When we left our intrepid hero and his young lark, Cosette, they had just dropped into a space unmet explored in a frantic attempted to evade Javert and the group of soldiers and police he had conscripted in tracking them down. As they begin to take in their surroundings it doesn’t look great.
They are closed in on all sides, a building making up two of those sides, and the large wall stretching across the other two. They seem to be in a garden that stretches quite a way into the darkness and the walls beyond, but it is not a well tended garden. It is bleak and stark, and it seems to be essentially abandoned. The outbuilding whose roof they had made use of on their entry is full of small rooms, but the doors are locked. There is one room open and drafty that functions as a shed, and they end up taking some shelter there.
While they take all of this in and begin to hide they can hear the voices of Javert and the others outside. They haven’t been seen but Javert is insisting they must be trapped within the tightly encircled area outside - He asserts that there is no way they could have escaped.
These voices and their search are filling Valjean with fear and dread, but eventually they die out and he begins to hear something else - with no idea where it is coming from he can make out a beautiful chorus of angelic voices and together with Cosette they fall on their knees.
Hugo makes use of the voices of Javert and those with him hunting for Valjean held in contrast with the angelic voices singing in chorus that have no clear origin to once again establish that though this is a story playing out in a particular time and place, it is also one that is echoed in the grand themes of justice and redemption. With Cosette and Valjean on their knees, uncertain of their fate, we are once again drawn to the fact that individual acts of mercy, though vital, are not enough to overcome the twisted and broken system that continues to bear down upon them with all of it’s weight. They need something more. Here Hugo hints at that something being divine, but it is unclear what will actually happen next.