The End of Les Mis

Book 5 begins with a ‘mystery’ (I say ‘mystery’, Hugo is not that great at disguising plot points, either that or I’ve read far too many Victorian novels riddled with coincidences to avoid seeing through his ploys). Boulatuelle, the Montfermeil road-mender and keen advocate of get rich schemes is still on the search for treasure (between pick-pocketing and being arrested in the Jondrette garret, only acquitted because he was too drunk to prove that he was there with criminal intent). He thinks he’s in there when he spots a man going into the woods, but is disappointed to find an empty hole at the end of the trail. Cheaters never prosper and all that. 

Meanwhile, Marius writhes in delirium, moaning the name of Cossette. Gillenormand attends him, along with a mysterious white haired gentleman (no prizes for guessing it’s Valjean).  He’s in no danger of getting arrested; the inconvenient short revolution has all been forgotten both by Paris and by Hugo. Gillenormand has gone sort of bonkers about Marius, but as usual, once he recovers all Marius cares about is blinkin’ Cossette and whether Gillenormand will let him marry her (he resolves to give up food and medicine if he will not). Luckily for him his grandfather has capitulated (in fact, has swapped personalities almost as dramatically as Javert) and realised that Cos is not what he expected. As soon as he hears that he’ll be allowed to marry Cos, Marius is all over Gillenormand like a rash, calling him ‘father’. 

Cos and Valjean visit (Val is calling himself Fauchelevent again) and all is rapturous sickly sugar sweetness, like some sort of divine candyfloss. Pity there’s no-one to be the best man, Gillernormand asks about Courfeyrac but Marius is far too rapturous to be bothered by dead friends. Gillernormand is charmed by Cossette especially when he finds out she’s worth 584,000 francs (Hugo reveals that Valjean was the owner of to Montfermeil treasure of legend) and Val invents Cos a family history along with identity papers so that she’s safe. He does reveal that he’s not her real father in the process, but as she’s all about Marius, she doesn’t pay that much attention.  Gillenormand goes all frivolous and encourages Cos to become even more of a clothes horse, dragging multiple outfits belonging to former wives and mistresses from his wardrobes.

Marius convinces himself that he didn’t see ‘Fauchelevent’ at the barricade at all, and Valjean is not about to let him know. Marius tries to find both the man who rescued him and the old scoundrel Thenard, wanting to repay them. But he can’t find either – Thenard has disappeared and Madam Thenard died in prison, off-stage. 

Book 6 opens the day of Marius and Cossette’s wedding. It’s during the Mardi Gras celebration, and Thenard and Azelma recognise Valjean on the way. Valjean leaves the wedding feast, leaving Gillernormand to make a big speech about marriage and love. It gives Hugo an opportunity to wax as lyrically as possible and we get more strange luridly prudish prose about the wedding chamber: ‘The lover is a priest, the ravished virgin a consenting, trembling virgin’. (p1139). 

Poor Valjean has a sort of breakdown. He has existed and avoided prison for the sake of Cossette, his conscious tells him it is time to ‘give himself up’, metaphorically if not literally. He confesses to Marius that he is an ex-convict and tells him his story, but only the parts of it that show him in the worst light. Although he is not strong enough to part hastily from Cossette, he ensures that Marius will discourage her from seeing him and Cossette seems to let him. Although here Marius is probably just acting as an instrument of the plot so that there can be a loving reunion later on, the fact that he tries to separate father and daughter makes me like him even less, I think because I find him such a selfish character. As long as he’s got Cossette he’s happy and never mind anybody else. Hugo tries to paint him as worthy with the whole taking command at the barricade and the poverty that he suffered before for the sake of his principals, but really he can be like Gillenormand or Javert in love – just as ridiculously inflexible and judgemental. 

Valjean starts to separate himself more from Cossette, asking her to call him Monsieur Jean and address him as vous. He eventually stops meeting her, although he forlornly still goes to stand outside her house. Marius believes Val to have stolen the money that is Cos’s inheritance, so has encouraged them to separate. Cos is just too passive to do anything other than obey Marius, although she does wonder about Valjean.

Meanwhile, her beloved adoptive father is dying alone, having aged in appearance twenty years since Cossette got married. He has the bishop’s candlesticks and the clothes he first bought Cos next to him as symbols of why he has endured. He writes a last goodbye letter to her and to her husband, explaining that he has not stolen the money that he gave her as his inheritance and tells them how he earned it. He is in despair, thinking that he will die without ever seeing her again. 

Marius receives a letter, but it is not from his father-in-law, it is from our old friend the rascal Thenard (this time he has indeed abbreviated his name, but Marius sees through this straight away). He’s offering money in exchange for a secret. Marius duly invites him over and he turns up in disguise (to be fair, the man has been sentenced to death so is probably trying to keep sort of a low profile. Well, as much as a low profile that you can when your main source of income is begging letters and being a shady crook). Hugo describes where he got his incredible outfit from, from Shady Crooks Costume Shop where you can hire outfits out to remain incognito. As we know, Thenard is well-versed in changing his identity when it suits him, so it is not going that much further to hire an outfit to go with your new name.  The costume shop owner even has a dodgy title, ‘the Changer’, which I thought would make a great idea for a modern crime drama (although prosthetics would spoil the whole thing. No, the criminals have to go around in really strange looking outfits with only really basic methods of disguising themselves like make-up and two quills up your nose) . The trouble with his outfits is that they don’t fit and they are pretty worn out, and so Thenard looks quite peculiar and Marius doesn’t recognise him at first, particularly as he’s also changed his voice. He’s as oily and obsequious as Mr. Collins in P&P, all ‘Monsieur le Baron this’ and ‘Monsieur le Baron that.’ Marius is unimpressed.

Thenard wants money, lots of money to go and settle in America with his wife (sadly dead, although he doesn’t tell Marius that) and very beautiful daughter. And it is here that the web of lies and false assumptions he’s made start to unravel, along with Marius’s false assumptions about Valjean. He starts to tell Marius that his father-in-law is an ex-convict and is infuriated that Marius already knows. He tries to blackmail vast amounts of money out of Marius for a secret about Cos, but Marius refuses, so ends up trying to sell it to him for twenty francs. Marius unmasks him, but he carries on his pretence until he is given five hundred francs. But he is on his guard in some ways as he doesn’t realise who he is or what connection he already has to Marius and his family. 

Marius is disappointed that his father owed his life to such a scoundrel, but is also curious to find out where Val’s money came from. He tells Thenard that Val robbed Monsieur Madeleine and murdered Javert. For once Thenard tells the truth, that Valjean was Madeleine and Javert killed himself and he has newspaper reports to prove it.  Marius is overjoyed, but Thenard hasn’t finished yet. He tells Marius of his encounter with Valjean in the sewer (carefully leaving out that the key holder was himself and changing the story to Valjean threatening the man to get the key). He also presents Marius with the bit of coat that he stole from him, so Marius knows the real truth of who rescued him.

Marius furiously flings lots of banknotes at him to get rid of him, at which point Thenard disappears to America with Azelma to begin a new life as a slave-trader. So, he never got his come-uppance but then he is one of the characters that you almost root for in their villainy. He’s awful, yet you admire his brazenness and ability to come out on top when all the odds are against him. And yes, he is a comic character.

And so Marius grabs his wife and sets off to see his father-in-law, whom he has completely changed his image of: ‘He was beside himself, seeing in Jean Valjean a figure of indescribable stature, supremely great and gently humble in his immensity, the convict transformed into Christ.’ (p1192). Cos has no idea what is happening, but Marius is determined to bring Valjean home to live with them. 

There is a tearful reunion and everyone forgives everyone else. Marius even admits to being a ‘graceless, pitiless clod’ (p1194). Valjean knows that he is going to die and it is quite a moving scene where Cossette describes how they will all live together happily, but Valjean is resigned to death but very grateful to God that he has seen her one last time. He remembers Cossette’s childhood and tells her who her mother is, describing her: ‘She was as rich in sorrow as you are in happiness. That is how God evens things out.’ (p1200). He dies and his face is lit up by the light from the bishop’s candlesticks, by this we are assured that Valjean is on his way to heaven to meet with the bishop, and, as Hugo tells us, his grave is still there, unadorned as he wished it, but with a poem written in chalk that has been worn away. A fitting end for a magnificent character, and a good, if tragic ending to a great book.