One evening little Victor Mathis had given him five francs.

And other comrades had helped him, taken him in for a night and sent him off at the first sign of peril.

A far-spreading, tacit complicity had hitherto saved him from the police.

As for going abroad, well, he had, at one moment, thought of doing so; but a description of his person must have been circulated, the gendarmes must be waiting for him at the frontiers, and so would not flight, instead of retarding, rather hasten his arrest?
Paris, however, was an ocean; it was there that he incurred the least risk of capture.

Moreover, he no longer had sufficient energy to flee.