#claquesous

[kim-the-miserable-rat]

LES MISERABLES INCORRECT QUOTES

(PART 4 - I love making this shit soooo much)

MONSIEUR THENARDIER

CLAQUESOUS

PATRON MINETTE+ THENARDIERS

ENJOLRAS

BOSSUET

GAVROCHE

NATIONAL GUARDS vs BARRICADE BOYS

(about) JEAN VALJEAN

GRANTAIRE

[breath-of-fresh-grantaire]

Uh.. no... no, i don't think that's right... just an inkling of a feeling, though...

[awholelotofsad]

pov: you’re getting mugged

[maglorslostsilmaril]

more fics of enjolras beating the shit out of claquesous please 🙏

iv.xii.viii

[lesmisscraper]

The Four Heads of Patron-Minette. Volume 3, Book 7, Chapter 3.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[dolphin1812]

The porter’s murder is terrifying and graphic; he couldn’t see what was happening, and Hugo tells us how the bullet passed through him. The barricade now has an element of horror that can’t be forgotten.

I shouldn’t have used the word “terrifying” for Le Cabuc’s act, because Enjolras is terrifying, too. He just forces this man down! And he kills him so calmly! This what “capable of being terrible” really means – he’s caring to his friends and loves the people, but he’s willing to do dark things for his cause, and he’s resolute in doing so (and he even says “terrible” to describe his actions in some translations!).

When Enjolras told Grantaire to leave because he was “dishonoring” the barricade, he was operating the same way he is here. Le Cabuc sullied the barricade’s integrity with murder, so he was executed. But Enjolras condemns himself as executioner, too, because he believes violence is abhorrent (“Death, I make use of thee, but I abhor thee”). His act is just in his eyes, yes, but it’s just in an “old” order that yields to “necessity.” He wants none of that to exist! And so he thinks he must die, too, because now he is tainted by the violence of the old world. His speech is moving, but it’s tragic. The hopeful side is one he excludes himself from entirely. 

Combeferre is the first to say he’ll join him, which is moving for two reasons. One (and most generally), it’s a sign of how much they care about each other. Enjolras hadn’t said what his fate would be, but Combeferre offers to share it immediately, regardless of how bad it is! Secondly, Enjolras’ view of justice here has likely been influenced by Combeferre: “the good must be innocent,” and Enjolras can’t see himself as “innocent” after what he did. Therefore, he is no longer “good,” and cannot see himself in that perfect world. And Combeferre isn’t the only influence! He says “the human race,” not “France,” suggesting that Feuilly’s broader perspective may have gotten to him. But Combeferre’s influence is the one that condemns him.

This may sound like a critique of Combeferre (that sort of life-long punishment wasn’t his intention – it resembles the prison system), but it’s also important to keep in mind that while these are beloved characters to us, they’re also symbols. To those who despised protests for being messy and violent, what could be more appealing than someone who rejects that aspect so entirely that he disciplines the barricade and condemns himself for what he’s done? It’s difficult to say the barricade is full of “troublemakers” in the face of Enjolras’ principles, and it encourages those who simply want peace to sympathize with him (a revolutionary) most of all. 

And Le Cabuc was probably Claquesous! It would make sense with how he was a stranger to those who supposedly knew him, maintaining his air of mystery. And it means there really were a lot of police spies, with two known (possible) ones at just one barricade! Claquesous’ violence may have even been intentional if he was there as a spy, trying to turn the people against the barricade by making it needlessly violent.

[thepiecesofcait]

Look upon this fine collection, crawled from underneath a stone.

[ueinra]

Les Misérables, French Comic by Houy Raymond (1953)

I always feel happy when I see some adaptations that appreciate them and show them all even though I don't usually care about them so much.. but I LOVE SEEING THEM.

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - Composition of the Troupe, LM 3.7.4 (Les Miserables 1925)

Patron-Minette,—such was the name which was bestowed in the subterranean circulation on the association of these four men. In the fantastic, ancient, popular parlance, which is vanishing day by day, Patron-Minette signifies the morning, the same as entre chien et loup—between dog and wolf—signifies the evening. This appellation, Patron-Minette, was probably derived from the hour at which their work ended, the dawn being the vanishing moment for phantoms and for the separation of ruffians. These four men were known under this title. When the President of the Assizes visited Lacenaire in his prison, and questioned him concerning a misdeed which Lacenaire denied, “Who did it?” demanded the President. Lacenaire made this response, enigmatical so far as the magistrate was concerned, but clear to the police: “Perhaps it was Patron-Minette.”

[thegreatgaygay]

We genuinely don’t talk enough about Claquesous being a police agent…like I know Les Miserables has been out for 160 years and that this was a very minor point but hello??? Plot twist of the (nineteenth) century!

[wilwywaylan]

Aaaaand there they are, all of them ! Can you believe it took me more than one year to do all that, starting with the sketches !

I love them all ! but I think my favourite is probably the Jehan one.

ID texts in the alt description.

[kim-the-miserable-rat]

EMCEE FROM "CABARET" AND CLAQUESOUS FROM "LES MIS" HAVE THE SAME VIBES. I will not elaborate.

(this is a self indulgent post, forgive me citizens)

[victor-frankensimp]

This user is a Claquesous and Gueulemer apologist

[victor-frankensimpart]

Character design of this wonderful man by @hyacinthusart

[lesmisscraper]

How the four-headed robber ruled the underworld of Paris. Volume 3, Book 7, Chapter4.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[dolphin1812]

I recognize that "dark-haired and beautiful" is a really vague description of Montparnasse, but somehow it's still enough for me to imagine him as "Marius, but evil and with self-confidence." The emphasis on his youth is intriguing. As a former "street boy," the repetition of language related to youth ("a child," "springtime," his age, etc) reminds us that his crimes likely began around the age a child would "age out" of being a gamin (13). With that also being around the age he would have become a teenager, he might have also become more interested in his appearance then (and would have attracted more attention while also not having a place to turn to), leading to his crimes. Montparnasse isn't meant to be sympathetic - he's said to have every "vice" and he literally murders people because he wants to look nice - but it's still concerning that someone so young could have been positioned to commit violence crimes. It's both an indictment of Montparnasse and of the society that created him.

I don't know that I'll have much to say about Claquesous beyond how much I enjoy his description. His disappearances make him almost supernatural, a mysterious force of night rather than another criminal. He's also the least trustworthy of the group from any angle. No one in Patron Minette is trustworthy, of course, but Claquesous specifically is unknown even to those he works with. Between spying and betrayal within the criminal underworld and on behalf of the police (think of Leblanc's porter accusing Marius of being a police spy), someone this mysterious is even scarier than the known murderer Montparnasse, simply because it's impossible to say who he is or what he does with his knowledge.

Babet feels like the kind of criminal who is the biggest threat to someone like Fantine: a vulnerable person in desperate circumstances, hurt more by manipulation than by outright violence. Part of this is just that he extracts teeth, which she notably had to sell. But it's also because he's "learned." Another issue Fantine had was that her illiteracy meant that another had to know her secret, which made it easier to discover. Her situation wouldn't have been uncommon in Paris, suggesting that Babet could exploit others through actual knowledge acquired by reading and by the pretension to expertise that "learning" gave him (see how he calls himself a "chemist"). A small and funny(?) detail is that he lost his wife and children like a "handkerchief," which only seems humorous because it comes so soon after Marius' obsession with M Leblanc's handkerchief.

Gueulemer is the most heavily racialized of the Patron Minette, made more explicit by the suggestion that he was "creole." His description mostly just feels racist in how Hugo describes his physical features and emphasizes his physical strength. There is a brief historical reference, though. Marshal Brune was an officer during the French Revolutionary Wars and under Napoleon. He was murdered, so the suggestion that Gueulemer was connected to him likely means that he was involved in his death. Notably, he was a porter at the time. Doors in this novel are significant in how they show acceptance and care (opening) or societal rejection (closing), so it's interesting that he sidesteps this entirely in favor of violence.