#Champmathieu

[ueinra]

The prisoner had finally resumed his seat; he arose abruptly when the district-attorney had finished, and exclaimed:—

“You are very wicked; that you are! This what I wanted to say; I could not find words for it at first. I have stolen nothing. I am a man who does not have something to eat every day. I was coming from Ailly; I was walking through the country after a shower, which had made the whole country yellow: even the ponds were overflowed, and nothing sprang from the sand any more but the little blades of grass at the wayside. I found a broken branch with apples on the ground; I picked up the branch without knowing that it would get me into trouble.”

— Les Misérables, I.VII.X Illustrated by Carlo Chiostri (Italian Edition, 1930)

[a-moon-eclipsed]

"his hair, which had still been gray on his arrival in Arras, was now entirely white: it had turned white during the hour he had sat there."

les misérables 1.7.11

my dude literally just

[dolphin1812]

Oddly enough, one of the strongest criticisms of the criminal justice system in today’s chapter comes from Javert (although he means it as a statement of fact, not as a negative):

“To climb a wall, to break a branch, to purloin apples, is a mischievous trick in a child; for a man it is a misdemeanor; for a convict it is a crime. Robbing and housebreaking—it is all there.”

The phrasing of the statement alone indicates its absurdity. While the main part of the “crime” is “purloining apples” (stealing), Javert starts with simple things like “climbing a wall” and “breaking a branch” that have no discernable impact on anyone’s well-being, financial or otherwise. All of them are grouped together into the category of “crime,” highlighting the absurdity of that label in the first place.

Javert is also very attentive to the different ways in which this act is viewed depending on the classification of the actor. It’s only really a crime when a convict does it. It’s such a commonplace act for children that it’s only considered a sign of mischief, and while it’s still punishable for other adults, it’s not going to get them life in prison (which is the sentence he mentions for Champmathieu). In reality, children and adults probably steal apples for the same two reasons: a prank, or out of hunger. The punishment has no relation to the actual severity of the act (which can’t be that serious if it’s accepted when children do it) or the motive behind it; it’s entirely based on how society perceives a person already. Society literally waits for men like Jean Valjean and/or Champmathieu to do something as minor as “break a branch” to confirm their criminality.

[psalm22-6]

Belgian collector's cards advertising Les Misérables (1934) at the Majestic in Gand [source]

[lesmisscraper]

The Testimoney of M. Madeleine. Volume 1, Book 7, Chapter 11.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[hadleysmis]

Hadley's notes on the Châtelet production

Champmathieu's trial

In ‘Who Am I’, you can see Champmathieu be carried to trial, and he helplessly looks at Jean Valjean.

Champmathieu is on the stand, bars in front of him mimicking prison bars.

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - A Place Where Convictions are in Process of Formation, LM 1.7.9 ( Les Miserables 1925)

This man was the man.

He did not seek him; he saw him; his eyes went thither naturally, as though they had known beforehand where that figure was.

He thought he was looking at himself, grown old; not absolutely the same in face, of course, but exactly similar in attitude and aspect, with his bristling hair, with that wild and uneasy eye, with that blouse, just as it was on the day when he entered D——, full of hatred, concealing his soul in that hideous mass of frightful thoughts which he had spent nineteen years in collecting on the floor of the prison.

He said to himself with a shudder, “Good God! shall I become like that again?”

This creature seemed to be at least sixty; there was something indescribably coarse, stupid, and frightened about him.

At the sound made by the opening door, people had drawn aside to make way for him; the President had turned his head, and, understanding that the personage who had just entered was the mayor of M. sur M., he had bowed to him; the attorney-general, who had seen M. Madeleine at M. sur M., whither the duties of his office had called him more than once, recognized him and saluted him also: he had hardly perceived it; he was the victim of a sort of hallucination; he was watching.

Judges, clerks, gendarmes, a throng of cruelly curious heads, all these he had already beheld once, in days gone by, twenty-seven years before; he had encountered those fatal things once more; there they were; they moved; they existed; it was no longer an effort of his memory, a mirage of his thought; they were real gendarmes and real judges, a real crowd, and real men of flesh and blood: it was all over; he beheld the monstrous aspects of his past reappear and live once more around him, with all that there is formidable in reality.

[a-la-sante-du-progres]

Obviously a joke but that's unironically the issue I have with deontological ethics, you take care only about your own virtue, not about the people who theorically should be the target of your good deeds.

I love how Who am I? Is basically just Jean Valjean's own personal trolley problem.

Like:

[ofpd]

guys i donated blood and didn't pass out this time

[javertautismtruther]

M. Madeleine.

Like if you agree

[lesmislettersdaily]

Champmathieu More And More Astonished

Volume 1: Fanitne; Book 7: The Champmathieu Affair; Chapter 11: Champmathieu More And More Astonished

It was he, in fact. The clerk’s lamp illumined his countenance. He held his hat in his hand; there was no disorder in his clothing; his coat was carefully buttoned; he was very pale, and he trembled slightly; his hair, which had still been gray on his arrival in Arras, was now entirely white: it had turned white during the hour he had sat there.

All heads were raised: the sensation was indescribable; there was a momentary hesitation in the audience, the voice had been so heart-rending; the man who stood there appeared so calm that they did not understand at first. They asked themselves whether he had indeed uttered that cry; they could not believe that that tranquil man had been the one to give that terrible outcry.

This indecision only lasted a few seconds. Even before the President and the district-attorney could utter a word, before the ushers and the gendarmes could make a gesture, the man whom all still called, at that moment, M. Madeleine, had advanced towards the witnesses Cochepaille, Brevet, and Chenildieu.

“Do you not recognize me?” said he.

All three remained speechless, and indicated by a sign of the head that they did not know him. Cochepaille, who was intimidated, made a military salute. M. Madeleine turned towards the jury and the court, and said in a gentle voice:—

“Gentlemen of the jury, order the prisoner to be released! Mr. President, have me arrested. He is not the man whom you are in search of; it is I: I am Jean Valjean.”

Not a mouth breathed; the first commotion of astonishment had been followed by a silence like that of the grave; those within the hall experienced that sort of religious terror which seizes the masses when something grand has been done.

In the meantime, the face of the President was stamped with sympathy and sadness; he had exchanged a rapid sign with the district-attorney and a few low-toned words with the assistant judges; he addressed the public, and asked in accents which all understood:—

“Is there a physician present?”

The district-attorney took the word:—

“Gentlemen of the jury, the very strange and unexpected incident which disturbs the audience inspires us, like yourselves, only with a sentiment which it is unnecessary for us to express. You all know, by reputation at least, the honorable M. Madeleine, mayor of M. sur M.; if there is a physician in the audience, we join the President in requesting him to attend to M. Madeleine, and to conduct him to his home.”

M. Madeleine did not allow the district-attorney to finish; he interrupted him in accents full of suavity and authority. These are the words which he uttered; here they are literally, as they were written down, immediately after the trial by one of the witnesses to this scene, and as they now ring in the ears of those who heard them nearly forty years ago:—

“I thank you, Mr. District-Attorney, but I am not mad; you shall see; you were on the point of committing a great error; release this man! I am fulfilling a duty; I am that miserable criminal. I am the only one here who sees the matter clearly, and I am telling you the truth. God, who is on high, looks down on what I am doing at this moment, and that suffices. You can take me, for here I am: but I have done my best; I concealed myself under another name; I have become rich; I have become a mayor; I have tried to re-enter the ranks of the honest. It seems that that is not to be done. In short, there are many things which I cannot tell. I will not narrate the story of my life to you; you will hear it one of these days. I robbed Monseigneur the Bishop, it is true; it is true that I robbed Little Gervais; they were right in telling you that Jean Valjean was a very vicious wretch. Perhaps it was not altogether his fault. Listen, honorable judges! a man who has been so greatly humbled as I have has neither any remonstrances to make to Providence, nor any advice to give to society; but, you see, the infamy from which I have tried to escape is an injurious thing; the galleys make the convict what he is; reflect upon that, if you please. Before going to the galleys, I was a poor peasant, with very little intelligence, a sort of idiot; the galleys wrought a change in me. I was stupid; I became vicious: I was a block of wood; I became a firebrand. Later on, indulgence and kindness saved me, as severity had ruined me. But, pardon me, you cannot understand what I am saying. You will find at my house, among the ashes in the fireplace, the forty-sou piece which I stole, seven years ago, from Little Gervais. I have nothing farther to add; take me. Good God! the district-attorney shakes his head; you say, ‘M. Madeleine has gone mad!’ you do not believe me! that is distressing. Do not, at least, condemn this man! What! these men do not recognize me! I wish Javert were here; he would recognize me.”

Nothing can reproduce the sombre and kindly melancholy of tone which accompanied these words.

He turned to the three convicts, and said:—

“Well, I recognize you; do you remember, Brevet?”

He paused, hesitated for an instant, and said:—

“Do you remember the knitted suspenders with a checked pattern which you wore in the galleys?”

Brevet gave a start of surprise, and surveyed him from head to foot with a frightened air. He continued:—

“Chenildieu, you who conferred on yourself the name of ‘Jenie-Dieu,’ your whole right shoulder bears a deep burn, because you one day laid your shoulder against the chafing-dish full of coals, in order to efface the three letters T. F. P., which are still visible, nevertheless; answer, is this true?”

“It is true,” said Chenildieu.

He addressed himself to Cochepaille:—

“Cochepaille, you have, near the bend in your left arm, a date stamped in blue letters with burnt powder; the date is that of the landing of the Emperor at Cannes, March 1, 1815; pull up your sleeve!”

Cochepaille pushed up his sleeve; all eyes were focused on him and on his bare arm.

A gendarme held a light close to it; there was the date.

The unhappy man turned to the spectators and the judges with a smile which still rends the hearts of all who saw it whenever they think of it. It was a smile of triumph; it was also a smile of despair.

“You see plainly,” he said, “that I am Jean Valjean.”

In that chamber there were no longer either judges, accusers, nor gendarmes; there was nothing but staring eyes and sympathizing hearts. No one recalled any longer the part that each might be called upon to play; the district-attorney forgot he was there for the purpose of prosecuting, the President that he was there to preside, the counsel for the defence that he was there to defend. It was a striking circumstance that no question was put, that no authority intervened. The peculiarity of sublime spectacles is, that they capture all souls and turn witnesses into spectators. No one, probably, could have explained what he felt; no one, probably, said to himself that he was witnessing the splendid outburst of a grand light: all felt themselves inwardly dazzled.

It was evident that they had Jean Valjean before their eyes. That was clear. The appearance of this man had sufficed to suffuse with light that matter which had been so obscure but a moment previously, without any further explanation: the whole crowd, as by a sort of electric revelation, understood instantly and at a single glance the simple and magnificent history of a man who was delivering himself up so that another man might not be condemned in his stead. The details, the hesitations, little possible oppositions, were swallowed up in that vast and luminous fact.

It was an impression which vanished speedily, but which was irresistible at the moment.

“I do not wish to disturb the court further,” resumed Jean Valjean. “I shall withdraw, since you do not arrest me. I have many things to do. The district-attorney knows who I am; he knows whither I am going; he can have me arrested when he likes.”

He directed his steps towards the door. Not a voice was raised, not an arm extended to hinder him. All stood aside. At that moment there was about him that divine something which causes multitudes to stand aside and make way for a man. He traversed the crowd slowly. It was never known who opened the door, but it is certain that he found the door open when he reached it. On arriving there he turned round and said:—

“I am at your command, Mr. District-Attorney.”

Then he addressed the audience:—

“All of you, all who are present—consider me worthy of pity, do you not? Good God! When I think of what I was on the point of doing, I consider that I am to be envied. Nevertheless, I should have preferred not to have had this occur.”

He withdrew, and the door closed behind him as it had opened, for those who do certain sovereign things are always sure of being served by some one in the crowd.

Less than an hour after this, the verdict of the jury freed the said Champmathieu from all accusations; and Champmathieu, being at once released, went off in a state of stupefaction, thinking that all men were fools, and comprehending nothing of this vision.

[fremedon]

"He could be your brother."

"He is."

you know it's funny, I always interpreted that scene as Valjean not having a real brother, but this brother being symbolic of something in his subconscious

like the brother is himself, or Man or you know. Champmathieu

but I could not tell you what because 19th century dream interpretation is like a hermetically sealed black box of weird cultural signifiers and I don't wanna open that rabbit hole

[dolphin1812]

I can’t believe all the tests to determine Valjean’s identity at this trial were based on things that change for him, like his appearance, and not on his true identifying trait: “the strength of his loins.” The other convicts keep mentioning it, and somehow no one (not even Javert) thought to just see how much Champmathieu can lift.

[psalm22-6]

On the double casting of Fredrick March as Valjean and Champmathieu:

My dear Fredric March: The other night I was busily engaged with a juicy steak in a Hollywood restaurant, with one ear cocked on your fifteen minute radio interview (the proprietor had humbly asked if I'd mind!) It was a nice interview, but I was fifty percent absorbed in the steak until you mentioned your playing of a dual rôle in Les Miserables. Immediately I forgot the steak, the shoe string potatoes that went with it, and the strawberry pie that came after. Because -- Recently I came away from Les Miserables in transports over a superb piece of acting. Not your Jean Valjean, nor Laughton's Javert. I just took those for granted. It was the forlorn half wit, mistakenly arrested and brought to trial as Valjean -- the bewildered vagrant trying to prove the innocence he feels in his befuddled soul and brain. But I had got in too late to read the cast and could not even guess what magnificent actor, new to Hollywood, was making his début back of those whiskers! What a characterization! The futile gestures, the goofy glint in the eyes, the foolish pleasure at being the center of attention, the helpless awareness of injustice, the inarticulate baffled rage! The whole tragedy of a life, right there before the eyes! J. G. Anderson, Long Beach, Calif.

[Source]

[lesmisscraper]

M. Madeleine entering the Court of Arras. Volume 1, Book 7, Chapter 7.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.