End of Part 2 - Victor and Religion

Whereas there is a conscious effort to distance the reader from the author in modernist and postmodernist works, in the work of nineteenth century authors it is often apparent that it is important who was writing and why.  There is no possibility of dismissing Hugo’s voice in Les Mis as he directly addressed readers on one of the central theme of the book, the issue of religion. So far the reader has encountered some religious figures and characters associated with religion including the Bishop and his sister and Madame Victurnien. Now, the reader is given a fuller understanding of Hugo’s philosophy.

Partly due to the old woman’s spying, partly due to Valjean’s unfortunate generosity to a beggar who is also a police informant and also to do with the Thernadiers gossiping about Valjean ‘abducting’ Cosette; Javert manages to find them, making it necessary to leave in a hurry. The excitement of the pursuit of the pair is partly hampered by Hugo’s insistence on describing parts of Paris, but is nevertheless quite a thrilling part of the book. Valjean and Cosette eventually find themselves at the convent of Petit-Picus, where Fauchelevent, a man whom Valjean previously saved, works as a gardener. Again, there is a sense that destiny or fate is at work here, that Valjean is rewarded for his saving of a man at peril of being recaptured. Also, the political situation of the time affects the narrative in that Valjean escapes Javert again as the Police Inspector fears arresting the wrong man due to the police being censured in the press for false arrests (he has trouble recognizing Valjean, who has aged considerably in a short period of time). 

Hugo goes into great detail about the convent of the Order of Perpetual Adoration and the school attached, a somewhat strict Benedictine order. There is a sense that he is careful to describe the practices due to the sense that it is shortly to become obsolete. There are already a number of nuns inhabiting the ‘little convent’ outside the main convent, who are refugees from the Revolution. At the end of Book Six Denny has appended Book Seven to the end of the book, which is understandable as it interferes somewhat with the narrative flow. Book Seven continues and expanded information about the convent and Hugo’s ideas about religion. 

Hugo had a complex relationship with religion. Having been brought up as Catholic (but never baptized) he began questioning his faith after he lost his daughter, son-in-law, uncle and cousin in a boating accident. “Grief made him doubt God’s goodness, and yet he struggled to affirm his belief,” (Algis Valiunas, ‘The Sacred Heart of Victor Hugo’, First Things, August 2007). He turned to spiritualism, firstly in an attempt to contact his daughter, but later to contact religious figures such as Moses. Like Voltaire, he considered himself a rationalist deist, with a belief in God but rejecting the Church, in particular the Catholic Church.  This is clear in the way that he views monasteries, convents and other religious orders, as a ‘leprosy’, ‘filled with the dark light of death’ (p1203), consuming valuable resources and causing impoverishment. 

He describes the Spanish convent using grotesque imagery of death and torture.  The use of the medical term ‘recrudescence [of asceticism]’ highlights the way that he considers this type of religion to be like a disease, furthered with adjectives associated with decay: ‘rancid scent’, ‘rotten fish’ and finally ‘the tenderness of corpses returning to embrace the living’ (p1205).  Yet he respects the equality of men and women living in communities and believes that ‘[T]he denial of the Infinite leads straight to nihilism’ (p1210). What he abhors is the kind of religion where men and women are cloistered away from other people. As his portrayal of the Bishop and his sister (and the way that they affect Valjean) shows, he is far from being against religion itself, only that it must be a kind of faith that can be practically demonstrated with good works, charity and mercy towards the poor, and Les Mis did inspire people (including Napoleon III) to do charitable work and to enact social legislation that affected the poor.  However, the Catholic Church took a dim view of the book and Les Mis and Notre Dame de Paris were both part of the Index Liborum Prohibitorium, a list of books banned by the Catholic Church, until 1959, probably due to the way that Hugo viewed religion and also for the portrayal of Fantine. 

In another desperate situation Valjean is almost buried alive when he is hidden in a coffin and smuggled into the convent. In the process he undergoes another spiritual re-birth, becoming Ultime Fauchelevent by disguising himself as Fauchelevent’s brother and losing his any kind of pride he was in danger of developing as Pere Madeleine. Fauchelevent is feted as a hero and Cosette attends the convent school, gaining an education and the good will of the nuns who believe she will become a nun herself because “she will be plain.” (p485). Valjean contemplates the life of a nun, comparing it to that of a prisoner, realizing that the nuns undergo a worse suffering voluntarily for the sake of their souls.