For a long time Marius was neither alive nor dead. The blows to his head left him delirious with fever for weeks, and the name he repeated all night long was Cosette. Every time the weather changed, the doctor feared his wounds would turn bad. His grandfather never left his side, and all that while the old man too was neither alive nor dead.
Every day in that period, sometimes twice a day, a well-dressed gentleman with white hair called. He asked the porter how the wounded young man was doing, and left a bundle of lint for dressings. Only on 7 September did the doctor say the patient would live. Even so, because of the broken collarbone, Marius had to spend more than two months lying on a couch.
The long illness turned out to protect him. No one came looking for him as a rebel. The prefect of police had ordered doctors to report the wounded, and the order caused such public outrage that rebels who had not been taken in the fighting were never brought before a court-martial.