#lm 1.7.10

[the-wraxall-illustrations]

[cliozaur]

With all due sympathy for Champmathieu and his arduous labour coupled with unjust compensation, it immediately stunned me that he made (no more than) 30 sous a day, while Fantine earned only 12 (!) sous a day— and this amount was further reduced. That's what I call unfair.

As I delve into the Brick, the concept of identity protection in the past keeps occupying my thoughts. And we are already in the nineteenth century when at least some people had passports. However, it's evident from these pages that having a passport was a privilege beyond the means of the poor. Concerning identity protection, it appears that peasants who never left their villages were in a more advantageous position than the urban poor, especially those without a family. How would Champmathieu prove that he is Champmathieu and not Jean Valjean when the only person who could vouch for him (Baloup) was impossible to find?

And what is it with the witnesses who claim that they have recognized “Jean Valjean” in Champmathieu? Do all labourers over 50 just blend into one generic image of a dangerous man for them? Javert’s testimony in the court undermines his laudable reputation of an honest and trustworthy man. “I recognize him perfectly.” Do you, really?  

However, M. Madeleine doesn't face the problem of people recognizing him at this point in his life as a respectable bourgeois—twenty people in the court turn their heads, and they know that he is M. Madeleine.

[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.

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - The System of Denials, LM 1.7.10 ( Les Miserables 1925)

The man ceased speaking, and remained standing. He had said these things in a loud, rapid, hoarse voice, with a sort of irritated and savage ingenuousness. Once he paused to salute some one in the crowd. The sort of affirmations which he seemed to fling out before him at random came like hiccoughs, and to each he added the gesture of a wood-cutter who is splitting wood. When he had finished, the audience burst into a laugh. He stared at the public, and, perceiving that they were laughing, and not understanding why, he began to laugh himself.

It was inauspicious.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 1.7.10 ‘The system of denegations’

I’d abandoned the whole Cart Symbolism thing for a while, because honestly, what else could Valjean have traveled in? That doesn’t prove it’s not symbolic, but it also means I can’t prove it *is.*

But we’re back.

Because Champmathieu is a wheelwright.

All Valjean’s difficulty getting here just got flipped on its head. He was desperate to save one man accused of being Jean Valjean so he was throwing his Elite Bourgeois Power And Money at the problem, trying to make poor people move faster. He said to the wheelwright, “I need this in an hour” and the man was like, no, that’s not how this works, I’m the only one working, and I can get it to you tomorrow.

And it just felt like an obstacle in Valjean’s way.

But that was a wheelwright in the middle of winter, and Champmathieu just explained what that job is like: working long, brutal days outdoors because it takes too much room to go inside, whipping yourself to keep warm (when the overseers don’t stop you from it as a waste of time). These are the people who allow society (The CART) to move forward, and Valjean, trying to do his one good thing, missed the point.

Myriel’s ways of dealing with the world weren’t perfect, but they were much more holistic than Valjean’s, who having made mistakes is trying to save each person he’s harmed individually--first Fantine, now Champmathieu. He’s losing sight of all the other Fantines and Champmathieus that make up society.

And I’m not sure Valjean ever fixes that. He decides to save Cosette at all costs, but--unlike in the brilliant Shoujo Cosette, which fixes this along with many other things--he avoids larger scales of helping people after this. He gives alms and doesn’t try to deal with the larger picture, because he’s learned he messes things up when he pretends he understands it.

(Damn, I want more Valjean-and-the-Amis fic. There’s so much there that could be amazing.)

I like how Champmathieu is the only sensible person here. He really could reasonably be a lot more off and confused than he is, given potential language barriers and everything else, but he is, in fact, explaining exactly the relevant points pretty eloquently. But everyone has already made up their minds, and his markers of social class are damning him further.

I love Mellow’s point that Javert has once again and as always changed his perception of the facts to suit what his bosses say they are, and is being praised for it. Others have pointed out that Champmathieu and Valjean don’t have to physically look much like each other, since much of their resemblance is their poverty and social status, and that’s thematically important. Both of those are excellent points!

BUT. I think it’s also worth saying that eyewitness-identification of suspects really just straight-up is exactly as bad as this portrays. Human facial recognition and human memory aren’t anything like as accurate as we pretend they are, and we’re much more subject to social pressures on these things than we want to think. Javert isn’t strange for completely revising what his eyes told him because the police said he was wrong--that’s most people’s response! It’s the reason police lineups are a Problem.

Man, I wish this book would hurry up and become useless.

[brickstudies]

2019 me speedread les mis for the plot and didn't have much to say, particularly in the first half, but apparently i lost my shit at the mention that champmathieu was a wheelwright??

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 1.7.10 “The System For Denials”

The description of Champmathieu starting up “as if waking from sleep” and staring around at everyone reminds me of the ways that Valjean acted in Digne. Just that feeling of being totally in over his head.

Hugo’s characters ramble when they’re in emotional distress. We see Valjean himself do it, Fantine, Eponine, Marius (in the form of a letter, mostly), Grantaire, Gillenormand, etc. The more distressed they are, the less the rambling is about analysis or connections; it becomes just statements of random, vaguely-connected facts. We see this especially with Fantine and Champmathieu, whose distress is literally fear for their lives. Marius’ distress is romantic, Grantaire’s is anxious, and Gillenormand’s is just dumbassery, so theirs is a little more analytical. But unlike plays and other pieces of literature, Hugo doesn’t really use long monologues to move the plot or even the emotion of the character forward. It’s actually almost the opposite. It’s this long, crazy, rambling snapshot of how they’re feeling at that moment, captured by the way that words just tumble out on top of each other. Monologuing illustrates which characters have the least amount of power, or feel powerless at that moment.

Champmathieu earned 30 sous a day as a wheelwright. I know Valjean earned like half a sou a day while in prison, but I don’t remember there being any mention of how much he earned as a pruner? I would assume less than 30 sous?

Champmathieu’s description of his family is a sort of parallel to Valjean’s. Where Champmathieu had his daughter, Valjean had his sister. Where the daughter’s husband was abusive, the sister’s got no description but didn’t seem terrible. The daughter was a laundress, we don’t know Valjean’s sister’s job but I assume she worked. Champmathieu’s daughter is dead, and Valjean’s sister presumably is as well. The parallel is just another example of how similar and yet different the struggle of the poor is everywhere, in Paris, in Avergne, in Faverolles. Champmathieu could have been Valjean, if he had at some point stolen bread and been caught.

“But how stupid of me! Paris is a chasm. Who there even knows Father Champmathieu!” Is this the first proper reference to the swallowing powers of Paris? I don’t think we’ve yet been introduced to the ways that Paris disappears people so completely, how they get swallowed up or they go to it in order to willingly disappear. Interesting that it is actually Champmathieu that first introduces us to this concept, especially considering he is on the brink of being swallowed up by the prison system.

“He opened his mouth, turned toward the presiding judge, and said, “In the first place--” Then he looked at his cap, looked up at the ceiling, and fell silent.” God, this and then his later exclamation of “Splendid!” is just so sad. This whole chapter is just watching Champmathieu’s hope slowly break down. He already seems so confused, but throughout this chapter his confusion turns into this realization that this is a mistake that everyone is completely convinced is true and that there is no hope that he’s getting out of this and that there’s no way for him to explain himself or convince them that they’re wrong, until he’s just accepted his fate with this sort of freaked out, disbelieving resignation.

It’s just....ugh, like, they’ve been at this for hours. All this arbitrary speechifying when everyone already knows what’s going to happen to Champmathieu. Like Hugo said last chapter, sentences pronounced in advance. Everyone knows Champmathieu will be found guilty. But the petty, ridiculous rhetoric has to continue. Because that’s what courts are, just a big production, just a spectacle for all these people packed into the room. They’re dragging it out because why? Tradition? Protocol? To watch the light leave his eyes? For the audience? All of the above? It’s just so stupid and arbitrary. Valjean lived through this once; he’s seeing it again as an outsider, except that he’s not really an outsider. He’s living through these accusations too, because even though they’re leveled at Champmathieu, they’re also technically leveled at him. It’s also just so....stupid.

Champmathieu’s outburst of “You are a very bad man!” to the judge reminds me of Fantine. It’s that regression of language into simple but emotional exclamations that sound almost childish. Champmathieu doesn’t have the language to argue his case, doesn’t have the language to explain why they’re all wrong, doesn’t even have enough information about himself to refute them. But he knows that this is wrong and that the judge is wrong and that all of this is very Bad.

Again, we see a lack of names. Champmathieu says he’s been known as Little One, Old Man, and Father Champmathieu, that he doesn’t know of any other name he went by and doesn’t know where he was born. Again we see the conditions of children of the state, of the poor.

We learn that the reason Valjean couldn’t see Javert in the courtroom is because he left as soon as his testimony was over. I’ve always wondered what duty called him back to M-sur-M.

So we get Javert’s testimony repeated by someone else. We don’t get it out of his own mouth. I don’t really know what to make of this, but it feels important. Javert is the personification of zealous law, and yet we don’t get his presence in the chapter when the law is at its most rashly zealous. So why this mechanic? Why don’t we get to see his confession--the one he made so humbly to Valjean--in front of the court? I’ve had two separate thoughts about this. One is that maybe, in the back of his mind, he doesn’t fully believe in his testimony. He convinces himself that he does, because otherwise he’d be doubting an authority figure, but I wonder if there’s still a little place inside him that thinks he was right. The other thought is that the illustration of how scary Javert is just wouldn’t work in this context. Hugo describes quite intensely how happy Javert is upon entering the room to arrest Valjean and how terrifying that joy is because he’s so gleeful that he was right and that he gets to enact justice. But the reason he’s able to express so much joy is because he is alone in the room with just Valjean and Fantine. If he had been in the court when Valjean revealed himself, he would have had the decorum to keep quiet and school his expression and not be so gleeful. So Javert has to not be in the room when Valjean reveals himself, because the only way we’ll get to actually see how truly terrifying he is as the Evil Of Good is when he is alone with Valjean in a place where he doesn’t have to keep up pretense.

I love the FMA translation usually, but I’m glad I read it with the Hapgood translation open because some decisions are a bit weird. FMA says that Brevet describes Valjean as “sullen” at the galleys, while Hapgood says “sly.” Hapgood’s translation makes a lot more sense, since Brevet is saying that age must have dulled him. The French is “sournois” which like devious or sneaky, so I don’t really know where “sullen” came from.

“...from being a shepherd had slipped into banditry.” I just want to point out that this reminds me of the shepherds and bandits that Myriel encountered back in 1.1.

Champmathieu reacts to each prisoner’s condemnation of him with an increasing loss of hope. His “splendid” is so sarcastic and hysterical. He’s crossing over from denial and disbelief to a sort of hysteric acceptance of this fate that he’s realized he has absolutely no control over despite not being that person. I wouldn’t be surprised if, had Valjean not stood up in the next second, he might have started laughing.

[pilferingapples]

Les Mis 365 1.7.10, 1.7.11

I'm sure other people will analyze the light symbolism and all the religious parallels (right?? I haven't caught up on older posts) in these chapters, and I am really determined to get caught up today, so I'm gonna try to keep a narrower focus on some other things.

- Champmathieu really IS evoking pre-Toulon Valjean in a lot of ways; looks aside, there's the same repeated statements of work as identity, and the focus on his child-- except of course in Champmathieu's case, his daughter is already dead. The fact that he basically uses his trial to tell her story is really heartbreaking, and probably shows some of why he's not really tuned in to the proceedings around him; it's obvious that she's still a major concern in his mind. He spends an awful lot of time talking about what a good girl she is, and how hard she works, before mentioning almost offhand that she's dead. And of course no one in the courtroom, or possibly the world,  cares about that but him, but he's still telling her story to everyone,  with much more attention than he really gives to his own defense, and if I start crying over a  CHAMPMATHIEU'S FRIGGING DAUGHTER I am really not gonna make it.

...Very possibly I am not gonna make it.

--The fact that Javert is?? trying to pin the silver-theft on Valjean?? Is baffling. Like, yes, Valjean absolutely took that silver! But since the Bishop insisted that it was a gift, and certainly no one else in the Bishop's household would have said otherwise, how is that even on the books? Does Javert routinely go around accusing people of stealing the stuff they were given? Christmas in Javert's precinct must be a terrifying time.

-More to the point of the book-- I think this is the first time we explicitly see the law working with designated criminals to maintain order, and, in the process to CREATE MORE CRIMINALS. With Javert gone, the trial of Champmathieu-- really, trying to convict him of being Valjean-- depends entirely on the testimony of convicted, time-serving criminals.

I'm  kind of at a loss to describe the level of horrors this is giving me, because of course it IS plausible; But the awful collaboration here is something that's going to come up again and again; it's the real reason Patron-Minette is so awful, it's the hammer on the gun in Le Cabuc's hand,. it's one of the harshest comments in the book and it's here in such an ​average​ moment, really, the use of criminal testimony against other criminals, but-- it suits the state to use the criminal element, so it's convenient to the state to CREATE a criminal element, and that's EXACTLY what they're doing, and it's what very nearly happened with Valjean himself, in many ways, and there's an awful vampiric quality to the whole thing I can't even explain right now but I AM PRETTY UPSET.

And maybe it's only because I'm thinking of Javert anyway, but it reminds me of the point about society closing its doors on those who protect it and those who attack it, and makes me wonder if maybe it's because, in the context of a system like this, they're often both the same thing.

-- Creeping Social Horror aside, SERIOUSLY, WHO LET VALJEAN OUT, I can actually buy it happening-- everyone's still in Oh No Monsieur le Mayor is Sick mode-- but it's still hilarious??

--Champmathieu  probably has the realest assessment of the whole affair.   I hope he got rich telling this story for the rest of his life.

[dolphin1812]

We now hear Champmathieu speak. His speech is all over the place, as we’ve seen from the other misérables in the novel (Valjean to the bishop, Fantine to Javert). The content is, unsurprisingly, heartbreaking. These lines in particular really hurt to read:

“She came home at seven o’clock in the evening, and went to bed at once, she was so tired. Her husband beat her. She is dead. We have not been very happy.”

What Champmathieu describes here is upsetting enough on its own (harsh working conditions, abuse, his daughter’s death), but the way he says it really adds to the impact. His sentences when speaking of work are much longer and more detailed, whereas when he reaches all the domestic issues that befell his daughter, it’s almost as if he runs out of the emotional energy to explain himself properly. The subject is too painful for anything beyond simple sentences. 

It’s also out of place. True, the conditions he describes likely led to her death (little sleep, either extreme cold or extreme heat, overwork, abuse at home), but there’s no transition to explain her death or to connect it to this context. It’s simply stated in the middle of his entire backstory. Part of this is his speaking style, as he rambles, but it’s also more shocking and impactful because of its placement.

The overall attention to Champmathieu and his daughter’s jobs also allows Hugo to illuminate other issues in work that he couldn’t explore through Valjean and Fantine. We already know that work is pretty horrible from their experiences (Valjean’s work was dangerous, grueling, and seasonal, and then he was underpaid; Fantine’s first job was better, but her second was exhausting her eyes and barely paid her), but both of their circumstances got significantly worse after a run-in with the law or societal standards. Champmathieu and his daughter don’t have this issue. He stresses that his daughter was good, and this seems to be his first criminal case. However, they still suffer from the physical aspects of their work (Champmathieu notes that his work ages people prematurely, and his daughter likely died from the poor conditions she worked in). They’re also paid very little; the 30 sous he mentions is the same as what most workmen were paid at Grasse (where Valjean worked on his way to Digne); twice what Valjean was paid there; and almost twice as much as the 18 sous Valjean earned as a tree pruner. It still wasn’t enough, though; like we saw with Fantine, any crisis (maltreatment due to his age, his daughter’s death) makes the existing financial strain unbearable. Ultimately, Champmathieu’s tale underscores the horrific exploitation endured by ordinary workers, building on what Hugo has shown with Valjean and Fantine.

I also really love the ending of this chapter. Valjean directly addressing the other convicts is so much more impactful than him just declaring his identity (because how is he so familiar with them?), and the confusion in the courtroom is a somewhat funny point to end on.