This is what had taken place

the half-hour after midnight had just struck when M. Madeleine quitted the Hall of Assizes
in Arras. He regained his inn just in time to set out again by the mail-wagon, in which he
had engaged his place. A little before six o'clock in the morning he had arrived at M. Sur
M., and his first care had been to post a letter to M. Laffitte, then to enter the infirmary
and see Fantine.

However, he had hardly quitted the audience hall of the Court of Assizes, when the district
-attorney, recovering from his first shock, had taken the word to deplore the mad deed of
the honorable mayor of M. sur M., to declare that his convictions had not been in the least
modified by that curious incident, which would be explained thereafter, and to demand, in
the meantime, the condemnation of that Champmathieu, who was evidently the real Jean
Valjean. The district-attorney's persistence was visibly at variance with the sentiments of
every one, of the public, of the court, and of the jury. The counsel for the defence had
some difficulty in refuting this harangue and in establishing that, in consequence of the
revelations of M. Madeleine, that is to say, of the real Jean Valjean, the aspect of the
matter had been thoroughly altered, and that the jury had before their eyes now only an
innocent man. Thence the lawyer had drawn some epiphonemas, not very fresh, unfortunately,
upon judicial errors, etc., etc.; the President, in his summing up, had joined the counsel
for the defence, and in a few minutes the jury had thrown Champmathieu out of the case.

Nevertheless, the district-attorney was bent on having a Jean Valjean; and as he had no
longer Champmathieu, he took Madeleine.