The June Rebellion

Meanwhile, Cos and Valjean prepare to head to England where they can hide away from his past and the dreaded Revolution, which is undoubtedly doing nothing for anyone who is relatively prosperous or ‘Bourgeois’.  Not that Hugo has described any of this from the point of view of say the owner of the Corinth tavern, who has had his or her property invaded and destroyed by a bunch of over-enthusiastic student protestors, street urchins, an imprisoned police officer and a few dead bodies. Nor has Valjean in fact noticed that there is a revolution going on around him, he’s too busy mooning over Cos (in a fatherly way of course). 

But, horror of horrors! He examines her blotter and discovers the message she wrote telling Marius where she’s going. He completely over-reacts and suffers some sort of ‘spiritual collapse’ (p975). Having had nothing or no-one to love in his entire life, he has become completely fixated on her and cannot comprehend sharing her with anyone. He develops a sort of a hatred for Marius (albeit the sort of hatred that entails him heading to the barricade to save Marius’s life). He goes out and encounters Gavroche, who is smashing street lamps, and there is a lovely little scene between him and Valjean where the old man tries to give him a five franc piece out of charity, but Gavroche doesn’t want to accept it as he fears that Valjean is trying to bribe him to stop smashing the lamps. Five francs is an enormous sum to the urchin and he spends some time admiring it as some sort of museum piece until Valjean gets him to take it. Gavroche  gives him Marius’s letter then rushes back to the barricade, feeling slightly guilty he’s given the letter to a random rather than the person he was supposed to give it to. 

They both head to the barricade, Valjean dressed in his National Guarde uniform. The old man is triumphant Marius is about to die, then gloomy again (I think he knows in his heart nothing is ever going to be the same as far as he’s concerned and probably deep down realises that he’s being horrible to Marius, even though Marius is hardly a worthy suitor).

On the way back Gavroche ‘borrows’ a hand-card and causes chaos after he smashes it into a sergeant in the course of escaping. Hugo thus amusingly explains the legend of ‘Night attack on the post of Imprimerie Royale.’

Part five opens with another lecture on the revolution and on the barricades. Marius and the rest of the revolutionaries rebuild the barricades and there is a sense of relief, a kind of barracks humour before the main ‘battle’. Again, Hugo anchors the narrative in history, this time with Feiully carving “Long live the people!” on the beam in the tavern, which is apparently still there in 1848. The narrator compares the barricade to ‘a ship in distress’ (p995). Enjorlas realises that they are significantly outnumbered, having been abandoned by most of their supporters, and that they will probably all die. He argues that the men with families who will be missed should withdraw from the battle (as if they don’t look after their women, their women will be unable to support themselves and will be forced to turn to prostitution and their babies will end up on the streets), and five men are forcibly ‘volunteered’ to withdraw. He urges them not to be ‘egoists’, although Hugo points out that he is one himself.

  

Hugo returns to his maritime metaphors describing Marius’s feelings: ‘the depths of despair’, ‘his own personal shipwreck’ and ‘deeply sunk’ (p1000).

However, there are only four uniforms (of National Guarde) that will enable the non-egoists to escape. Luckily, Val turns up at exactly the right time and flings his own uniform onto the table in a suitably dramatic way. He is about to be thrown out or certainly challenged when Marius vouches for him. Enjorlas makes a grand,l stirring speech which I can’t really be bothered to analyse, I think there has been so much preaching in the book so far more preaching starts to pass you by after a while. He speaks to Javert who is still stoic in the face of death, but asks if he can be tied to a table instead of a post, which Enjorlas agrees to.

The army begins firing cannons at the barricade and Gavroche comes back from his errand, much to Marius’s horror. Although Valjean knows very little about what is going on as far as the revolution is concerned, he still volunteers to defend them, risking his life but in a way that does as little harm to the other side as possible. The revolutionaries get all weepy about killing a dashing young sergeant, I think this must be Hugo’s way of showing that they still have feelings and want to be merciful, even though they are in desperate peril. It comes across as being rather odd, like they only want to spare attractive people because of their attractiveness. 

Meanwhile, Cos is getting up in her girlish bedroom, unaware of the danger Marius is in. In some luridly prudish prose Hugo skirts around the issue of her dishabille, complete with symbolic buds and opening flowers, along with bosoms, shoulders, undergarments and ‘shivers of cold and modesty’ (p1017). It is quite an odd, voyeuristic passage showing how Hugo is evidently the kind of man who likes to put young, chaste girls on the very highest of pedestals. I do tend to find Cossette quite a disappointing character; I suppose I’d like her to show some of the strength she should have developed in growing up and perhaps have some sort of fight with Eponine over Marius. Instead, she is a worthy partner for Marius in her insipidness. She never really gets the chance to develop as anything other than an irritating clotheshorse who exists mainly as the subject of Marius and Valjean’s emotions, she is what they make her. 

Back to the barricade and some more defenders have been shot and killed. They are also running out of ammo, so Gavroche goes to get some more from the fallen attackers. He goes out bravely, singing as he has done throughout the book and in the process is shot and killed. 

The narrative swiftly moves to his brothers, who have sneaked into the Luxembourg Gardens since the rich people have turned their backs for a moment. They are becoming true street urchins and are starving hungry. A man is walking there with his son who is obviously well-fed and toying with a bun that he is not really hungry for. The father advises him to throw it for the swan, they leave and a fight nearly breaks out between the swan and the older Thenard brother who goes after it, sharing it with his brother. Although he does give the larger piece to his brother, evidently affected by the rough kindness Gavroche showed them. 

At the barricade Valjean offers to blow Javert’s brains out, but just as he is about to do it Enjorlas and gang go back outside to join the fighting. Valjean frees Javert, giving him his address and covering up the fact that he is still alive (only Marius knows). We don’t know what Valjean is thinking at this point, in fact Hugo doesn’t describe his emotions from the time he left home to head towards the barricade. There is another essay, then back to the battle. The tavern is ruined and most of ABC have been killed ‘off stage’, as heroically as possible. Only Marius and Enjorlas are left, and Marius has already been wounded. Marius is then more seriously injured and disappears, apparently arrested. The remains of ABC run out of bullets and use anything as weapons. Enjorlas is captured, he and Grantaire (who has just woken up) are shot and killed (they really should’ve left the handsome sergeant alone, apparently the army were using him as some sort of handsome mascot and are pretty pissed he got shot).  We discover that Valjean has ‘captured’ Marius and taken him away.

So, there is the June Rebellion and the end of the ABC Society, along with half of the Thenardier family (having finished the book now I know that the two boys are not in the rest of it, they’ve disappeared). After all that preaching about it, it is somewhat surprising that it ends so abruptly, but then it only lasted a total of two days. Hugo is fine at building tension and excitement (although he did really need to cut down on the windbagging and speechifying), but was not that fantastic at death scenes, at least not in this book. I wonder if it is lost in translation or if it really does just end up mostly a list of people getting shot with barely an emotion in sight? 

Anyway, this seemed to be a good place to stop as next we have a riveting essay on sewerage on sewers before we find out what Valjean is going to do with Marius.