#bishop myriel you will always be famous

[barricadebops]

I keep seeing these tiktoks that are like "convincing you to read this classic lit book from its opening lines" and I just---

"In 1815, Charles-François-Bienvenu was bishop of Digne. He was an old man of about seventy-five. He had been bishop of Digne since 1806."

Who is going to be convinced to read that 💀

[inspjavert]

COLM WILKINSON BISHOP MYRIEL YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS

[psalm22-6]

Monseigneur Myriel speaks of Les Misérables (1912, 1934)

What I learned from this is that Colm Wilkinson is not the first Valjean to later play Myriel in a film adaptation...Henry Krauss played Valjean in Capellani’s 1912 adaptation and then played Myriel in Bernard’s 1934 adaptation. This article is mostly him listing the actors in the two but it was still fun to read and includes some cute anecdotes...notably I thought it was interesting that in 1933 he was also playing Valjean in a stage adaptation and that people were excited for the play because they were looking forward to the movie. Also was happy to see Jean Toulout’s name pop up (1925 Javert) to find out that he was still playing Javert 9 years later.

[Source: L’Image, 1933]

Mme Charlotte Barbier-Krauss, the devoted housekeeper of M. Madeleine-Harry Baur, takes pity upon seeing my disappointment. 

“My husbands is at the clinic, Madame, but he is already recovering. He will gladly receive you and I am certain that he will take great pleasure in speaking to you about Les Misérables…it will distract him…”

All the same, it was not without scruples that I had arrived at the rue de Texel, at the Léopold Bellan foundation. I was going to bother an invalid in order to hear the memories of he who played Jean Valjean in 1912, in the original silent film version, and 20 years later, played Bishop Myriel, under the direction of Raymond Bernard…

As soon as I entered into the well lit little bedroom, I felt all my apprehensions melt away. Rosy skinned and smiling, sitting with an open book, it was truly a man on the mend who greeted me. His quilted collar and white knit vest lent more color to his face than the threadbare cassock of the Bishop of Digne. But his good grace, his soft voice, his measured gestures, Henry Krauss certainly had no problem lending them to the character: it comes naturally to him. 

And his white hair still flows like a wave- just like when it was still brown and I was a very young girl- and which moved the hearts of all the women of Brussels. 

“Ah! Monsieur,” I say, “From nights spent watching Le Bossu or l’Alhambra!...and la Reine Margot!...all of Brussels was at your feet!...though I must admit to you that my heart wasn’t beating for you…It oscillated between your brother Charles Krauss and the romantic Henry Soyer, both of whom are dead now. I never knew which I preferred, which is to say, as far as sentiments, you didn’t exist to me, though you were the most famous of the group and the idol of my natal city! It would have been more tactful if I didn’t reveal this to you today. Please tell me that you’ll forgive me?” 

“I forgive you, my child! You know that Monseigneur Myriel holds no grudges. Take a seat there, the sun setting behind you will provide the most beautiful lighting that a picky camera operator could ask for.  When the question of lighting comes to the forefront, when cinema understands light as well as Renoir or like Rembrandt, what beautiful images they’ll show to the masses! But…what exactly is it you want me to talk about?” 

“Tell me about yourself, about Les Misérables, and about one in relation to the other.” 

“About myself? I was already ill when Raymond Bernard asked me to play the role of Monseigneur Myriel, and to conserve myself a little I would leave the studio as soon as my work finished, and so I would never see the regular screenings. So I have no idea ‘how it’s going’ and I’m sorry for it because I would like to be sure that it’s going well…for I’ve always doubted myself….but it’s too late to change it.” 

“How do you feel presently?”

“I am recovering at full speed! And cared for wonderfully, with devotion that I can’t praise enough. I sense that speaking about theater and cinema today will do me a great amount of good!” 

“Les Misérables will really have counted for something in your life.” 

“Well yes. I was Jean Valjean in the first silent version; It was in the second version that Gabriel Gabrio played the role. I also played, just recently, Jean Valjean at the Ambigu theater. The success seemed unlikely to me, the play was poorly constructed, it wasn’t written very well, we were anticipating the release of the film in autumn, a film that has a thousand advantages that the play has not, in short, I thought that the public would shun us. And well! Not at all, it was me who was wrong! It was a big, a very big success. People were crying over the scene between Jean Valjean and Monseigneur Myriel! The Parisian public has been living for months in the imaginary company of Cosette, M. Madeleine, and Fantine…they are interested in them…Thanks to the film we are speaking of, Victor Hugo’s novel is back in vogue and the play benefited from that! 

“That’s what I would have predicted. I believe you reprised the role of Jean Valjean after having played the Bishop of Digne in the studio?” 

“Yes and that permitted me to better understand the importance of their encounter, which changed the life of the runaway convict…I believe…it seems to me that I rendered more delicately the interior and definite transformation of my character, which Monseigneur Myriel’s goodness illuminated in his soul. 

“In the first film, who played Monseigneur Myriel?” 

“A great actor: Léon Bernard. Javert, was played by Etiévant. That is a role that is lucky: in the latest revival at the Ambigu theater, he was played by my friend Jean Toulout [Javert in the 1925 film], an actor like few others. In Raymond Bernard’s film, he is played by Charles Vanel, who’s talent I don’t have to extol to you. By the way, this role suits him wonderfully, because too many people forget that while Javert is a brutal and perhaps heavy handed incarnation, he is also profoundly sincere and guided by conscience. Is there anyone more conscientious than Charles Yanel?

Thénardier was first played by Millot [Émile Mylo]; today he’s played by Charles Dullin; I did not have the chance to meet him at the Joiville studio, but I acted with him in the Brother Karmazoff; I know what a powerful hand he shapes his characters with. We can be sure that his Thénardier will be a striking figure, just like the Madame Thénardier of Marguerite Moreno will be. No actor is able, more so than she is, to renew herself, to transform herself. Yesterday she was the ideal interpreter of poets, a muse with an exquisite voice. Today she is a lucid fantasy, always appearing teasing and measured. 

In 1912, in Paul Capellani’s film, Gillenormand was played by Lerand, who was a good strong actor. Today he’s played by Max Dearly, for whom there is no role not made to his size. Big roles, he’s big enough for them. Small roles, he is at ease in them too. 

Enjolras was played by Jean Angelo…who later made so many hearts flutter…today he’s played by Vidalin, of la Comedie-Francaise. When I was in charge of certain scenes, along with Abel Gance, in his film Napoleon, I chose Vidalin to play Camille Desmoulins, that shows the high regard I hold. The poor and charming Francine Mussey played Lucie Desmoulins. 

Marius, that’s Jean Servais, who proved himself in Brussels and in Paris in the Compagnie du Marais and who has a spirited and charming youthfulness. The first Marius was Gabriel de Gravone…He had big black eyes, an olive complexion, and curly hair… after the matinees at the Park Theater in Brussels, this was around 1908, all the young girls held out pens and postcards to the youth. And he would sign them….he was more intimidated than they were! 

And Jean Valjean, that was me. Today he’s played by my good friend Harry Baur…A man of good taste, culture, intelligence, to him art is second nature and he is incapable of uttering a false note…”

“Would you like to speak of any of the other women, apart from Moreno-Thénardier?” 

“Why yes! I will first off tell you what a joy it was for me to have as my ‘sister,’ my exquisite friend Marthe Mellot, who we don’t see enough of. She also acted with me in Brussels in a play by Paul Spaak that was very successful. She’s a charming woman with a lot of talent. I know that it’s just a little role, she is not on screen long, but it’s an important time because of the influence it has on the whole life of Jean Valjean.”

“I know that the role of passer-by, a small part in its length but extremely important because of the influence it had on the whole life of Jean Valjean, is held by Blanche Denège, who I saw many times backstage when she was acting in La Fleur des Pois [this one is kind of a mystery to me, I can’t find her connection to Les Miserables. My only guess is that she was uncredited in the role of Baptistine in the 1912 adaptation? But she seems too young.] 

Florelle, who I acted with in Berlin, will be a very touching Fantine; it was Ventura who played the role in 1912. I never had the occasion to works with Orane Demazis, but like you I have applauded her on the stage and on the screen and I think that she will give a strong performance in the many complex faces of Eponine. Do you know who played the first Eponine on film, if I dare to say it?”

“I have no idea.” 

“Mistinguett. She was quite simply stunning, and never has anyone deserved success as much as she does!  To tell the truth, she took us all by surprise with her moving power, with…I don’t know…it is inexpressible yet very expressive.  

Josseline Gael is a new comer but has already shown her potential, notably under the direction of Jacques Tourneur in Tout ça ne vaut pas l’amour. 

And the young Gaby Triquet already has a well established reputation. I wish her much luck as the young Cosette, like the success which once welcomed the young Maria Fromet, who is today a performer at the Theater du Gymnase. 

“And what of Gavroche?” 

“Gavroche, that role is gold! The sparrow in the city! I will let myself say that Emile Genevois is an enchanting example of that formidable and charming creature.” 

The sun had moved from my left shoulder to my right, the “beautiful light of the setting sun” had faded and a nurse appeared armed with a thermometer but smiling nonetheless and I took my leave of the ensemble of Karainozoff, Lagardere…and Monseigneur Myriel, taking with me the joy of having brought back old memories from one of our most brilliant actors.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Les Miserables Reading Guide (In My Opinion)

I’ve wanted to put together something like this for a while, just to have it on hand somewhere, and might as well put it here as anywhere else. Les Mis has a lot of tangents, so these are my opinions on how to construct an ‘abridged’ read, especially for first-time readers.

All of the book is worth reading at some point, but probably not on the first time through, where 50 pages without seeing a main character can drive readers away.

BOOK 1: FANTINE

Chapter 1: An Upright Man - Good, very enjoyable, but not essential. A 50-page description of Bishop Myriel. 50 pages on a character with a small (though pivotal) role is a lot to ask - for first-time readers I’d suggest reading the first two sections of the chapter, which give you a good general sense of the character; from there, continue for as long as you enjoy it, and then skipping to the second chapter. Sections 7 and 10 are also gems if you want to take a short selection; for some time Section 10 was my favourite part of the whole book.

Chapter 2: The Fall - Essential

Chapter 3: Section 1 is skippable (and basically incomprehensible if you’re not well-versed in a very specfic period of French history). The rest of it is an introduction to Fantine, which is pretty central though rather skimmable in places.

Chapters 4 to 7 - Essential

BOOK 2: COSETTE

Chapter 1: Waterloo - Section 19 (the last one) is absolutely essential. The rest can be skipped unless you’re interested in an exhaustive description of the Battle of Waterloo and Victor Hugo’s thoughts on it. He makes it an interesting read, even for me, and I have no head for tactics at all; but it’s a lot to go through if you’re here for the main story.

Chapters 2 to 5 - Essential

Chapter 6: Petit Picpus - A detailed description of the convent where Cosette grows up. Explains some of the things seen in Chapter 5 and is useful in giving some context for Cosette’s life during this period, but not essential. If you just want a general sense of Cosette’s living environment, Sections 3-5 are a good sampling.

Chapter 7: A Parenthesis - Victor Hugo’s thoughts on convents. Interesting, but can be skipped unless you’re interested in his opinions in and of themselves.

Chapter 8: Cemeteries Take What Is Given Them - Essential

BOOK 3: MARIUS

Chapter 1: Paris Atomised - Section 13 (the last one) is essential, as the introduction of Gavroche. The rest of the chapter is a description of the street-children (gamins) of 1800s Paris, and Hugo’s opinions on their socio-political-cultural significance; good, but not essential.

Chapter 2: The Grand Bourgeois - Lengthy portrait of a side-character, but a side character very important to Marius’ life. Important, but not absolutely essential; if you find yourself wearing out, skip to the next chapter.

Chapters 3 to 6 - Essential

Chapter 7: Patron Minette - Sections 1 and 2 are nonessential; Section 3 and 4 are important for introducing some notable side characters.

Chapter 8: The Noxious Poor - Essential

BOOK 4: SAINT DENIS, AND IDYL OF THE RUE PLUMET

Chapter 1: A Few Pages of History - Context for the attempted revolution. Only the last section, Section 6, is central to the plot and characters of the story, but the rest can be helpful context.

Chapter 2 to 6 - Essential

Chapter 7: Argot - Victor Hugo’s thoughts on slang, and the legitimacy of its use in literature. Read if you’re interested, skip if you’re not. I find the opinions interesting, but descriptions of two-century-old slang are nigh impossible to translate in any meaningful sense.

Chapters 8 and 9 - Essential

Chapter 10: June 5th, 1832 - Sections 1 and 2 are Victor Hugo’s views on the legitimacy of revolution; interesting but not essential. Sections 3 to 5 give the beginning of the revolution, and so are plot-central.

Chapters 11 to 15 - Essential

BOOK 5: JEAN VALJEAN

Chapter 1: War Between Four Walls - Essential

Chapter 2: The Intestine of Leviathan - The famous digression on the sewer system of Paris, in the middle of an action. Read, skip, or come back and read later, as you please.

Chapters 3 to 9 - Essential

END

Personally, on my rereads, I usually read the bits on Myriel and often the bits on convents; usually skip the bits on slang, and Paris sewer system; and almost always skip the bit on Waterloo, which I think I’ve only read once.

It’s definitely worth doing at least one reread of the book in its entirety, if you’ve read the core plot and liked it.

[pilferingapples]

LM 1.2.2, LM 1.2.3

Honestly, not much to say about these four chapters, or maybe I'm just distracted, gosh who can say why! So, some short writeups:

1.2.2

 -La prudence conseillée à la sagesse (" Prudence Counsels Wisdom" or a variant ); once again, Practicality and Sense are not the Winning Team in this novel.  I feel like I sort of absorbed that the first time or two through, but the sheer extent to which Hugo's just Not A Fan of the practical is really leaping out at me this time. 

(...and there have been people who try to claim this as a Realistic novel? with Hugo leaping out to slam the reader in the face with Romanticist ethos like this? Wild. Wacky.)

-- Listen I know Duty is a Big Concept in this book but all  the talk about Myriel's treatise here is just making me think of the Pirates of  Penzance.  Which is a heck of  a crossover concept, but def. not the Mood for this chapter.

- Myriel's awareness that his sister is probably waiting for him for dinner is more instantly endearing to me than all his descriptions so far? I think it's that a lot of that is more impressive, but this is such a sweet, daily kind of thing, it humanizes him a lot , when he can sometimes feel like a parable. 

-..dangit I ALWAYS wonder what exactly keeps the door closed. Does the wind never blow it open? dogs or other animals don’t stray in? I know Myriel doesn’t have to worry about raccoons but still 

 1.2.3 

-I always really appreciate the way Valjean's frustration and despair evolve over the course of these chapters.  In his  first chapter, he was mostly trying to be quiet, hoping to slip into normal life unnoticed, to just exist quietly; that if he said and did nothing upsetting, he might get by. By the time he was talking to Mme. de R, he was ready to lie to be left alone, and to take money instead of insisting on his own financial sufficiency.  And now, when he's been given a little bit of hope again--and it really is a desperate hope, he's about to spend a night in brutal cold and probably half  starving-- he's just saying everything directly, all at once, trying to get the worst over with, inviting the exile he's almost sure is coming.   

- But it strikes me here that he doesn't  tell Myriel his whole story at all. He starts to read from his yellow passport: "  Jean Valjean, a liberated convict, a native of-- that part doesn't concern you"  (FMA translation).   He breaks off right as he reached the part that might humanize him, that might elaborate his life story or reveal him as anything besides a convict. He presents the most prejudicing facts about himself as his whole identity. 

..I'm sure this won't be part of  a pattern, or anything. It's definitely just for clarity and brevity's sake here, and not reflective of his self-image having been massively shifted by his prison time in a way that can only hurt him *cries about it* 

-Important age cue that JVJ is 46 at this point!

-Big demerits to FMA for dropping a mention of the Wreck of the Medusa! (" Monsieur to a convict is like a glass of water to one of the shipwrecked of the Medusa" , Hapgood)  Besides being a very famous shipwreck of the time,  the Raft of the Medusa was of course a major painting in the French Romantic art movement.  It's a more subtle hat tip to a fellow Romantic than,say, namedropping a roomful of your friend's names all over a home's intro, * but definitely keeping up the tradition XD  (Fun Fact I learned on researching this little detail, Eugene Delacroix modeled for one of the figures on the Raft!  Also when he saw the finished painting it scared him so much he ran away! Romantics.) 

- Myriel's  insistence on setting out the silver is so complex here!  I totally buy that it is, under most circumstances, exactly the harmless and even charming self-indulgence the narrative calls it. Most people, after all, know he's the Bishop for the region,and expect him to be if anything having far more luxury.  But in this very  particular circumstance , I can see how it would come across as a very Weird Flex (as I'm sure The Kids no longer say)?  Especially given..

-Valjean's description of the bishop who visited the prisons in Toulon.  This is one of the most moving passages to me-- the description of the sermon far away, incomprehensible,   a show of the bishop glittering and gilded before a genuinely captive audience.   Of course that didn't mean anything to Valjean-- but he still remembers it, for its strangeness, and the fact that it must have stood out as a break in the routine , and be one of the few things about prison he can safely mention to this priest, are striking. 

* Shoutout to Dumas and the Count of Monte Cristo heyyyy

[lizardrosen]

10/15/19 BrickClub 1.2.1

Book Two: The Fall, Chapter I. The Night After a Day’s Walk

The chapter introducing Jean Valjean begins on page 51, and we don’t get to learn his name until page 54. What we learn first is that the inhabitants of Digne watch him “with a vague anxiety” and that “You would be hard-pressed to come across anyone on the road more derelict in appearance.” And based on his clothes and tiredness from the journey, he really seems to be in rough shape.

One detail sticking out from his initial description is “His shirt of coarse yellow twill, fastened at the neck with a small silver anchor, gaped open.” I wonder where he got the anchor, and why he decided to keep it (and why it’s never mentioned again).

I always forget how scary he must have been, especially since no one knows him. So while it’s not good that everyone turns him away, or assumes based on his appearance that he doesn’t have money, it’s certainly understandable.

The glory of this Trois Dauphins Labarre was reflected twenty-five miles away on the Labarre of the Croix de Colbas. They liked to say of him in town: “He’s the cousin of the one in Grenoble.”

Here’s another example of a person who benefits by sharing a name or other minor connection to someone more famous. We also see this in the coincidence of Myriel sassing Napoleon at just the right time, or Lesgles/L’Aigle’s father getting transferred to Meaux because of what people assume about his name. I’m not explaining it very well, but it seems connected to Hugo’s discussion of success vs merit a few chapters ago.

“The man” is calm and nonconfrontational when he asks to be put in the stable (do you get it? it’s comparing him to Jesus) and he argues back a little because he’s hungry and willing to pay, but he doesn’t raise his voice, and when Labarre shows him the note with his name and “what you are” he leaves very meekly. Jean Valjean is humiliated and exhausted and by now he’s used to suffering and being pushed around by everyone he encounters, and perhaps he hopes that if he doesn’t make a scene someone will be more inclined to help him. Aaaahh, this is so sad and miserable :(

Hugo keeps pretending he’s a character in-universe who’s telling the story based on real sources and half-remembered stories and details. It’s a neat device, but does get annoying sometimes.

VALJEAN! RESPECTFULLY ASKING TO SPEND THE NIGHT IN PRISON! OH MY HEART! And then they tell him he has to get arrested first, which he obviously can’t do without things immediately getting worse for him. EVERYTHING IS SAD.

When he had scrambled back over the fence, not without difficulty, and he found himself once again on the street, alone, without a place to stay, without a roof over his head, without shelter, driven even from a straw bed in a miserable dog kennel, he sank down rather than sat on a rock, and it appears that someone going past heard him cry out: “I”m not even a dog!”

Oh yeah, there’s that animal symbolism we in the Les Mis fandom crave so much! And it’s really sad!

Yaaaay for Madame de R telling Valjean to knock on the bishop’s door! I like that even though we know it’s where Myriel lives, this chapter is focused on Valjean’s perspective so it’s described as “a small low house next to the bishop’s palace on the other side of the square.” I don’t think the rest of the novel could have happened in quite the same way if he’d known ahead of time who Myriel was.