my subordinates had done what I have done, I should have declared him unworthy of the service, and have expelled him.
Well?
Stop, Mr. Mayor; one word more. I have often been severe in the course of my life towards others. That is just.
I have done well.
Now, if I were not severe towards myself, all the justice that I have done would become injustice. Ought I to spare myself more than others?
No!
What!