And when he woke, he found himself dead.
This was as it should be.
"C'est L'inspector Javert... Il est mort. Par dieu!" A raspy, child-mannish, vaguely feminine voice invaded on the Late Inspector's grim perusal of the Death affair. "Wot? C'est... there's cognes in heaven? Wot rotten luck!" Another voice, younger and full of spunk. Javert thought both familiar, but he could not see much further than his hands. He was miserably damp, however that did not disturb him overmuch. In fact, one familiar with him might have called his demeanor 'relaxed', 'peaceful', even. And then, confidentially expressed sheer terror at the semblance. Even in the calm of death, the Parisian dog-tiger was formidable.
Javert experienced a prickly feeling of someone near... then a palpably hot glare of anger seared suddenly across Javert's back, causing him to quickly turn. He found no one there. The late inspector discovered himself a shade away from being profoundly disturbed. However... there had been quite a few deaths this day and the last.
In spite of the hazy void, Javert was quite certain that he was not alone. Nor did he particularly agree with the voice of the young lad-- the gamin from the barricade, he'd wager, had he been a betting man-- about this being heaven.
For you must understand, that while Javert was a paragon of Righteous Virtue and absolute Law, he had quite recently become familiar with the existence of situations absent of any sustaining order, or crammed perhaps with rules of an altogether unfamiliar sort. This struck him as being one of those sorts of places, ruled by no Rule.
Furthermore, Javert was rather aware that the manner of his death, if not the reason behind it, was hardly acceptable to the One whom he supposed was in charge of this dim region, to whom he had submitted his terrestrial resignation. He was aware of Dante in the way that you or I are aware of Andrew Lloyd Webber or Philip Quast-- to be suddenly transformed into a gnarled tree and set beside a river of tears; to wail for all eternity in a wood of fellow suicides-- this would not have surprised him in the least. Javert did not speculate overmuch upon what he waited for, he simply waited.
He was changed from what he had been-- not appreciably. His one chaotic act had resulted directly in his demise; all in all, the result (or consequence) of this chaos was acceptable to his spirit. Ultimately, Javert was incapable of change.
And ultimately, the world was incapable of him.
Something brushed darkly past the late inspector's face-- a bat or an owl, he did not know which. The haziness lightened some, suddenly, and Javert could see that a few feet away, a man lay, unmoving. Javert himself had not moved since his arrival... when? it seemed to him that he had been standing for quite some time. His bludgeon was clutched customarily under his arm. his memo pad was in his pocket. Everything seemed to be in order. Was this what he was waiting for? He was compelled to take a step or two towards the newcomer, who, he considered, might have been lying there in the shadow a good deal longer than Javert had been standing. This was not the case however. The features of the prostrate man became discernible as the late inspector approached; the latter felt his newly regained composure drop into his stomach and threaten flight. He trembled; he sighed with resignation. For he knew the man there prone upon the earth, such as it was.
As the reader has probably guessed, the man was Jean Valjean.
Jean Valjean awoke to find himself dead, and once again beneath the ambivalently shocked scrutiny of M. Javert. It is worthy to note that Jean Valjean seems to have been present at most or all of the few occasions where Javert has found himself shocked. So death imitates life, does it?
Perhaps, after a fashion. Fortuitously, at that moment, Death arrived on the scene to settle the matter.