634 Les Miserables
evening: they did not even find the body.
On the following day the Toulon newspaper printed
these lines:—
‘Nov. 17, 1823. Yesterday, a convict belonging to the
detachment on board of the Orion, on his return from
rendering assistance to a sailor, fell into the sea and was
drowned. The body has not yet been found; it is supposed
that it is entangled among the piles of the Arsenal point:
this man was committed under the number 9,430, and his
name was Jean Valjean.’