#boulatruelle

[ueinra]

The pallet on which M. Leblanc had been thrown was a sort of hospital bed, elevated on four coarse wooden legs, roughly hewn.

M. Leblanc let them take their own course.

The ruffians bound him securely, in an upright attitude, with his feet on the ground at the head of the bed, the end which was most remote from the window, and nearest to the fireplace.

— Les Misérables, III.VIII.XX Illustrated by Carlo Chiostri (Italian Edition, 1930)

Boulatruelle was so helpful..

[dolphin1812]

Boulatruelle is one of the ways Valjean could have ended up if he hadn’t met the bishop. Like Valjean then, he’s “too respectful“ to everyone around him, “trembling and smiling” around soldiers; as we can assume he was in prison as well, these behaviors are likely part of the same trauma response we saw in Valjean when he reached Digne. He was exceedingly polite to everyone regardless of how scornful they were towards him, and to this day, he is very respectful of law enforcement even as he’s terrified of them, as we saw with his attitude towards Javert when he came to arrest him by Fantine’s bedside. As an ex-convict, he also struggles to find work, further encouraging this meekness and isolating him from society and a chance at recovery. His alcoholism is likely a way to cope with his past trauma and his current suffering. Moreover, as we saw with Valjean, it’s pretty easy for this constant desperation and stress to fuel further “crimes” (Boulatruelle’s robbery is less blatant, since he’s seeking to take something buried in the ground rather than in someone’s house, but it is another parallel to Valjean).

Of course, there are still differences between them. With Valjean, we saw moments of anger and frustration that simply aren’t visible in Boulatruelle. It could be that we’re not seeing them now because we’re spending less time with him, but it could also be that, after all of these years, that anger has been drained out of him. Rather than the “violent criminal” alternative Valjean viewed for himself when he robbed Petit Gervais, Boulatruelle represents a life of hopelessness and aimlessness that comes from being denied opportunities to seek a better life after being thoroughly rejected by society.

It’s also interesting to see how vulnerable Boulatruelle is because of this? Valjean was offered kindness first by the marquise, then by the bishop, both of whom were genuine in their compassion. Boulatruelle is met by Thénardier and Montfermeil`s schoolmaster. We know Thénardier is horrible already, but watching the way these two casually joke about torturing him for information is especially revolting. Their “hospitality” doesn’t compare to the bishop’s, as it just consists of trying to get him drunk, but given how people avoid him, it may have felt like kindness to him even though there intentions are actually awful. After being scorned for so long, it may be difficult for him to tell when people are manipulating him because he never expects any form of kindness or decency; he might not reach the point of contemplating their intentions if he’s shocked to receive company at all. Valjean, for instance, hadn’t been able to comprehend the bishop’s hospitality, even trying to prove why he didn’t deserve it. If Boulatruelle is like him - and everything we know so far indicates that he is - then he’s very vulnerable to Thénardier not because of his alcoholism (drink might have loosened his tongue, but he barely speaks even when intoxicated), but because his ability to judge people has been skewed by abuse.

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - In Which The Reader Will Peruse Two Verses, Which are of the Devil's Composition, Possibly, LM 2.2.2 (I miserabili 1964)

There exists in the region of Montfermeil a very ancient superstition, which is all the more curious and all the more precious, because a popular superstition in the vicinity of Paris is like an aloe in Siberia. We are among those who respect everything which is in the nature of a rare plant. Here, then, is the superstition of Montfermeil: it is thought that the devil, from time immemorial, has selected the forest as a hiding-place for his treasures. Goodwives affirm that it is no rarity to encounter at nightfall, in secluded nooks of the forest, a black man with the air of a carter or a wood-chopper, wearing wooden shoes, clad in trousers and a blouse of linen, and recognizable by the fact, that, instead of a cap or hat, he has two immense horns on his head. This ought, in fact, to render him recognizable. This man is habitually engaged in digging a hole. There are three ways of profiting by such an encounter. The first is to approach the man and speak to him. Then it is seen that the man is simply a peasant, that he appears black because it is nightfall; that he is not digging any hole whatever, but is cutting grass for his cows, and that what had been taken for horns is nothing but a dung-fork which he is carrying on his back, and whose teeth, thanks to the perspective of evening, seemed to spring from his head. The man returns home and dies within the week. The second way is to watch him, to wait until he has dug his hole, until he has filled it and has gone away; then to run with great speed to the trench, to open it once more and to seize the “treasure” which the black man has necessarily placed there. In this case one dies within the month. Finally, the last method is not to speak to the black man, not to look at him, and to flee at the best speed of one’s legs. One then dies within the year.

[secretmellowblog]

It’s fascinating how the ex-convict Boulatruelle is a lot like Jean Valjean, in that he’s excessively polite/deferential in order to avoid punishment. He’s “too quick at doffing his hat” and smiling at people, he’s overly conciliatory, in ways that feel very similar to Jean Valjean’s overly conciliatory behavior. It really shows how the trauma of the galleys at Toulon— which they both experienced— affected them in similar ways.

The people at Monterfermil treating Boulatruelle with hostility and suspicion is such a frustrating parallel to Jean Valjean in Digne. It really emphasizes how normal and everyday that bigotry is.

He’s an interesting character foil to Jean Valjean, as another person who was in the galleys but never received the act of ~magic transformative grace~ that Jean Valjean did.

[black-rabbit-razumikhin]

Raz Reads Les Mis (X)

Cosette - The Ship Orion

So Valjean is in prison

Again

How many escape attempts has it been now? At some point you need to start admitting that your current strategy is not working

Hugo tells us that his identification has gone from 24601 to 9430, except I don't remember him ever being mentioned as 24601 in the text

Anyway, Valjean is an evil, terrible, horrible criminal and even though he was a mayor for eight years and nothing but good happened, he has not been reformed

He tricked us! He lied to us!

Oh no now he's gone and the town suddenly isn't doing as well

(For those in the back, please read that sarcastically; me personally, I think I like Valjean)

If Valjean needs a new escape tactic, the people of France need to accept that reformation is possible

Especially when bishop Charlie has anything to do with it

We take a quick sidebar to talk about an old legend

If you see a man in the woods at night, it's the devil burying his treasure

Run up to him? Die in a week

Dig up his treasure? Die in a month

Run away? Die in a year

It's high-stakes 'curiosity killed the cat'

So this man called Boulatruelle is our little curious cat

And the man getting the story out of him is none other than foster father Thenardier

Except Boulatruelle did not see the literal devil, but a convict he had been at the galleys with

And both just ignore looking at each other. "Touching display of feeling in two old companions unexpectedly meeting!"

The sarcasm does not mean you're forgiven, Hugo

But this convict has buried something in the fashion of the devil in the story, and nobody can find it

The final part of this is about another Valjean escape attempt, but first it gets very poetic about conflict

That any war that France is in after 1792 is an insult to the French Revolution

That the strength of armies is built on the weakness (willingness to obey authority) of its soldiers

That the building of a ship is beautiful, that she has a soul, that she has indescribable strength

That some guy trying to sort out the topsail got himself over balanced by his head and has fallen over into the ropes

And who happens to be one of the prisoners helping unmoor the ship but Jean 'failed escape attempts are my love language' Valjean

He far too easily breaks the chain attached to his ankle - with prior permission - and shimmies up the ship to rescue the sailor

Gasp, shock, horror! The convict has fallen into the ocean!

Oh no the search party can't find him!

RIP bro, drowned and body unrecovered

Valjean, if you get caught again, you have nobody to blame but yourself. But at the same time, the fact that France refuses to forgive him infuriates me. He's obviously not a danger to society, and hasn't been for nearly a decade, what is the goal for having him in prison? Is he guilty for his crimes? Yes. Was it extended years in the penal system that made a change to anything? No. So what's the point?

[lesmisscraper]

What Boulatruelle saw. Volume 2, Book 2, Chapter 2.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[cliozaur]

The one in which we learn what happened to Veljean’s money. Besides, after the preceding chapters filled with horror, sadness, and melancholy, this one offers a refreshing dose of Hugo’s humour.

Note his choice of vocabulary: it’s not a ‘belief,’ or a ‘popular story,’ but a ‘superstition.’ A haughty nineteenth-century intellectual’s judgement. The tales from the Montfermeil region about encountering the devil in the woods (who may turn out to be a mere peasant) are amusing because, no matter what precautions you take, sooner or later you end up dying.

Enter Boulatruelle. While he might appear to be a minor character, this marks the first of three appearances (he will also show up at the Gorbeau house and in the same forest, but in the concluding chapters). One constant about him remains: “The only thing in his favor was that he was a drunkard.” Each time he appears, he is intoxicated, and strangely, it always seems to work in his favour!

Thénardie is true to himself and attempts to manipulate Boulatruelle by encouraging him to drink in order to coax out what he knows.

Last observation: Hugo’s depiction of an individual digging for the ‘devil’s treasure’ offers a remarkably accurate portrayal of an archaeologist’s work:

a man sweats, digs […] he wets his shirt, […] breaks his mattock, and when he arrives at the bottom of the hole, when he lays his hand on the “treasure,” what does he find? What is the devil’s treasure? A sou, sometimes a crown-piece, a stone, a skeleton, a bleeding body, sometimes a spectre folded in four like a sheet of paper in a portfolio, sometimes nothing.

[bobcatmoran]

Chapter 2.2.2 of Les Mis, "In Which The Reader Will Peruse Two Verses, Which are of the Devil's Composition, Possibly," again doesn't really get adapted directly by Arai. There's no Boulatruelle, no legend of the Devil burying a treasure in the woods, just, from pages 189–191 of the second English omnibus, Valjean burying his money in the woods, juxtaposed with the burial of Fantine.

[les-mis-guy-supreme]

an update: we have a bracket

i say we do it in 8 lots of 8! there'll probably be 16 polls a day (in 2 clumps). this was done via blind draw and i don't think i'll be randomizing further

matchups under cut!

PART A

grantaire vs the instruments in the intro to rue plumet

gueulemer vs m. fauchelevent

bossuet vs montparnasse

cosette fauchelevent vs panchaud

napoleon vs mother plutarch

mabeuf vs the flute guy who lives near the convent

persona 5 valjean vs robojean from arm joe

the oboe solo after everyone dies on the barricade vs madeleine's guinea pig

PART B

the artist who said that if favourite’s gloves were fritters he would eat them vs joly

france (country) vs the elephant from the movie

babet vs boulatruelle

the french horns from the musical vs the pool table from enjolras and grantaire's death scene

jean valjean vs the candlesticks

musichetta vs the bridge on the seine

dahlia vs javert from sid story

feuilly vs cosette's doll (katherine)

PART C

javert vs azelma

bread vs brujon

claquesous vs the rich guy who threw bread to the geese in luxembourg garden

sister simplice vs theodule gillenormand

babet's mistress vs enjolras

chou chou from shoujo cosette vs the carrot guy from the movie

combeferre vs tutti

the bedbugs in thenardier's inn vs jehan prouvaire

PART D

cambronne vs bahorel's mistress

navet vs fantine's neighbour who taught her how to conserve candles (ie. marguerite. thanks tumblr)

javert's singular braincell vs the closeups in the movie

bahorel vs the porter who refuses to narc on valjean

courfeyrac vs discojolras from the french concept album

gavroche thenardier vs petit gervais

eponine thenardier vs member of the convention, g----

valjean the nun from 24601 releases a sammich on parole vs marius pontmercy

[ueinra]

I admit that I had no idea who Boulatruelle is until a few days ago.

He’s this character that I hear about from time to time here but I don’t really know him as if I had never read about him.

But the thing is.. I've always wondered about the illustrations I see in some of my editions of a man with a shovel in the forest and I’m always like: What is this about? nvm *turn to the next page*

[dolphin1812]

Boulatruelle! He continues to be a bit of a tragic figure, his addiction to wine standing out more than his criminal acts even as he “live[s] to search the pockets of passers-by.”

He remains similar to Jean Valjean in some ways as well. The importance of his memory for people, for instance, resembles his; Valjean can’t remember people he’s helped, but he also remembers threats very vividly, and for the same reason (he’s “in conflict with the legal order”). Boulatruelle’s quick reasoning about why this man is suspicious brings Valjean to mind, too, as he’s hyper-aware of threats and/or possible criminality in the same way (Thénardier is like this, too). 

While I still feel sympathy for Boulatruelle, it’s clear that Patron Minette has changed him. As he lifts his pick, it’s clear that he’s a lot more comfortable with violence than he was when we first met him. It’s not explicit, but it seems like he plans to use violence (and maybe even murder) as a means of robbing this man, not just as a means of self-defense. He’s possessive of the forest as well. He’s framed sympathetically (it’s “heartrending” that the treasure was “stolen”), but he’s become much more dangerous, too.

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - Which Possibly Proves Boulatruelle's Intelligence, LM 2.3.6 (Les Miserables 1967)

Once in the forest he slackened his pace, and began a careful examination of all the trees, advancing, step by step, as though seeking and following a mysterious road known to himself alone. There came a moment when he appeared to lose himself, and he paused in indecision. At last he arrived, by dint of feeling his way inch by inch, at a clearing where there was a great heap of whitish stones. He stepped up briskly to these stones, and examined them attentively through the mists of night, as though he were passing them in review. A large tree, covered with those excrescences which are the warts of vegetation, stood a few paces distant from the pile of stones. He went up to this tree and passed his hand over the bark of the trunk, as though seeking to recognize and count all the warts.

Opposite this tree, which was an ash, there was a chestnut-tree, suffering from a peeling of the bark, to which a band of zinc had been nailed by way of dressing. He raised himself on tiptoe and touched this band of zinc.

Then he trod about for awhile on the ground comprised in the space between the tree and the heap of stones, like a person who is trying to assure himself that the soil has not recently been disturbed.

That done, he took his bearings, and resumed his march through the forest.

It was the man who had just met Cosette.

[secretmellowblog]

I love how the chapter that follows Javert’s suicide shows how Javert’s death didn’t actually solve Jean Valjean’s problems. We go right from a description of Javert’s drowning to a description of the ex-convict Boulatruelle pursuing Jean Valjean and intending to murder him. One of Jean Valjean’s pursuers dies, and another one immediately springs up.

When describing how Boulatruelle plunges after Jean Valjean in a straight “shortcut” through the forest, Hugo comments:

He believed in the straight line; a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man.

Which is obviously a callback to Javert’s:

He had introduced a straight line into what is the most crooked thing in the world;

And

He beheld before him two paths, both equally straight, but he beheld two; and that terrified him; him, who had never in all his life known more than one straight line. And, the poignant anguish lay in this, that the two paths were contrary to each other. One of these straight lines excluded the other. Which of the two was the true one?

Javert has a moral crisis where he recognizes Jean Valjean is a good person; Boulatruelle’s chapter ends with him furiously calling Jean Valjean a thief. Even with Javert dead, Jean Valjean still has to fear persecution.

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

II.iii.6 Qui peut-être prouve l’intelligence de Boulatruelle

Denny is at it again, with "The Man in the Yellow Coat". Denny that's. that's not what that says

Which Perhaps Proves the Intelligence of Boulatruelle: Wilbour, Beckwith

Boulatruelle May Have Been Right: Wraxall

Which Possibly Proves Boulatruelle’s Intelligence: Hapgood

The Man in the Yellow Coat: Denny

Which May Prove the Intelligence of Boulatruelle: FMA

Which Perhaps Proves Boulatruelle's Intelligence: Rose

Which May Prove Boulatruelle's Intelligence: Donougher

[black-rabbit-razumikhin]

Raz Reads Les Mis (XI)

Cosette - Fulfillment of the Promise to the Departed

Cosette, at her scrawny, underfed 8 years old has to walk through the woods alone to get water for the tavern

This is going to get confusing if I keep saying foster family, so foster father Thenardier and foster mother Thenardiess

Their dynamic is described as him being a mouse and her being an elephant

Hugo goes on far too long of a time explaining her appearance to tell is how horrible she is

And I know that was The Thing back then, but it made me see Thenardiess in a far more sympathetic light

Right up until she starts interacting with Cosette

A man wants water for his horse

But there is no water!

So Cosette is given a bucket which she is able to sit down comfortably inside and told to fetch water

It's dark, it's cold, it's dangerous, my little Cosette has nothing on her but a dress of cotton rags

On her way to get water she stops and looks in at a shop selling dolls, thinking about this beautiful doll she calls The Lady

But Thenardiess screams at her to hurry up and Cosette races off

She's conflicted, and considers not getting water at all, as terrified as she is of both her home life and the forest in the night

But eventually the fear of the Thenardiess and her punishment wins

Cosette fills the bucket with water but can barely carry it

She stumbles and falls and the bucket is about to tumble when it is taken from her by a large hand

... Jean Valjean?

Or is it the Boulatruelle we met earlier?

Regardless, man and girl walk back to the tavern

And Cosette asks to carry the bucket in so she won't get beaten

Cosette! This is not the childhood you should have had

She brings in the water, he asks for board

Thenardiess and Thernardier both think he's a poor begger so charge him exorbitant prices

He pays them easily

Strong, rich, hiding his name...

Surely this is Valjean right?

The nigtt goes on and he treats Cosette with kindness, buying the stockings she's knitting so she is able to play, buying her The Lady, who she is so scared of that she can barely believe the doll is for her, putting a large amount of money in her shoe while she is asleep

While this is happening, the foster sisters are dressing up a kitten and it's screaming and crying and the whole thing feels so cruel

Hugo says all of society is represented in the three girls

And it's got some heavy Christian undertones, but it's also written that I can't not side with the pious, spiritually rich but materially poor Cosette

The next day the mystery man buys Cosette from her foster family

Though not without a struggle

And not without Thernardier running after him and Cosette after they leave

He pauses in his pursuit only to think to himself that he should have brought his gun

And Hugo literally says that Satan could learn a thing or two from Thernardier's character

I mean he's horrible and a villain, but demonic?

I'm sure there will be worse people in this book

But Thernardier catches up to them and demands Cosette back

"She's not mine to give, I'm keeping her for her mother."

To which the mystery man hands over a letter

The letter signed by Fantine granting custody of Cosette to the letter's bearer

Fantine I miss you

But that answers definitively that it is Valjean fulfilling his promise to find Cosette

The end of the chapter explains that Valjean swam away and bought himself new clothes etc., everything we can expect from how someone would escape

I've read too much of this book now to realistically hope for anything good, but this chapter makes me want to hope. I want Valjean to raise Cosette in the way that Fantine should have. I want him not to be pursued anymore; I want her to know what genuine love and care feels like.

I forgot to mention above, but the Thenardiess has a son and she dotes over him until his crying gets too much and then she neglects him because she's bored? It's as if she has no acknowledgement of human life outside of where she chooses to see it. The whole situation with the foster family made me so mad, please let Cosette be out of that forever now.

[alicedrawslesmis]

Boulatruelle is back!!!