#Gorbeau Raid

[lesmisscraper]

Cosette bonding with her father after the wound. Volume 4, Book 4, Chapter 1.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[cliozaur]

What sane person would send Javert as a spy? A man who is pathologically unable to lie and who carries all his papers on himself! (I am looking at you, the Prefect of Police, M. Gisquet – you are good for nothing!) This is an amazing contrast with Jean Valjean, who is so skilled at disguising himself and lying with a poker face. Javert did not even make an effort to pretend! And then he “smiled with a smile than which nothing more disdainful, more energetic, and more resolute could be seen in the world.” He was obviously prepared for such a turn of events and was willing to die immediately: “then finish the business with a blow from a knife.” Those who claim that Javert never had suicidal tendencies before derailing are definitely missing something. This episode and the one during the Gorbeau house raid, when he recklessly risked his life, tell us a different story. (To me, he is still endlessly mesmerising. I just can’t take my eyes off him.)

And this: “Spy,” said the handsome Enjolras, “we are judges and not assassins.” Just in case anyone forgot! But jokes aside, he is thinking strategically, anticipating a lack of cartridges and powder. 50 men against 60,000 — that’s really scary. And since there is nothing worse than waiting, Enjolras decides to send his own spy, Gavroche.

Once again, it’s a golden hour for Gavroche as he recognized Javert. And it was also quite amusing because he talks like an old man: “Ah bah! impossible! My sight is bad! I am dreaming! can this be? no, it is not! but yes! why, no!” And then, before leaving the barricade, Gavroche claims Javert’s gun in the most hilarious way possible: “I leave you the musician, but I want the clarinet.”

In Hapgood’s translation, 2 minutes (before the fall of the barricade) turned into 10 minutes. She is more generous than Hugo.

[wanderinghedgehog]

I like mentioning things from the gorbeau house raid to my friends and family because they know nothing about it and they love jumping to conclusions. They just say things and it’s spectacular. Like maybe that’s the Les Mis that I wanna be reading right now.

[dolphin1812]

The Thénardiers are awful and it’s horrible that they cared so little about their sons, but M Thénardier using Rousseau’s treatment of his children as a justification may be the most darkly funny thing he’s said.

The entire situation does have a dark comedic element, probably because the one being lied to is Gillenormand and because the youngest sons are treated well. Aside from the heartbreaking fact that the Thénardier children were too consumed by poverty to notice their siblings, the arrangement isn’t as bad as it could be? 

It’s tragic in that they mean more as a basis of material earnings than as people, though, even to the kinder Magnon. Their parents are the first to not care, but institutions are equally cold. Thénardier is, unfortunately, right that no one’s going to look into the situation when the children are poor. That the deaths of Magnon’s actual children were only noted by her (and indirectly by her associates) is a terrible sign of how little society valued the children of the poor and of how dangerous early childhood was (an epidemic taking both of them in a day).

Worse still, they have become more of Javert’s victims, the arrests following the Gorbeau raid taking away their mother figure. It’s so sad to watch the eldest lose the note because his fingers are too cold to hold it.

[lesmisscraper]

They made this in an almost same way in <Il cuore di Cosette>!

This bit of Les mis is very funny:

Marius heard Mother Jondrette’s heavy hand fumbling at his lock in the dark. The door opened. He remained nailed to the spot with the shock and with horror.

(…)

Mother Jondrette raised her eyes, did not see Marius, took the two chairs, the only ones which Marius possessed, and went away, letting the door fall heavily to behind her.

Marius when Madame Thenardier enters his room:

[lesmisscraper]

The Malicious Playfulness of the Wind. Volume 4, Book 6, Chapter 1.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[cliozaur]

One more mention of cholera! I really miss the cholera digression in the Brick. Was it so hard to write one more digression? Marius and Cosette did not notice it, so we also should not notice it. Though it was such a big thing and claimed around 19,000 lives in six months. How preoccupied one should be not to notice it! And Hugo was obviously not interested. None of those several dozen inhabitants of Paris who operate in Les Mis died of it (Lamarque doesn’t count, he is not a character here) – it’s a miracle! I really want to know how Jean Valjean reacted to the news about the cholera epidemic. Did he stay home more than usually? Did he not worry about it at all? (In the next chapter, we'll find out that it did not affect his habit of going out to walk in the evening.)

Cosette and Marius continue learning new things about each other, and they find further similarities and differences in their life stories. Marius is trying to brag about his baron title, and Cosette reaction is just adorable: “this had produced no effect on Cosette. She did not know the meaning of the word. Marius was Marius.”

This chapter is not as easy-going as the previous one. “Loving almost takes the place of thinking,” alerts Hugo. It’s about Marius, who tries to brush aside memories about the Gorbeau house adventure, though he subconsciously understands that this is important, and they should have discussed it with Cosette. Instead, he suppresses this memory, preferring to remain in “a rosy cloud.” This will hit them quite painfully.

Cholera-related cartoon from 1832:

[secretmellowblog]

AH YES ALL OF THIS :_:

I think @everyonewasabird once described their relationship as.... Eponine is like the shadow of Cosette, and Javert is like the shadow of Valjean. But while Cosette and Valjean end up finding each other and having this deep loving father-daughter relationship that changes both of their lives....to me there's this feeling that something was supposed to happen between Eponine and Javert, but it never actually formed. Largely because Javert sucks and is a cop. What I mean is: Valjean and Javert both come across their younger narrative foil being abused by the Thenardiers. Valjean's forced labor in the galleys is mirrored in Cosette's forced labor for the Thenardiers. Javert's childhood in prison is mirrored in Eponine's childhood in a prison-like environment with criminal parents. But when Valjean comes across Cosette, his heart breaks for her, and he prevents her from continuing to endure the trauma he had to endure. But when Javert comes across Eponine after the Gorbeau House raid-- he only notices her to decide she's an Accomplice of the Thenardiers, then indifferently "nabs" her and sends her to prison. His entire worldview is so warped by his mindless worship of Authority and Law that he literally just, ARRESTS the girl who could've been his Cosette. It's like he arrests his Cosette! Because he just...doesn't see her as a person, in the same way he doesn't even see himself as a person. And he's utterly unaware of what he's missed. Valjean comes across a child enduring the trauma he suffered and sees someone he desperately needs to protect; Javert comes across a child enduring the trauma he suffered and only sees someone he can violently punish.

y’ know Victor Hugo is indeed an entire attic of problems, in terms of gender theory etc 

and yet atm I don’t see that we’re ever going to get an adaptation that has the guts to go in on the parallels between Fantine and Enjolras, or Eponine and Javert, or even to examine the way Valjean’s parenting of Cosette challenges the gendered roles assigned to parenting 

and that’s …well it’s not great and people making adaptations should feel Not Great about it 

[lesmisscraper]

M. Leblanc's Escape through the Window. Volume 3, Book 8, Chapter 21.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[cliozaur]

After yesterday’s climactic chapter, today’s feels rather dull. And I still feel devastated to give it too much thought. Valjean is finally bringing his money to Paris. Sadly, the underlying message is poignant — he intends to give it away as Cosette's dowry, planning to remove himself from the scene.

I'm fascinated by Hugo's perspective on 'the gloomy parts of this book.' He seems to identify these sections with criminality, Patron-Minette, and the Gorbeau house raid, rather than the deaths of most of his characters. Ah, well…

I recall 'Sieur Boulatruelle' from the Gorbeau hut affair—a drunkard who remained unnamed then. His presence was so absurd that it was hard not to notice him. No surprise that “The authorities had never been able to make out whether he had been there in the quality of a robber or a man who had been robbed.” And this conclusions is really amusing: “his ardor for theft somewhat cooled; but he was addicted nonetheless tenderly to the wine which had recently saved him.” However, I'm not particularly invested in his forest adventures while stalking Valjean.

[thenardiers]

an especially relatable aspect of jvj's character is the way he turns into a mute video game protagonist whenever he finds himself in a situation he doesn't want to be in. he barely talks through the entire gorbeau raid because he's too busy pressing x to skip thénardier’s dialogue and building up the speed to clip through the window before the unskippable javert arrest cutscene starts

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 4.6.1 ‘A Malevolent Trick of the Wind’

Everything is connected, and in the world that exists just underground from respectable society, it’s even more so.

The Gorbeau raid might be the closest thing we get in this book to the police acting “justly.” The crime was real and serious, the perpetrators had committed many such crimes before, and the “correct” people were put in jail.

And even then, no good came of it. Men who were experienced criminals continued on as they were, while women and children suffered. Madame Thenardier will die, Eponine looks newly ghastly and haunted, who knows how Azelma is doing but I’m going to guess “not well”, and Mamzelle Miss and Magnon, who weren’t even there, are in jail and their young children are lost on the streets.

No matter what kind of harm is done, this book says, the people who are made to suffer most from it will be the people who always suffer most.

I don’t know what to do with this thought, but Hugo keeps repeatedly connecting Thenardier to the buying and selling of children. Thenardier is renting a child in the first half of this book, he’s renting out children now--Hugo is leaving a particular kind of evil at his door specifically. And also, Hugo is pulling his punches with what that entails--whatever small children might have been bought and sold for in 1820s Paris, a victimless grift where they’re treated well and (if all had gone well) receive an education in the bargain is a spectacularly least-worst option.

Of course, the novel ends with Thenardier massively upgrading the scope of who he gets to buy and sell.

As many others have pointed out, Magnon is another Theodule, mysteriously hated by the narrator who doesn’t really give us much reason to agree. Maybe she’s not a selfless altruist, but she treated the kids well, and she cared enough to use the time when she was being arrested to make sure they got somewhere safe. That’s a big deal in this book!

I’m also fascinated by the ten pounds a month she payed Thenardier for the privilege of keeping them. Thenardier was at one time receiving money for holding onto a child, and now he’s receiving money for giving children up. He’s very good at finding ways to twist petty profits out of things--and, as we get further confirmation of this chapter, he’s very bad at actually turning any kind of profit overall.

But I’m also interested in the fact that this went on for years and the sum stayed ten pounds, when with Fantine he raised it as often as he could. But Magnon is well-connected within criminal Paris (and also to at least some extent within respectable Paris), and she’s savvy, and she must have the wherewithal not to let him get away with upping the price.

Poor Fantine. Poor mômes.

Poor Magnon, too--however indifferent the narrator thinks her, she lost four children this chapter.

[lesmisscraper]

Marius dealing with dilemma. Volume 3, Book 8, Chapter 20.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[aflamethatneverdies]

003 for Javer, please?

Thank you so much!!! :D

How I feel about this character: 

I have very mixed feelings about Javert. I do find his character extremely fascinating, the way he is one of the miserables/cast outs of society himself but chooses to uphold that very same society that is built on injustice instead of questioning and examining it. He is absolute and severe in everything that he does and even duty taken to extreme is called out as wrong because it lacks compassion and understanding. Also I think one of the telling points for me is that he does not like books and deep contemplation and Hugo associates contemplation/thinking as a worthy deed/action in one of his digressions.  

One thing I do like is that he has a sense of comic timing in the Gorbeau House raid with his ‘Would you like to borrow my hat?’ scene and I also found it pretty funny that he is playing the role of an undercover spy at the barricades and also gives his name out at the first instance. Not the best spy, Javert. 

Also, Javert isn’t earning that much from a job he works really hard at and is really committed to, not to mention that the whole setup of the police in canon era is really arbitrary from what I know about it, which makes me wonder how any criminals were ever arrested. 

I also find it interesting that Javert’s loyalty is never strictly to the letter of the law, he will support rich property owners like Bamatabois over Fantine who had done nothing wrong. He respects authority and will not override it to fulfil the letter of the law.  

Even though he is not the villain of Les Mis but an antagonist, I can’t bring myself to forgive him for indirectly causing Fantine’s death. Also the way he condemned her to prison in the first instance was because he felt horrified by women like her and therefore he was severe and unjust even while thinking he was doing the right thing. 

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: I don’t actually ship anyone with Javert. I do think that maybe if he did have someone he could talk to, had a friend or two or even an acquaintance, he could have shared some of his thoughts from Javert Derailed and the events might have played out differently for him?

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: Sister Simplice. I think these two could have interesting effect on each other, I would like to see interactions between them. Javert respects Simplice and listens to her, maybe Simplice could have a positive effect on him. I am not sure how he would be useful for Simplice but she could certainly have an effect on him.

My unpopular opinion about this character: It is more of a frustration rather than an unpopular opinion, that a lot of adaptations interpret the events in the novel as a cat and mouse chase between Javert and Valjean, whereas that is not the case. Javert does not care for Valjean in that manner, to him Valjean is another criminal who deserves to be brought to justice, he does not obsess over him and that point is kind of important. It is evident in the fact that he forgets about him. Valjean too does not think of Javert much, which is understandable, he wants to escape being arrested, that may go some ways to explaining his attitude on Javert’s death. I honestly did not understand why BBC Les Mis interpreted him in all the ways that they did. 

Also, I guess that Javert does not think of religion/God in great detail and that is also one of the things that comes up in Javert derailed.  

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I would definitely have liked to see how Javert handles things post-Seine were he to survive. I want to see if he would change for the better and how would he go about it. It feels like everything is set up so that he would have to, which is why I liked Shoujo Cosette exploring that possibility.  

Favorite friendship for this character: Marius. I will always want a buddy cop AU scenario with them. That scene is so much full of comedic potential waiting to happen. Of course, the most logical thing is to give pistols to the booby of a lawyer you have just met, good going Javert.  . 

My crossover ship: I’m not sure he would fit into any other universe as part of a romantic ship, I just don’t see him as caring about romance. 

[lesmisscraper]

This is Javert's best and BADASS moment in the Brick!

I love Javert.

[centrifuge-politics]

Brick Club 4.2.2, 4.2.3

Montparnasse is just wholly committed to the aesthetic and you have to respect the law dodging powers that grants him. He’s made a warlock pact with an ancient aesthetic eldritch being because prison is just so plebeian. Always a Némorin, never a Schinderhannes.

Claquesous escapes, to the shock of no one. Maybe that’s the problem, the police have a mental block and aren’t trying as hard as they really can. If you expect failure, how can you succeed? I’m not sure what exactly the symbolism of him escaping only to be executed at he barricade later is, but we can spitball a few options. The success of the new republic over the attempts of the old monarchy? The elimination of organized crime in the new world order? The excising of a festering infection? The general triumph of light over darkness? Paladin beats rogue? Leave your interpretation below, the more ridiculously improbable the better.

We get a fun little Magnon cameo and it’s nice to see her, except it’s depressing to realize that being dismissed from the Gillenormand house forced her into a life of organized crime. Maybe she just indulged in too much reverie? Eponine, the real hero of this arc, manages to halt the sinister plans for Valjean and Cosette with nothing more than a hunk of gluten. This is after she effectively (though indirectly) stops the Gorbeau raid with a pen and paper. Ponine, please, sit down, it must be exhausting having to hold aloft the entire story while everyone else bumbles around underneath it. I want to make some extended metaphor around canaries in coal mines, but it feels like reaching. Do we remember why Patron-Minette is even aware of Rue Plumet or what affair they believe to have there?

Mabeuf is having a hard time of it. And yet again I feel the need to censure Hugo for insisting it’s reverie that leads down the path of despair. Mabeuf is laboring, he’s always shown to be doing whatever labor he can to get by (and even if he wasn’t, he doesn’t deserve to starve!) and, yet, it’s not enough. This is the same fallacy that stains the Escousse and Lebras example. Idleness is simply no good explanation for the misery the characters in this book face.

“It is a bitter thing that there should be a moment when misery unbinds!” [Cupping my hands around my mouth] ALIENATION!

“Stars everywhere! Not the smallest cloud! Not a drop of water!” Hmm, I recall...

“Water, water everywhere, and all the boards did shrink. Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

The albatross is...capitalism? Everyone is sick of hearing me go on about this.

I love Eponine as a friendly garden goblin, I actually love this more than anything. She steps from the faerie world to water your garden in exchange for a small favor and off she flits again. And we know how Hugo feels about gardeners: “you are an angel, since you care for flowers.” All the same “he was decidedly frightened.” Yes, Eponine has such an effect.