Exploring the Seedy Underworld

Leaving the salons of Parisian students and revolutionaries, Hugo follows Marius through desperate poverty and out into reasonable prosperity. Throughout this part of his life he behaves with dignity and charity, resembling Valjean after he has met the Bishop; accepting no charity and avoiding getting into any sort of debt. He does not seek company but stays friendly with some of the ABC Society and with Mabeuf, who is suffering from a similar level of poverty. In the course of the narrative he encounters Valjean (nicknamed ‘Monsieur Leblanc’ for his white hair) and Cosette (‘Mademoiselle Lanoire’ for her black clothes). At first, he has no interest in Cosette, she is thirteen or fourteen and not all that pretty, but six months changes everything.

Cosette grows into a beautiful young woman and Marius falls in love with her, his feelings for her replacing some of the agony he felt over his father. He becomes obsessed with her and tries to meet with her at every opportunity, which makes Valjean suspicious. Knowing very little about her, Marius finds a handkerchief embroidered with the initials U. F., and presuming it belongs to her, believes that her name is Ursula. After he finds out their address, Valjean moves them on, fearing arrest. 

It is at this point that we move into the realm of the underworld, beginning with an extended metaphor comparing the lower classes of society as a series of underground tunnels.  Hugo moves from the people suffering from the direst poverty right down into what he calls ‘the abyss’ where there is only evil.  Hugo calls them ‘half-animal, half ghost’ and tells us ‘They have two mothers, two foster-mothers, ignorance and poverty,’ (compare this to the Children of Men the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge, who are called ‘Ignorance’ and ‘Want’ in Dickens’s story A Christmas Carol). Les Mis is as much about social justice as any other Victorian novel.  Hugo describes the habits appearance and criminal activities of the Patron-Minette, a criminal gang who are supposed to be the worst in Paris. 

Again, just when it seems that Hugo is describing them in unnecessary detail, their significance to the story becomes apparent.  He uses his usual narrative technique of moving away from them then returning later on, here he returns to Marius’s viewpoint and how he discovers who the family who live next door are. After at least six months searching for Cosette he sees Valjean, re-ignites his romantic passion and picks up a package dropped by two ‘shabbily-dressed’ girls who are fleeing from the police. The package contains a number of badly written begging letters apparently written by different people yet all in the same handwriting. He dismisses it, but then one of the girls turns up at his apartment bearing another begging letter addressed to him. At first Marius is horrified that he hasn’t helped them more, but he observes the family through a spy hole and realises what they are. 

The girl is prematurely aged, missing teeth, dressed in rags. She has been used by ‘Jondrette’ to deliver begging letters, and may have worked as a prostitute as well (she is described as having the eyes of a grown woman; and her and her sister have been ‘...turned by extreme poverty into monsters at once depraved and innocent.’

Marius observes the dirty squalid house that they live in, how ‘Jondrette’ writes begging letters whilst simultaneously reviling the people he is writing to. There is no evidence that anyone does or has ever done any work, if Marius and Valjean represent respectable poverty; the ‘Jondrette’ family represent unrespectable poverty, a life of believing they deserve far more than they are getting and turning to criminal activities in order to gain money from people. It is clear that they have found someone they consider to be rich and naive enough to be conned out of plenty of money and as they are waiting ‘Jondrette’ prepares the house by wrecking some furniture and getting one of the girls to break a window, happy that she injures herself as it will make them look even more pathetic.

Valjean is the unlucky benefactor, and Marius is surprised and uneasy when he turns up with Cosette.  It is lucky for their sakes that Marius is as obsessed with Cosette, particularly as the story unfolds and he is left in the great moral quandary of causing the death of either Valjean, or the man he has sworn to his father that he will protect. It is only by a series of circumstances and a great deal of bravery on Valjean’s part that led to Valjean and Cosette escaping unharmed. 

Marius follows Cosette after they leave the Gorbeau tenement to get money for Jondrette, witnessing the villain talking to Panchard, whom Marius recognises as belonging to the underworld. Jondrette begins to recognise Valjean and Cosette, realising that he is able to blackmail the man he blames for all his subsequent misfortune. Marius naturally goes to the police to stop them, encountering Javert. Marius finds out about the plot and spies on Jondrette trying to bleed Valjean, then springing a trap to imprison him, accompanied by a number of criminals. Jondrette reveals himself to be Thenardier, almost causing Marius to faint with shock (Valjean, on the other hand, either doesn’t remember him or pretends not to). 

Throughout Valjean’s imprisonment he acts with the utmost dignity and a complete lack of fear. Hugo described how Thenardier’s eyes ‘…shone with the ignoble triumph of a weak, cruel, and cowardly nature which at last has the power to humble what it fears…’ (p682). Thenardier is at the point where he has completely convinced himself of his own lies – that he has a tavern sign that has been painted by a famous artist (David) in honour of his bravery at the Battle of Waterloo, depicting his rescue of Pontmercy. This evidence of Thenarider’s relationship to his father profoundly affects Marius. He recognises that Thenarider is a con artist and a liar, yet it is as if his father has been resurrected, and he is paralysed by the feelings that this produces. 

Because Valjean doesn’t call out for the police, Thenardier realises that he has something to hide, and to this end he demands 200,000 francs and for Valjean to write a letter summoning Cosette (not that Thenard can remember her name). He doesn’t realise that Valjean gives him a false name and a false address. Valjean is a very dangerous man to Thenardier, a man with no fear who acts like he has nothing to lose. He frightens Thernad and his fellow villains by deliberately burning himself with a red hot chisel they had prepared for the sake of scaring him into accepting their blackmail. This is an act of supreme defiance – when they are trying to remove Valjean’s power and choice he shows them that this is impossible. ‘There was no hatred in the impassive gaze he directed at Thenardier, no trace of physical agony in its serene nobility.’ With Cosette safe, nothing can touch him. 

Meanwhile, Marius is in a quandary that is only solved by the moon shining on the piece of paper Eponine wrote a message on. This is evidently another place in the novel where an element of destiny or divine intervention is at work. Marius pushes the message through the spy hole causing Thenardier and the criminals to attempt to escape, however, by now Javert has arrived on the scene.  These hardened criminals fear him. The Thenardiers attempt to defend themselves to no avail, but Valjean manages to escape, earning Javert’s respect. He is, as Javert puts it, the best of the lot. The book closes with a brief glimpse of the Thenardier’s unfortunate son. This was a really exciting, gripping part of the novel, with the reader having no idea if Valjean was going to be able to escape, if Cosette was going to be held hostage or what Marius would do with his moral quandary.