#lm 3.2.7

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III.ii.7 Règle : Ne recevoir personne que le soir

Rule:—Never Recieve Anybody Except in the Evening: Wilbour

Rule: No One Received Until Evening: Wraxall

Rule: Receive No One Except in the Evening: Hapgood

Rule: Never Recieve Any One Except in the Evening: Gray

A Golden Rule: Never Recieve Visitors Except in the Evening: Denny

Rule: Never Recieve Anybody Except in the Evening: FMA

Golden Rule: Only Recieve Visitors in the Evening: Rose

Rule: No Visitors Before Evening: Donougher

[secretmellowblog]

Related to the latest @lesmisletters chapter: I love this bit of foreshadowing—

> And, on abandoning society, he had immured himself in his habits. The principal one, and that which was invariable, was to keep his door absolutely closed during the day, and never to receive any one whatever except in the evening. He dined at five o’clock, and after that his door was open. That had been the fashion of his century, and he would not swerve from it. “The day is vulgar,” said he, “and deserves only a closed shutter. Fashionable people only light up their minds when the zenith lights up its stars.” And he barricaded himself against every one, even had it been the king himself.

Gillenormand's habit of only receiving people in the evening becomes an important plot point later on. Marius has to wait until night to visit him and ask his permission to marry Cosette.

And then, after the barricades, Marius's badly injured corpse is taken to Gillenormand's door in the evening. However, because of all the rebellion happening, everyone in the bourgie street has gone to bed early, and Gillenormand is not awake to receive him. To me it’s a moment showcasing how sorta hollow Gillenormand’s principles can be:

The chapter where Marius is returned to his grandfather:

Everyone in the house was asleep. People go to bed betimes in the Marais, especially on days when there is a revolt. This good, old quarter, terrified at the Revolution, takes refuge in slumber, as children, when they hear the Bugaboo coming, hide their heads hastily under their coverlet.

[dolphin1812]

Hugo’s really stressing Gillenormand’s age here, as if to point out that, as old as he is, the ideas he represents haven’t disappeared, either. He was “young” at 74, and even now, his hair is “gray rather than white.” Gray hair is still associated with aging, but the fact that it won’t turn white suggests that he clings to youth in some ways, with his persistent longevity and fixity in his ways resembling the resilience of the monarchy linked to a regime literally called the “old regime.” His “youthfulness” is probably meant to be comical as well, but his energy also feels ominous because of the order he represents. He’s able to enforce his will and beliefs so strongly precisely because he’s aged while remaining in excellent health. 

This isn’t to wish bad health on Gillenormand because of his age; most of the elderly men in this novel are caring figures open to change. The bishop, for instance, may not stop being a royalist, but he was still willing to talk to the Conventionist and did learn a bit from his words. Like Gillenormand (and perhaps even more than Gillenormand, as an actual aristocrat), he had good reason to distrust those tied to the French Revolution and resisted engaging with this person because of it, but ultimately, a higher principle won out for him (his religious duties). To Gillenormand, his highest principle is adherence to the “old order,” making him inflexible. 

I think this also ties into the way he “barricaded himself against every one.” Characters like Myriel are somewhat dynamic because of their communal ties. The suffering Myriel sees in his community inspires him to communicate and search for solutions, leading him to be an exceptionally compassionate and understanding bishop. Even his visit to the Conventionist was motivated by his sense of duty to his community. Gillenormand rejects community, preferring to isolate himself and the family members that are stuck with him. The image of a barricade also implies that there’s something threatening outside worth barricading against, transforming opportunities for connection and new perspectives into dangers (probably because Gillenormand sees disagreement as threatening; republics make him faint). The comparison is quite ironic as well, given the use of barricades in popular protests that the aristocratically-minded Gillenormand would find abhorrent.

It would be remiss to not acknowledge that there is another major character with a family who isolates himself: Jean Valjean. He does so for more legitimate reasons than seeming “fashionable,” fearing arrest if he is around people, but it still has consequences. He and Cosette may be safe and relatively content in the convent now, but the convent was compared to a prison several times. They’re safe, but they’re also trapped. Of course, Jean Valjean doesn’t reject community as a whole like Gillenormand does; he tried to build it as mayor, even if he didn’t really participate in it himself. But if isolation is a prison with Jean Valjean, who at least respects community in theory, then how bad can it get with Gillenormand, who chooses to avoid it out of adherence to an older social order?

[cliozaur]

Even in this tiny chapter Hugo cannot limit himself to just one topic. We learn something about M. Gillenormand’s hair: “always dressed in “dog’s ears” – I am trying to visualize this and the image is just too funny. These “dog’s ears” do not quite align with the following claim that “he was venerable in spite of all this.” We also learn his previous address. And this: “He had something of the eighteenth century about him” – well, we have already noticed it and more than once!

There is something very decadent in his habit of not excepting anyone until evening. He himself declares it to be “fashionable” but this is obviously a fashion from the times of Louis XV.

I'm not sure if Hugo intended it as a wicked irony, but the phrase "he barricaded himself against everyone" does have that tone to it.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 3.2.7 ‘Golden Rule: Only Receive Visitors in the Evening’

This chapter is making a big deal about Gillenormand’s once-customary but now-idiosyncratic rule about not accepting visitors until after 5pm.

Why? I’m not sure.

At some level, this rule calls back to the destructiveness of all the other rules we’ve seen hurt people: “convicts must present their yellow passports at each town,” ”factory women can’t have children out of wedlock,” “gravediggers must have their identification cards after sundown or be fined,” and so on. This book doesn’t LIKE arbitrary rules being used in place of humanity and compassion.

We don’t see specific harms done by this one--I don’t know if they would have been clearer to contemporaries more familiar with the ancien régime--but it sure isn’t the way this book wants people to treat other people.

“The day is vulgar," said he, "and only deserves closed shutters. People who are anybody light up their wit when the zenith lights up its stars."

So, the wealthy agree to call on each other only on non-working hours, specifically to exclude the working people and the poor. We’ve been told Gillenormand is generous with alms, but he’s instituted an indirect but powerful filtering system on whom he’ll talk to.

Rules that make access difficult in this book are always about systemic exclusion. He’s not actually generous with alms if he makes sure he never comes in contact with people who need them.

And, of course, he’s being specifically contrasted with Myriel, who was from the same century but whose door was open day or night.

And he barricaded himself against everybody, were it even the king. The old elegance of his time.

I don’t know what “barricade” is doing here, but it’s sure doing a lot! It signifies, I suppose, that this is a political stance and a hill he’s willing to die on.

And it’s frivolous and stupid, but it’s also deeply exclusionary and reactionary.

[fremedon]

Brickclub 3.2.7, “Rule: No Visitors Before Evening”

Here I’m mostly going to link to this exchange between @everyonewasabird and @secretmellowblog:

Not opening your doors as a political statement is a bit toothless when Gillenormand does it, but only because Gillenormand doesn’t matter.

But it SURE MATTERS when other people make that choice.

It was a huge, life-changing deal when Myriel opened his door to Valjean, someone he had every possible social excuse to exclude. It was life-changing when Valjean did it for Fantine (or Cosette!), when Courfeyrac did it for Marius, and when Gavroche did it for the momes.

It was life-changing when the houses alongside the barricade didn’t.

The decision of whether or not to open your doors is actually one of the biggest political and interpersonal choices you can make in this text???

“The Dead Are Right and the Living Are Not Wrong” just keeps looming larger and larger, and I don’t know how I’m going to deal when I actually get to it.

[pilferingapples]

Retroblogging 3.2.7, 3.2.8

3.2.7

...Okay I despise Gillenormand but I NEED to draw this hairstyle. NEED.TO. 

3.2.8

Oh gad Mlle. Gillenormand. Though she's surely not the most lovable character in the book, and sometimes even KINDA AWFUL, I really feel for her.   She wasn't as extraordinary as her sister, she doesn't have the social freedom that Marius, as a guy, will, and she's been brought up her whole life in the shadow of father who speaks in threats and even violence. Even her smallest wishes get mocked and ignored, by her father and even by the narrative, dang.

  And all we really learn about her sister, later Mme Pontmercy, is that she was so much better and more likeable and special-er. Ugh. Not here for that crap, Hugo. Mme Pontmercy must have been really pretty awesome! I want to know about her BECAUSE SHE'S INTERESTING, not because she makes her sister look bad by comparison, ugh.

(and I do wonder if, if Mme. Pontmercy had been in another life, she might have dreamed of BEING a heroic figure, instead or in addition to marrying one. I WANT SO MUCH MME. PONTMERCY STORYTIME OKAY.)

And hey, here's younger generation showing up! Mmmaybe besides the lancer thing and the distance issue, Mlle. Gillenormand likes Theodule because he treats her like she EXISTS?!?  I mean it's a wacky idea but maybe??

Also, augh, Marius. AUGH. I don't care AT ALL if Gillenormand idolizes the kid he yells at and threatens, in his home where he can be seen to actually strike other people (and possibly his kids), where he's kept a stranglehold on his oldest daughter and still treats her like furniture. He might genuinely FEEL love for the kid, but he doesn't ACT love, and that's a major and important different thing. Marius is supposed to know about his inner feelings how exactly? At SEVEN?

...of course, it does specifically say he IDOLIZES  Marius, which is a different thing from LOVE. Very different. And does fit in better with how Gillenormand seems to treat Marius;  as a sort of cipher, an idol or image of what he thinks a grandson and young boy (and later,man) SHOULD be.   And that I think ties in nicely with the idea later that love makes people transparent;  Gillenormand DOESN'T entirely love Marius, and isn't entirely seeing him. (If anything I think he's seeing himself there; he's treating Marius the way he, as he is now!, would like to be treated, as a outgoing, self-assured adult who's lived through an awful lot already. It's a flawed approach, to say the very least.)