He took the shortest cut to the Seine, reached the Quai des Ormes, skirted the quay, passed the Greve, and halted at some distance from the post of the Place du Chatelet, at the angle of the Pont Notre-Dame. There, between the Notre-Dame and the Pont au Change on the one hand, and the Quai de la Megisserie and the Quai aux Fleurs on the other, the Seine forms a sort of square lake, traversed by a rapid. - Javert derailed
This is aprox where Javert would have jumped, I took this picture standing on the (new) Pont au Change, on my left was the Palais de la Justice, on my right the Quai de la Megisserie and somewhere behind me Notre-Dame. The water looks nothing like Hugo describes it- either because he added some dramatic whirls or because the original bridges had a different design. (most likely both)
[I’ll post a few more Paris pics during the next days, just block the tag Paris if you don’t want to see them]