Les Miserables --Episode 9 (3 of 8). Plot summary and the real people who inspired it.

This episode covers 5 real historical figures that helped inspire the novel, and a whirlwind plot summary of the original Victor Hugo novel.

Errata:  For some reason I kept referring to the character Marius as "Marcus" -- please just skip that.  

Here's a link to the image of the Bishop's plaque, identifying that character in the novel is based on the actual Bishop of Deign.

Introduction

Against the odds, an early draft of Les Miserables made it out of Paris, with it’s author – Victor Hugo – in hiding for 9 days and with a price on his head.  The hero who saved the book is his mistress, who was also his copyist.  She smuggled a trunk with the manuscript to Brussels and then the island of Jersey, where she maintained a residence a stone’s throw from where Hugo was living with his wife and family.

When the book is finally published almost a decade later, Les Miserables instantly becomes the most commercially successful novel to that point in history.  Embedded within it are at least 3 different numerological references, what gamers today would call easter eggs.  These numbers are so obscure even the most crazed Les Mis fans would miss their significance.  What were they, and what did they mean?

And Les Mis is a work of fiction, but it very much is a commentary on its time. That time is one where who’s in charge of France shifts dramatically, and violently, about every 10 years.  Hugo writes the book in exile and has to recall the city of Paris from memory.  As he’s doing that, were his characters based on actual historical figures?  Was there an actual Cosette, or Fantine, or even Jean Valjean?

And, as always, what was this book about what was it’s message that has resonated with the audience?

We’ll figure this out and walk through the plot of this 1,500 page masterpiece, which takes as many twists, turns, and side trips as a barricaded French alley.  Let’s do it!  In this episode of Theater History and Mysteries.

Footnotes available in Episode 7 

Transcript

 Against the odds, an early draft of Les Miserables has made it out of Paris with its author, Victor Hugo, in hiding for nine days with a price on his head. The hero who saved the book is his mistress, who was also his copyist. She smuggled a trunk with a manuscript to Brussels, and then The Island of Jersey where she maintained a residence that was a stone's throw from where Hugo was living with his wife and family.

When the book is finally published, almost a decade later, Les Mis instantly becomes the most commercially successful novel to that point in history. Embedded within it are at least three different numerological references, what gamers today would call Easter eggs. These numbers are so obscure that even the most crazed Les Mis fan We've missed their significance.

What are they and what did they mean? And Les Mis is a work of fiction, but it's very much a commentary on its time. That time is one where who's in charge of France shifts dramatically and violently about every 10 years. Hugo's writing the book in exile and he has to recall the city of Paris from memory.

And as he's doing that, Were his characters based on actual historical figures? Was there a real Cosette or Fantine or even Jean Valjean? And as always, what was that book about? And what was the message in there that has resonated with the audience so much that it's still a smash hit 150 years later?

We'll figure this out and walk through the plot of this 1500 page masterpiece, which takes as many twists, turns and side trips as a barricaded French alley. Let's do it. In this episode of Theater History and Mysteries,

I'm Jon Brushke, and you are listening to Theater History and Mysteries, where I take on musical theater production, go into a deep dive on the questions it raises and the answers it provides. I hope that this approach will give a deeper understanding about the lessons that the musical has for theater and for life and.

I will never miss an opportunity to pursue any mystery, bizarre coincidence, improbable event, or supernatural suggestion along the way because, in the words of Dirk Gently, it is all connected. Okay. Some bookkeeping before we dive into the action, you might want to go back to the previous episode, or at least start on episode seven.

There's a bunch in there about the revolution and the timeline of all that, that could become relevant as we're talking through the historical events that go into the text itself. If you could please spread the word about this podcast, if you are enjoying it, we are getting some traction. It does seem like there is an audience for this approach to looking for the craze.

Fun side things. Well, sticking to some important texts and sticking to the facts about some really important works of art, but the ability for this podcast to keep going will depend on the audience. And it looks like it's either we're at make or break time. It's either going to go forward and be a success, or we're going to stall out at a couple hundred listeners.

So if you get the opportunity and you could put this on your social media, my life is in your hands. Please smuggle me out of Paris. Finally, just pardon my French. It's terrible. I'm going to try to get the words out so that they're recognizable, but I am sure I am not pronouncing them all correctly. And the plan for today is we're going to walk through five actual historical events.

Then we're going to walk through the plot of Les Mis and see where they show up. And then we're going to try to figure out, uh, to presage some of what the book is all about, which we'll go into some depth on in our next episode. All right. So here we go. The five actual historical events that proceed the Les Mis text.

Figure number one, the convict in 1828, there is a character in France and his name is Eugène François Vidocq. That is V I D O C Q. I'm hoping that means Vidocq. And That guy has his memoirs published. And for this, my source that I found this out at is from a person named Fiona Lashmet. It was published in 2022.

This is my favorite author I will ever cite on this podcast. From what I can tell, Fiona was an undergraduate at DuPage college, which is a small community college in Illinois. And she presented her paper at, I presume her paper at a student research symposium. The paper won first place. It's now been posted on the digital commons, which is how I got it.

But, oh my gosh. Fiona Lashmat, you have a future in academia. If you want it, you write incredibly well, and your research is impeccable. So rather than put my own spin on it, I'm just going to read a quote directly from Fiona's paper. VDoc went to prison for the first time when he was 13 years old for stealing and selling his family's silver plates.

Hmm. And his father arranged the arrest to teach him a lesson. After years of being in and out of prison and escape attempts of varying success, he offered to work as an informant to the police and spied on his fellow inmates in the prison. After he was released, he continued to act as a criminal while secretly providing information on the criminal underworld to the police.

By 1812, he formally established the Surrette, S U R E T E with some accent marks, a civil police force, often hiring fellow ex convicts and training them how to effectively disguise themselves and become spies. He took on cases as a private investigator. Crime in Paris decreased significantly. After resigning from the force, he set up a paper factory in the small town of Saint Monde, M A N D E, with an accent over the E, and again employed mostly ex convicts, both men and women.

However, unlike Jean Valjean's black glass factory, this was not a successful endeavor, and he went bankrupt in 1831 and returned to being the chief of the Soirette, S U R E T E again. His force was involved in the June Rebellion of 1832, fighting against the rioters. And quote, okay, we'll see how all that intersects with the text, but that's a fascinating, interesting guy.

He's definitely around during the lifetime of Victor Hugo, and his memoirs are published and publicly available. Therefore, as of 1828, Hugo would start in about the middle 1840s, writing the first draft of Les Mis. That's figure number one, the convict. Figure number two is the priest. I'm gonna butcher this name, but is BNVD Moye, M-I-O-L-L-I-S.

He is the bishop of Dean, D-I-G-N-E. I'm also mispronouncing that from 1805 to 1838, and according to Lashmet quote, he was known for his charitable and gentle nature like the fictional Monse Muriel, and was by all accounts, a highly respected. Bishop, end quote. Of his many good works, one was to use his own silver coins to pay for the restoration of a church named Notre Dame Dulau, D U L A U S.

And in particular, it's Presbytery that's near the sanctuary. And if you're not a churchgoer, but you've seen The Exorcist, it's the part of the church that is near the altar. Now, this church is not THE Notre Dame, but it is a significant church, and the valuables in this church had been confiscated during their revolution, which happened about a decade earlier.

So it's notable that he's using his own funds and especially that he's using silver to restore it. He also stood against the revolution and its demand to swear loyalty to the revolution before the church. And he also took a stand against Napoleon. So he was a principled guy who is willing to do things that were unpopular or put himself at risk for the sake of his own principles and beliefs.

So that is our second. Figure the priest. He is a very well regarded religious figure of the time, and he's willing to stand up for things that he believes are true. Figure number three, the prostitute. This account is also taken directly from Fiona Lashmet. Here's the quote. Quote, on a snowy January day in 1841, Victor Hugo was walking down the rue Taibau, T A I T B O U T, waiting for a carriage when he saw a prostitute standing out in the cold in a low cut dress.

As he watched, a wealthy, fashionably dressed young man picked up a handful of snow and threw it down the back of her dress. The woman cried out in shock and began viciously beating the man until the police pulled her off of him, and the man was left untouched. Well, the two sergeants forced her to walk, each holding her by the arm.

She cried out, I didn't do anything wrong, I assure you, it was the monsieur who did this to me. I'm not guilty, I beg of you, leave me alone, I did not do anything wrong, surely. And the sergeant replied without listening, come on, walk, you'll have six months in prison. At these words, you'll have six months.

The poor girl recommends her justifications and redoubled her, please. And her prayers, you don't know last met you write so well, the sergeant's little touch by her tears, dragged her to a post in the roof. Shows she CHAU CHAT behind the opera. Hugo followed the scene along with an interested crowd. After some internal debate, he decided to intervene on the woman's behalf.

His testimony was, at first, snidely refused by the police commissioner until he introduced himself as Victor Hugo, after which they apologized profusely and agreed to include his testimony. He explained that he'd seen the entire scene happen, that the woman was justified and that was really the man who should be arrested.

The police commissioner replied, quote, I believe everything you say months here, but the sergeants have testified. There is a report started. Your testimony will go into these minutes. You can be assured, but justice must have its course. And I cannot set the girl free replies. You go, what wants here after what I have just told you, which is the truth, truth that you cannot doubt that you do not doubt you're going to hold this girl, but this justice is a horrible injustice.

Replies the sergeant. There is only one case once here where I could put a stop to the matter. It would be the one where you would sign your statement. Would you like to? If the woman's freedom depends on my signature, here it is. And Victor Hugo signed it. The woman kept saying, God, how good this gentleman is.

My God, how good he is. These unhappy women were not only astonished and grateful when we were compassionate towards them. They. Are no less so when we are just that latter part is from the footnote in Fiona Lashman's account, the original sources there. And I've got the source for a lash mat on the show notes.

Okay. So that is our third figure. It is a prostitute who is accosted in the street unfairly, who Victor Hugo eventually stands up for that sort of gets emphasized in this account. And that will play slightly differently in the novel, but that is definitely something that, uh, Hugo experienced firsthand.

Figure number four. The bread thief. This comes from Nina Martiris, a freelance journalist who is contributing to National Public Radio. Go National Public Radio. And here's the quote from her article. Quote, on a bitterly cold day in February of 1846, the French writer Victor Hugo was on his way to work when he saw something that affected him profoundly.

A thin young man with a loaf of bread under his arm was being led away by the police. Bystander said he was being arrested for stealing the loaf. He was dressed in mud spattered clothes, his bare feet thrust into clogs, and his ankles were wrapped in bloodied rags in lieu of stockings. Quote, it made me think, wrote Hugo, the man was no longer a man in my eyes, but the specter of la miserie, of poverty.

That is a meaningful exchange. Martiris has a great account of it. My pet peeve, though, is that she doesn't cite the source that she used. I have no reason to doubt that that was accurate, that her account is true. I've got a lot of love for NPR. They do a great job of sourcing their material. But, how do we know that that's what Hugo said exactly?

I've seen it cited in the preface, but not in my version of the preface. Anyway, with some qualification. It does seem that this incident inspired Hugo, as always, if you yourself are writing, make sure that you include the footnotes. So if you, somebody's interested in what you have to say, and they want to look it up and find more about it, or if they want to verify what you're saying, they can look up the source.

We can't do that in this case because the source is not included. Anyway, that is figure number four, the bread thief that Hugo himself witnessed. And finally, Figure number five, the June Rebellion of 1832. Now my source here is Zara Chavangradze, the complete references in the footnote. She has an MA in Diplomacy and International Politics and a BA in International Relations and was writing up this summary of the June 1832 Rebellion.

These aren't direct quotes, but I am crubbing from her account. In 1830, there's an event called the July revolution. We covered this in episode seven. This is going to be a quick replay of that. In 1830, there is a generally despised King Charles the 10th and he was in power. So it goes to the revolution.

Then it's Napoleon. Then it is King Charles, but he is unpopular and nobody likes him. So there are five days of barricades in Paris and he's forced to abdicate the throne. So the idea is Charles, a terrible King. They want to get rid of him. He's replaced by a monarch that everybody hopes will be better.

The new king, Louis Philippe, but he's not actually much better. There is a lot of anger amongst the revolutionaries of the July Revolution of 1830 that they had fought for nothing. The idea was we tried to get rid of the bad king to put in the good king, but the new king is not much better. At that time, there's a general named Jean Maximilien Lamarck.

And he was a general in the French army and an outspoken critic of Louis Philippe, but he died of cholera on June 1st of 1832. So he's going to have a funeral procession, as you would for a popular general. But that turns into an excuse to riot against the king. This is an attempt at the, quote, June Revolution or June Days or June Rebellion, which is an attempt to recreate the July Revolution of 1830.

Interestingly, both the Bonapartists, those people who were in favor of Napoleon as emperor, And the Republicans, the old school French revolutionaries of 1789, are on the same side of this riot, and they're both opposed to Louis Philippe, although they, of course, were on opposite sides of many other things.

There are some speeches that are given, and someone waves a flag that says, liberty or death, and a riot breaks out. It's unplanned. Some sources say the flag is red. Some say it's black, probably not a much consequence. Just interesting. The different sources say different things, but there are definitely students who are involved.

And eventually there are an estimated hundred thousand protesters at the barricades, but it does not go well. It's a spontaneous uprising when the organized army and national guards swoop in with 60, 000 combined troops, they eventually kill 800 people. And the entire affair ended after only two days on June 5th and 6th.

That is the extent of what happened there, but there are two people of note who are there. One is the Marquis de Lafayette. Yes, that guy, the hero of both worlds who fought in the American Revolution and in the French Revolution. And he's not really important to the story. It's just a famous guy who happened to be around.

The second person who's there is Victor Hugo. He literally stumbled on it. He's writing something. He's working on a play. He hears a bunch of noise going on. He says, Hey, what's, what's that? Goes over. Discovers that there's a riot and does not take part in it. He goes back and he writes in his diary that he doesn't think much of what's going on.

He believes resistance to the oppression is important, but he thinks that bloodshed and rioting are dumb and not the correct way to go about it. We'll talk about that a lot more later, but that is the encounter that Victor Hugo has with the June Rebellion of 1832. So those are our five actual figures and events.

And it is time at last to go through the story itself and see where these real life events show up in the novel. The novel itself is divided into five volumes, and they were originally released just sort of a volume at a time. You know, think Deathly Hallows, they have one and two of the Deathly Hallows.

This is like Les Mis, but there's five different volumes. And I'm, of course, going to be skipping many, many details as I go through this. It's a 1500 page novel. We're not going to summarize all of that in 25 minutes. But I have read the entire long form book, which is kind of a fun story by itself. My past life, I had been a debate coach at Cal State Fullerton.

The debate season is exhausting at the end of it. A friend of mine named Laura Heider and I went to go see a movie and we picked Les Mis. It was 1999. So it was the earlier movie. It had like Liam Neeson playing John Bell, John, and it was so uninteresting. I just came home and thought there's got to be more to this story than that.

Like I didn't even know. What the big deal was about lemme is I didn't even get really what Broadway was at the time But you know, I was like this story has survived hundreds of years. It has to be better than what was in that movie So I went out I went to the Fullerton library and I checked out the unabridged 1, 500 page story of Les Mis and So that's how I got the book in my hand the reason I was able to read off 1, 500 pages was at the time my wife who is a genius and has got it was Getting her PhD at MIT at the time Lived in Boston, which is where MIT is.

And I was living in Fullerton, California. So we would actually have to fly back and forth across the country to see each other. So on those flights was when I read the full copy of the book, Les Mis. And then kind of the eerie part was that was 1999. I remember the flight we used to take was American airlines flight 11.

I think it was like 10 went from LA to Boston and 11 went from Boston to LA and that flight. Was the one that in within two years was the one that got hijacked and used to knock down the twin towers. So a little bit spooky, but anyway, my first encounter with lame is, was reading the book on the airplane that would eventually become the flight that crashed into the nine 11 towers.

I don't know what all that means, but I am trusting dirt gently when he says it is all connected. So most of what I'm accounting, what I'm about to recount as the plot. It's going to get out of the book, but I don't remember every detail from that book that I read 20 years ago in my love Lauren days of courting my spouse.

So I'm relying on that knowledge and also the Wikipedia plot summary, to keep me honest, Wikipedia is not a great research source for. Deep dives into original materials, but it's very good at summarizing things. And so I can use that as my guide, just in the interest of being intellectually honest and citing where it is.

My information came from. All right, that all behind us. We are ready to dive into the plot. Volume number one in this five volume epic is called Fantine. Here's the way it goes in 1815. A prisoner named Jean Valjean is released from prison. He originally is sentenced to five years for stealing bread for his starving sister, but then he gets 14 more years for his multiple escape attempts.

All right, that is where our first Easter egg shows up. 24601 is the number tattooed on the prisoner Jean Valjean, and it's referenced twice in the book. It's his first tattoo. This number marks the date of his conception, the 24th of June. 1801, 24, 601, which is the date that his parents conceived him. And if you go back to episode seven, that's a reference there because life starts.

Is there a meeting that goes with this or is it just kind of an Easter egg? If there's meaning, it probably is just seems to say that John Valjean is autobiographical of Hugo. But I haven't really seen too many people who say that if people do say there's some thing autobiographical about Hugo in this book, it's that Marius, who we'll talk about in a sec is modeled after the young Victor Hugo.

So probably this is just an Easter egg, but, uh, if you were interested in what day Victor Hugo's parents conceived him, it is written right there in the text. Back to the narrative, Jean Valjean is turned away by all the innkeepers because he's a felon and so he has to sleep in the Straits. Now, this of course tracks with the bread thief of 1846 that he's trying to get bread and that's why he's thrown in prison in the first place.

And that means that the original offense for Jean Valjean must have happened in 1795 right at the end of the original revolution, the big one that happened in 1789. And historically, that's right when the terror ends. So the way the revolution happens is There's a revolution, the king is killed, the Robespierre group and the Committee of Public Safety take over and they become guillotine happy, and it ends with something called the Directory.

The Directory leads to Napoleon's takeover. 1795, which is when Jean Valjean would have been arrested in the text, is right as the terror is ending. There's this Directory, but Napoleon has not yet come to power. And if there's meaning that is given to this timing, it's got to be that right after the revolution has run its course.

Things are no better for the poor that by placing Jean Valjean's release in 1815, that means that his arrest was 1795, which means that the revolution had just finished, but the poor people are still getting arrested for stealing bread. And so the real problem there is with an inflexible legal system.

And that's a bit of a stretch. And it's not explicitly in the text. It's not something that Hugo says, but it is interesting that that is where he has set the original arrest of Jean Valjean. Okay, so John Valjean can't find anywhere to sleep, but he finds a benevolent priest, a guy named Bishop Myrel, M Y R I E L.

The bishop lets him sleep in his quarters, but John Valjean steals some silver candlesticks. The police catch him, but instead of busting him, Myrel says, He gave Jean Valjean the sticks and asked him to take the two more that he forgot. So instead of saying that, yeah, that's the guy, he stole my silver candlesticks.

He said, Oh no, no, no. I gave him those candlesticks. In fact, Jean Valjean, here's two more candlesticks I want you to take. And Jean Valjean, of course, knows exactly what's going on. My relic sentiment says, go forth and sin no more. Okay, so this character is obviously based on the real priest, the Bishop of Dene.

In fact, there is a plaque on the house where that priest lived that commemorates the fact that he inspired that character in Les Mis. And an amusing side note is that some of the bishop's family saw the connection, but they hated it. Check out this note from the nephew. I've got the link to it in the show notes, but it goes this way.

Monsieur Victor Hugo has offended the truth no less than he has offended propriety in showing this worthy and holy bishop pushing religion to its knees before a freethinker and episcopal dignity before a conventionist. Okay, I'm going to use that trash talking into my next sporting event. That is definitely some unhappiness, but it makes it abundantly clear that in fact, the actual Bishop of Dean is the historical character that the Bishop Myrel, who's maybe the most important character in the book outside of Jean Valjean, is modeled after, and I don't get all of the lingo that was there, but for Hugo, the value of the priest is that he follows the true edicts of the Bible.

You should welcome the stranger. If you do it not for the least of these, you have done it not for me, rather than the church doctrine. And that's a big point that Hugo makes in the book, that if you stay true to the gospel, you have infinite compassion for other people. And what Hugo does not like about the Catholic church is that oftentimes their edicts and their official doctrine don't support that.

That is precisely what his nephew does not like Victor Hugo saying about the priest, but it is the meme theme of the book. All right, back to the text. Okay, so Jean Valjean has these candlesticks, but immediately he steals some coins from someone named Petite Gervas, which he immediately regrets. Uh, Petite Gervas is some kid.

Jean Valjean steals from him. He feels terrible about having done that after he was shown so much mercy by the priest. And this turns his life. Around and within six years, he gets a new name, which is Monsieur Madeline. He owns a factory, which makes him rich. And he becomes the mayor of the town. And this is obviously a throwback to the convict, Eugene Francois Vidocq.

It was less mirrored after him than inspired by him. From this point forward, Jean Valjean's character is all about the internal struggle and spiritual reform, but the idea of a convict making good later in life does seem to have a real life analog in Vidocq. Anyway, wouldn't it be pretty cool if you were the actual Jean Valjean?

Vidocq doesn't seem to be quite the moral Hero that Jean Valjean is but he's definitely an ex convict that turned himself around back to the text Jean Valjean is now the mayor and he comes across a guy who's stuck under the cart and nobody else will help this guy So Jean Valjean as Madeline frees the guy and the police inspector walks into the novel now He's the novel's real bad guy Javert J A V E R T He sees this and suspects that maybe the mayor is really Jean Valjean because the only guy that Havart knows who's strong enough to do that would be Jean Valjean, the former convict.

Alright, story kind of stops there and now we go into a flashback. There is a group of people dating and the males abandon the females, treating the relationships as youthful distractions. You know, it's sort of like this big party scene of the late 19, early 20 somethings. But the males think it doesn't really mean anything.

They walk off. But one of the women, Fantine, is actually in love with her partner and she is pregnant. She names her baby Cosette and leaves her in the care of some unscrupulous incapers named the Thernodears and goes to work in Jean Valjean's factory. Cosette. The daughter is abused by the Thernodyrs, they're terrible caretakers, and Fantine is fired when a supervisor finds out that she has a kid out of wedlock.

Fantine then has to resort to prostitution, and she is slowly dying of an unspecified disease. As she is walking the streets, a dandy walks up to her and starts insulting her, and she reacts by striking him. So naturally, Javier shows up to arrest the prostitute and not the dandy. Yes, this is the story of the prostitute that Hugo saw and kind of saved in 1841, minus the snow in the dress.

It's an exemplar of how unfair the legal system is and how it mostly functions to reinforce privilege and to stamp down the poor. Let's think about the scene for a moment. What is happening both when Hugo saw it in real life and in the novel is that when rich people encounter poor people, the rich people can do whatever they want, the poor people, and if the poor people fight back, the point of the legal system is to throw them in jail.

Okay, but Jean Valjean intervenes and prevents her arrest because he feels guilty that it's his factory that fired her and he promises her that he's going to bring Cosette back to her. But the plan is foiled when Javert catches on that Jean Valjean is in fact a convict, but it is saved when Javert arrests somebody else in his place.

But it's hosed again because now Jean Valjean, knowing that somebody else has been arrested with his identity, can't live with an innocent man being sent to prison in his place, so he's going to come clean with Javert. Which will keep his conscience clean, but it's not good news for Fantine or Cosette.

So then, Javert, Jean Valjean, and Fantine all end up in the same hospital room. And Javert, just to be a jerk, reveals that Jean Valjean is a convict and that Cosette is not there. Fantine dies of shock from the bad news. Valjean kisses her hand and she is thrown on a pile of dead bodies. And Javert hauls Jean Valjean off to prison.

That. And volume one. All right, we are now at volume two called Cosette Valjean is sentenced to life as a galley slave, where he saves a fellow sailor, his second life saved after the guy under the cart. And he escapes by faking his own death by drowning. So he's now given a second prison number. And this one is nine four three.

Oh, it's actually the title of a chapter. The title of the chapter is 24, 601 becomes 94 30. So it's like Hugo's calling attention to these numbers. This number, the 9430, is a reference to his daughter Leopoldine's death. She was pregnant on a cruise with her husband, her, her new husband, when there's a sea accident and both Leopoldine and her husband and the unborn child die.

So, Jean Valjean's second number, 9430, is a reference to this. September 1843, nothings. So nine 43 zero. So what does it mean? Why did, why is he putting it in there? Well, maybe it's that Hugo believes that he was shaped by his birth, of course. And then by the death of his daughter and the John Belgian is a semi autobiographical character, or maybe 24, six to one, it's just an Easter egg, but he does go out of his way to call attention to these two numbers.

And so maybe there's some meaning there. Maybe it's just a hidden Easter egg. Jean Valjean then finds some money that he stashed when he was rich. He makes his way to the Thernodyrs. He sees that they are abusing Cosette. The Thernodyrs try to extort him and eventually try to rob him of as much money as they can get from him, but he pays them off with less than they want.

And he and Cosette both escaped Paris. They live pretty well in Paris, but Haverre, dude, give it up. But he won't, tracks them down. So Jean Valjean calls in a favor with a guy who was trapped under the cart. That guy is now a gardener at a convent. So Valjean checks Cosette into the convent, gets himself a job as the gardener, and they can now live in peace and under Javert's radar with these false identities.

That is volume two. Volume number three, Marius. the character that some people that might think might be modeled after Hugo himself. Okay, so we flash forward eight years. There is a Fictitious student revolutionary group called the friends of the ABC that has many members, but three that I'll talk about.

One is and whole Ross and J O L R S who, uh, leads the group with a spiritual fervor. He's like a radical priest, except he's focusing on the revolution instead of on God. That's. character number one. The second character is Gavroche, who's actually the son of the evil Thernoderes, but unlike them, he's cool.

And although he has to fend for himself, he takes care of a couple of other kids who are more vulnerable than he is. He's basically a street urchin. He lives in a decaying statue. That's an enormous, unfinished wood and plaster elephant statue. Now that's a weird choice for poverty accommodations. If you are going to.

Write a novel and try to show that a character was super poor. Why don't you put it in a big plaster elephant? This is a call out to a real structure that Napoleon the first started, but he never finished. It's a pretty clear symbol of the decay of the Napoleonic era. Hugo's belief, I believe to the very end was that Napoleon.

The first had the right idea was a great person was making progressive reforms. He kind of was, but that he lost his way. And that the French empire started to decay in the end. And for Hugo, that elephant was a symbol of that decay. And in the novel, that is the place where this sympathetic street urchin is living.

Alright, the third character that's a member of these fictitious ABC group is Marius Pontmercy, who's a dedicated Bonapartist. His dad had died as an officer in Waterloo, but he left Marius a note telling him to find a guy named Thernadier to repay a family debt. Yes, it's the Evil Thernodere. And he really didn't save Marius dad, but he was actually looting bodies accidentally kind of saved Marius dad.

Marius doesn't know that. His dad didn't know that. He's just got this note that says, son, your life mission is to find this Thernodere guy, do right by him and repay him the kindness that he paid to me. The Thernoderes, meanwhile, coincidentally have also moved to Paris and they are now living in poverty and their daughters, especially when named eponine, EPO, and INE.

are in bad shape because of the way their evil parents treat them and the crush of poverty. In Cinderella like fashion, the Thernibeers were abusing their stepchild, Cosette, by being even more evil. They also abused their own daughters. So Eponine is described as being aged beyond her years. She has to work in prostitution as a trash picker.

It's bad to be Eponine and it's bad to have those people as her parents. Marius is the most important of the three because he meets Cosette by chance and they fall in love. Towards the end of this volume, all relationship hell breaks loose. Jean Valjean and Cosette visit the Thernodeers. The Thernodeers decide they're going to capture and kill them and maybe kidnap Cosette.

Marius discovers the plan and has to decide between saving Cosette, who he loves and doing the right thing by his dad, by saving Thernodeer. Javier shows up because there's a crime going on. And when the dust settles, the Thernodeers have been arrested and Jean Valjean has escaped. I am skipping many, many details here.

It makes great. Theater but it's not central to the meaning of the book. The relationship tension there is actually quite compelling but it doesn't really tell us too much about the meaning of the book. That ends volume three. Volume four is called Saint Dennis. Now it's interesting that Saint Dennis is the only volume that's not named after a character.

It is the location where that 1832 riot is going to happen. Here's how it goes down. Eponine, the abused third year daughter, has a crush on Marcus and agrees to take him to Cosette which she does and they fall in love. Not only that, the Thernodeers escape from prison and they're going to kill or kidnap Jean Valjean and Cosette, but Eponine tips them off and saves Cosette.

So Eponine has done Marcus a solid twice, introduced him to Cosette, where they fall in love, and also saving Cosette's life by tipping them off that they should get out of the way of the parents. Okay, that sucks. But Jean Valjean now knows the Thernodyrs are there and they're not safe, so he decides that he and Cosette are going to leave Paris in a week, which is great for Jean Valjean, but bad for the couple because they'll have to break up.

Jean Valjean's entire life since he met Fantine, at this point, has been devoted to finding and taking care of Cosette. And he, at this point, does not know that Cosette and Marius are a romance. Marius asks his grandfather permission to marry, but it's denied and the young couple just seems doomed.

Cosette's moving away and Marius can't marry her. Because his grandfather won't agree to it. The barricades go up the next day on the narrow streets of Paris. This is the June rebellion, which we talked about earlier in the episode. The streets are narrow in the text, but in real life, at the time that Hugo is writing this.

Baron George's houseman has been hired by Louis Napoleon, Napoleon III, to widen the streets and put up lights. And he's doing this, he's renovating all the streets of Paris precisely because that way you can't build barricades anymore. We discussed this a little more in the last episode, but Victor Hugo thinks this is terrible.

If he just took all that money and spent it on the poor, there wouldn't be a need to ride. Instead, you're spending it on these high end development projects, which are designed to stop barricades from growing up. To Victor Hugo, this is totally missing the point. But what is interesting from a literary perspective is the text describes the streets as they really were in 1832 and Hugo knows cause he was actually there, but they did not exist by the time the book came out in 1862.

So it's actually kind of a semi accurate historical account of what France was like at the time. Okay. The barricades have gone up. Everyone is there, including Javier, who's been sent into the barricades as a spy and Marius bravely stares down the soldiers by threatening to blow himself and everybody else up.

Someone tries to shoot Marius, but another revolutionary jumps right in front of him to take the bullet and saves him. It turns out This is Eponine, who is dressed in drag to be near him. She wants to die with him. She knows the romance probably won't happen, but she took the bullet because she wanted to die before him.

Love makes you do crazy things, I guess. Eponine, as she is dying, gives Marius a love letter from Cosette that she intercepted. She asks him, Marius, to kiss her on the forehead after she's dead and utters what has got to be one of the great understatements in literature when she says she was A little bit in love with him.

Then she dies. Yes. Yes. I suppose that if you introduced him to his girlfriend, saved his girlfriend, joined him on the barricade by dressing in drag, and then took a bullet to sacrifice your life for his, that is probably evidence of a crush. Eponine gets it all out there in one very brilliant, understated sense.

Marius, figuring he's going to die in the barricades, writes a goodbye letter to Cosette, but it ends up getting to Jeanne Valjean, and that is how Valjean knows for the first time that she's in love with Marius and that her lover man is about to die in the barricades fighting. He first thinks, well, maybe I should just let Marius die because if I introduce them, then she's going to want to stay with him and not come to England with me, but he's deciding that that will crush Cosette, and so he takes off to save Marius.

Even though Jean Valjean hates Marius Gatz for stealing Cosette from his influence. That is how volume four ends. We are now in the final volume, volume five. Okay. This is interesting, but there's a scene here in here in volume five doesn't necessarily start it, but it's It's unrelated to the action, but it's where the priest Marial meets a dying member of the original revolution of 1789.

So the priest is meaning somebody who is present in a member of the legislature in 1789 when the king is overthrown and is eventually killed. They have this exchange. The politician says, quote, Man has a tyrant, ignorance. I voted for the death of that tyrant. That tyrant engendered royalty, which is authority falsely understood, while science is authority rightly understood.

Man must be governed only by science. End quote. Later, they're talking about how to balance the government and the people, and the dying politician says, quote, if the balance must tilt, let it be on the side of the people. They have suffered longer. End quote. And then in a role reversal, the priest asked the politician for absolution.

And Lashmat and others think that this is the key to understanding the book. The most holy and spiritual war is not. Good versus evil, but progress versus ignorance. The revolution is not pure, but its ends must be pursued. And that what Hugo thinks in the end is that when trying to figure out what does the revolution mean, the answer is that.

The revolution must be fought to get rid of tyranny, but it must come down on the side of the people. And that is so holy that the priest actually thinks that he needs to seek absolution from the politician. As that scene is going on, we get back to the main action where Gavroche, the noble street urchin and the child of the Thernodiers is shot, trying to retrieve some ammunition that he knows his comrades are going to need.

Havert is captured by the revolutionaries and sentenced to die. John Valjean poses as the executioner. And then sets him free. Marius is knocked unconscious and left for dead. Valjean picks him up and hauls him off to save him. All of the other students die, but Valjean escapes into the sewers. He meets the Thernadere for the final time.

And this time Thernadere has a key with which he can let Jean Valjean get out of the tunnels. And he extorts from him one last time. Valjean escapes the sewers through the gate, carrying Marcus with him. But Thernadere has a piece of Marius's coat. But, doggone it, Valjean gets out of the sewers, but he runs into Javier, who's going to arrest him.

Valjean asks if he can return Marius home before turning himself in, and Javier agrees. And as Jean Valjean returns Marius, Javier realizes that He himself have air is actually the bad guy. And it's kind of a Dick move to throw into prison. The guy who just saved your life, have air recognizing that the only reason that he is alive is because somebody else has agreed to break the rules, have air kills himself.

Okay. So all that's left is for the couple to live happily ever after. Valjean agrees to pay for the wedding and gives the couple 600, 000 francs so they're set for life. But Valjean confesses that he's an ex convict and Marius instead of like, okay, well, but you, you know, you brought me Cosette, you gave me 600, 000 francs.

No, he's all outraged and separates him from Cosette and says, well, if you're a convict, you can't hang around my wife, even though she's your daughter. He's all high and mighty. Thernadere then approaches Marius and tries to blackmail him with everything that he knows about Valjean. But Inadvertently, he reveals to Marius all the noble things that Jean Valjean has done, and in particular, saving Marius from the barricades, he shows him the piece of his coat that was taken off in the sewers, and then Marius realizes, oh, so the guy who saved me was Jean Valjean.

Marius then bribes Thernadere to leave and never come back, and Thernadere does, to take off to America where he becomes a slaver. Cosette and Marius then get married, and finally, Cosette, Marius, and Valjean all meet on Jean Valjean's deathbed. Okay, here is our last Easter egg. Hugo's lifelong mistress is named Juliette Drouette.

We have talked about her in previous episodes. They celebrate the date of their first night together every year for five decades. And the last Easter egg is that Maris and Cosette's wedding in the novel is on the date. that Drouet and Victor Hugo spent their first night together. That's February 16th.

They celebrate it as their anniversary. And again, Hugo is calling attention to that date. One of the book's chapters is actually titled February 16th. That can't be an accident. And I will just interject here to say there is some critical treatment of Hugo and Drouet. That is quite mixed with a healthy dose of side eye for Hugo.

He had hundreds of lovers, but she was devoted only to him and he kind of kept her isolated and it was quite controlling, but he was deeply appreciative of her commitment and openly acknowledged that he, she had saved his life. This is definitely a one sided relationship and I won't judge it 150 years after the fact more than that, but in here, there's definitely an Easter egg to commemorate their relationship.

And interestingly, she left behind 20, 000 love letters and her entire collection of letters. to Hugo is on Project Gutenberg, if you were interested in looking that up. Okay, that is it. That's the end of the story. Uh, Valjean reconciles with Cosette and Marius. They get married and presumably live happily ever after.

He is buried in a pauper's grave that only has pencil markings that get washed away. So he dies a very obscure death. Sort of ending, ending life as a mark. I'm going to leave it there for now. That is an action packed epic story. The central figure of that is a reformed convict whose life is transformed by an act of kindness when he didn't deserve it.

And after that key turning point, he constantly uses his privilege. For the sake of others, and he's constantly putting himself at risk to save other people. In the end, he sacrifices even his own happiness for the sake of Coza. He knows that he wants Cosette to be with him 'cause that will make Valon happy.

But he can't do that if he knows what make Cosette unhappy. So he sacrifices for Coza. And in the end, the only absolution he gets is she does realize what she's doing. Okay, that'll do it. More than one commentator has found more than one central message in this book. What are these various interpretations and which of them are most true to the central point of the book?

Is this book a call to revolution? Or a love story? Or a call to have humanity come to grips with its internal sadness? Or Maybe sometimes a story about an ex convict is just a story about an ex convict. We'll wade into the weeds in the next episode of Theater History and Mysteries.

[Footnotes and references in Episode 7 transcript]