Part 4, Books 1-10. The Lovers Meet and There is a Riot

Part 4 opens with another of Hugo’s historic discourses, in this case the history of 1831-1832 and the end of the Bourbon Restoration, another sweeping retrospective resembling his description of the Battle of Waterloo. Again, fate is a major part of it, ‘Revolutions are not born of chance but of necessity…It happens because it had to happen.’ (p721). Louis-Philippe of Orleans is made King (in real life Hugo gets made a peer by him in 1841). It’s evidently a time of intrigue what with the secretive revolutionary societies sending out coded messages, people spying on each other, rumours and gossip, secret documents, people amassing weapons and the ABC planning for future events.

Meanwhile, Marius moves in with Courfeyrac, fearing that he will be forced to testify against Thenard, breaking his promise to his father. He anonymously sends money he can’t afford to the family, getting into debt with his friends. He’s heartbroken, confused and unemployed. In fact, he spends most of the subsequent books being generally wet and pathetic. Javert is still looking for some of the criminals after his triumph at Maison Thenardier. The criminals, in particular Brujon are busy planning something which Hugo doesn’t let us know that much about. Eponine is released. Mabeuf encounters her in his garden where she asks where Marius lives. She’s improved in beauty but is still pretty ragged and shabby.

Book 3 returns to a period before Marius fell in love with Cosette, to Valjean and Cos’s new homeand in particular how Valjean feels about her. Although they were both happy at the convent, Val fears that he will lose her if she takes the veil, so moves them both before this can happen. He is still jealous of anything and anyone that he fears will take her away from him, even though this is before she grows into her great beauty. His fears grow as she grows more beautiful and becomes a consummate clothes horse, and despite her hiding her love for Marius, Val is pretty suspicious of him. In the meantime, the former prisoner is invited to join the National Guard and he continues to remain alert against his potential discovery by the police. Following a lovely walk with Cosette, the pair of them witness a chain gang on the way to the galleys. Valjean is disturbed, but doesn’t confess to Cos despite her questions as to what it meant.

Book 4 focuses on Mabeuf and what happened to Gavroche after the incident at Maison Thenard. Gavroche witnesses Valjean saving Mabeuf from being attacked by a criminal called Montparnasse. Gavroche is impressed because it’s obvious that Valjean is much older than the criminal, and he passionately lectures him that his preference for the idle life of stealing from the defenceless rather than finding a job will subsequently lead to the much harder work of being on the treadmill; becoming works’ ‘Negro slave’ (p793). ‘Work is the law of life, and to reject it as boredom is to submit to it as torment.’ (ibid). Valjean describes working men with an almost holy reverence, whereas idleness is compared with hell. Even if the criminal is not caught, his life will still be insufferably difficult. Even just choosing to be idle is wrong and an offense to society: ‘To live in idleness on the body politic is to be useless, that is to say harmful, and it can only end in misery. Woe to those who choose to be parasites, they become vermin!’ (p795). Valjean ends up by giving him his purse, which the criminal has no compunction in accepting, having dismissed his speech. Gavroche sees his chance and pickpockets the thief whilst Montparnasse is mulling over what Valjean has said, however, far from keeping the purse for himself as his despicable parents would have done, he anonymously gives it to Mabeuf who believes that it has fallen from heaven. Gavroche is like some sort of junior Valjean, but more criminal and wily.

Having not seen Marius for a while, Cos develops a brief crush on Theodule. Valjean goes on a brief visit somewhere he doesn’t reveal to Cosette and while he is away she becomes convinced that there is an intruder. When he comes back they decide that it is a chimney stack. She also finds a mysterious stone with a notebook underneath, containing Marius’s obsessive ramblings about her. Rather than freaking out that he’s some sort of creepy stalker she decides that she doesn’t fancy Theodule that much after all, she is totally, utterly and completely in love with Marius. She meets him in the garden and is literally overcome with emotion. Throughout the episode Hugo emphasises the purity and innocence of their love, Cos knows little of love and romance having grown up in the convent and Marius has never had any experience with any other women either, however, the description does end up rather sentimental and sweet. Marius so far has to be the most irritating character in the book, he started out well with his fervent political beliefs and his determination to make it on his own, but quickly degenerated into a big weepy lovesick puppy when he first saw Cos. The description of love is definitely very characteristic of novels of this period where sentimentality can reign supreme and purity is valued above all else, particularly in the case of the women. Yet hopefully both characters will be saved by the strength developed through hardship that they have both endured.

Luckily, Book 6 moves away from the lovers back to the underworld where two of the Thenard children have been hired out to Magnon (the mother of Gillenormand’s illegitimate children) to make money from the old man after Magnon’s two children were carried off by a croup epidemic. Madame Thenard has limited resources of motherly love which is reserved for her two daughters rather than her three sons. As the boys are worth 80 francs each they are well cared for right up until the day that Magnon and her associate are both arrested and the two boys get lost. Luckily for them, Gavroche finds them (although he seems to have no awareness that they are his brothers, it’s just that Gavroche is an instinctively moral character when it comes to dealing with people who are suffering). He buys them bread and it is not just black (or prison) bread and takes them to his ‘home’. On the way he meets Montparnasse who recounts his meeting with Valjean. Gavroche is living in a large elephant statue situated outside the Bastille, which he has furnished with items he has stolen from the zoo. It’s dark, they have to sleep inside a net to prevent the rats from bothering them, but it makes a home for the resourceful Gavorche and his brothers. The items he has stolen from the zoo, for example, his bed and blanket, are all of good quality. It is as if Paris cares more about the animals or about the spectacle of the elephant statue than it cares about its poor, its homeless and its children. Gavroche takes care of the two boys in a paternal way. They are about to go to sleep when he is summoned by Montparnasse – the criminals who are involved with his parents are attempting an escape. Thenard is almost abandoned by the criminals in the process of escaping, but he lets them know that he is there and they get Gavroche to help them to rescue him. Thenard doesn’t recognise his own son, the criminals point him out.

After another one of Hugo’s digressions, this time about the criminal argot, we move on to book 8 and back to the lovers meeting. Marius puts Cos on a pedestal: ‘…physical desire is wholly subdued beneath the omnipotence of spiritual ecstasy,’ (p845). It is very over-the-top, sentimental and romanticised. Poor Eponine is sadly neglected by Marius. Cosette is better at hiding things and so Valjean doesn’t notice. The revolution is looming, Hugo has got up to 3^rd June 1832. The criminals lurk outside Val and Cos’s house, but are warned off by Eponine, who is scared of nothing and nobody, not even her horrible father, “You poor fools, you think you can frighten any woman because you’ve got soft little sluts of mistresses who cower under the bedclothes when you talk rough. But I’m not scared.” (p857).  Valjean is getting ready to leave for England in his constant hunt for security, Cos warns Marius who doesn’t take it well, but unfortunately he can’t join them as he’s been mooning so much he has no money. He seems to see Cos as some sort of possession, I suppose he has this in common with Valjean – neither man feels that they can share the girl with anybody else. He is horrified by the prospect of her leaving, although she doesn’t seem to be that bothered by it, she just invited him along. They make plans to meet a few days later and he goes to Gillenormand to plead for pity. His grandfather is 91 and had been hoping that Marius would relent and visit him, however, he’s left it a bit too late and the old man isn’t that inclined to give his blessing to the couple’s marriage (Marius has to be over 25 to marry without his guardian’s blessing), particularly as neither has any money. He advises Marius to enjoy her without marrying her, Marius storms off and the old man promptly drops dead trying to get him to come back.

Meanwhile, Valjean has been noticing that Thenard is hanging around and he is prompted by that and a mysterious message to leave. Marius sulks, Cos disappears. Somebody who sounds like Eponine directs him to the barricade, where his friends have gone.  Mabeuf hears that there is a riot.

Book 10 is set on 5^th June 1832, the day that the riot begins. Hugo opens with a mini essay about the impact of revolt. The riot begins when General Lamarque’s funeral procession is disrupted by a man with a red flag and Lamarque’s body and Lafayette are carried off by the rioters. The populace begin to arm themselves and some of the Garde Nationale are killed. The Government and the King fail to react promptly and the police start arresting great numbers of people that they have searched. Paris is in chaos and twenty seven barricades are erected.

Anyway, this seemed like a good place to stop and take stock of what had happened in part 4 so far, although I don’t think that I will be reading quite such a big chunk of the book without writing about it as I go again! I have to say, I am surprised that it's taken Hugo this long to get to the barricades, this has been a ridiculous amount of build up. I'm hoping the riot/revolution/whatever we want to call it will spur Marius onto some sort of greatness rather than being the whiny little sausage he's currently being and that we see more of Gavroche.