2166 Les Miserables
of Bercy, the other towards Passy, and that it is, as its name
indicates, the subterranean girdle of the Paris on the right
bank. The Grand Sewer, which is, it must be remembered,
nothing else than the old brook of Menilmontant, termi-
nates, if one ascends it, in a blind sack, that is to say, at its
ancient point of departure which was its source, at the foot
of the knoll of Menilmontant. There is no direct commu-
nication with the branch which collects the waters of Paris
beginning with the Quartier Popincourt, and which falls
into the Seine through the Amelot sewer above the ancient
Isle Louviers. This branch, which completes the collecting
sewer, is separated from it, under the Rue Menilmontant it-
self, by a pile which marks the dividing point of the waters,
between upstream and downstream. If Jean Valjean had as-
cended the gallery he would have arrived, after a thousand
efforts, and broken down with fatigue, and in an expiring
condition, in the gloom, at a wall. He would have been lost.
In case of necessity, by retracing his steps a little way,
and entering the passage of the Filles-du-Calvaire, on con-
dition that he did not hesitate at the subterranean crossing
of the Carrefour Boucherat, and by taking the corridor
Saint-Louis, then the Saint-Gilles gut on the left, then turn-
ing to the right and avoiding the Saint-Sebastian gallery, he
might have reached the Amelot sewer, and thence, provided
that he did not go astray in the sort of F which lies under
the Bastille, he might have attained the outlet on the Seine
near the Arsenal. But in order to do this, he must have been
thoroughly familiar with the enormous madrepore of the
sewer in all its ramifications and in all its openings. Now,