#lm 1.5.13

[empressofkashyr]

Damn, Fantine was still in her 20s when all this shit happened to her wasn't she? She should have been in the club

[secretmellowblog]

Javert logic:

“This woman flung herself on Monsieur Bamatabois, who is an elector and the proprietor of that handsome house with a balcony, which forms the corner of the esplanade, three stories high and entirely of cut stone. Such things as there are in the world!”

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

I.v.13 Solution De Quelques Questions De Police Municipale

Two Translations of Shame! Old regulars Wraxall and Denny have, as is their wont, decided this title is too lengthy; Wraxall's got simply "The Police Office" while Denny opts for "At the Police Post"

Also, I'm wondering if second-to-last is a typo on my records-- unfortunately I can't access the translation at time of queueing but if anyone could confirm I'd greatly appreciate it!

Solution of Some Questions of Municipal Police: Wilbour, Walton

The Police Office: Wraxall

The Solution Of Some Questions Connected With The Municipal Police: Hapgood

At the Police Post: Denny

Solution of Some Questions of the Municipal Police: FMA

The Answer to Some of the Municipal Police's Question: Rose

Resolving Some Questions of Municipal Policing: Donougher

[lesmisletters-daily]

The Solution Of Some Questions Connected With The Municipal Police

Les Mis Letters reading club explores one chapter of Les Misérables every day. Join us on Discord, Substack - or share your thoughts right here on tumblr - today's tag is #lm 1.5.13

Javert thrust aside the spectators, broke the circle, and set out with long strides towards the police station, which is situated at the extremity of the square, dragging the wretched woman after him. She yielded mechanically. Neither he nor she uttered a word. The cloud of spectators followed, jesting, in a paroxysm of delight. Supreme misery an occasion for obscenity.

On arriving at the police station, which was a low room, warmed by a stove, with a glazed and grated door opening on the street, and guarded by a detachment, Javert opened the door, entered with Fantine, and shut the door behind him, to the great disappointment of the curious, who raised themselves on tiptoe, and craned their necks in front of the thick glass of the station-house, in their effort to see. Curiosity is a sort of gluttony. To see is to devour.

On entering, Fantine fell down in a corner, motionless and mute, crouching down like a terrified dog.

The sergeant of the guard brought a lighted candle to the table. Javert seated himself, drew a sheet of stamped paper from his pocket, and began to write.

This class of women is consigned by our laws entirely to the discretion of the police. The latter do what they please, punish them, as seems good to them, and confiscate at their will those two sorry things which they entitle their industry and their liberty. Javert was impassive; his grave face betrayed no emotion whatever. Nevertheless, he was seriously and deeply preoccupied. It was one of those moments when he was exercising without control, but subject to all the scruples of a severe conscience, his redoubtable discretionary power. At that moment he was conscious that his police agent’s stool was a tribunal. He was entering judgment. He judged and condemned. He summoned all the ideas which could possibly exist in his mind, around the great thing which he was doing. The more he examined the deed of this woman, the more shocked he felt. It was evident that he had just witnessed the commission of a crime. He had just beheld, yonder, in the street, society, in the person of a freeholder and an elector, insulted and attacked by a creature who was outside all pales. A prostitute had made an attempt on the life of a citizen. He had seen that, he, Javert. He wrote in silence.

When he had finished he signed the paper, folded it, and said to the sergeant of the guard, as he handed it to him, “Take three men and conduct this creature to jail.”

Then, turning to Fantine, “You are to have six months of it.” The unhappy woman shuddered.

“Six months! six months of prison!” she exclaimed. “Six months in which to earn seven sous a day! But what will become of Cosette? My daughter! my daughter! But I still owe the Thénardiers over a hundred francs; do you know that, Monsieur Inspector?”

She dragged herself across the damp floor, among the muddy boots of all those men, without rising, with clasped hands, and taking great strides on her knees.

“Monsieur Javert,” said she, “I beseech your mercy. I assure you that I was not in the wrong. If you had seen the beginning, you would have seen. I swear to you by the good God that I was not to blame! That gentleman, the bourgeois, whom I do not know, put snow in my back. Has any one the right to put snow down our backs when we are walking along peaceably, and doing no harm to any one? I am rather ill, as you see. And then, he had been saying impertinent things to me for a long time: ‘You are ugly! you have no teeth!’ I know well that I have no longer those teeth. I did nothing; I said to myself, ‘The gentleman is amusing himself.’ I was honest with him; I did not speak to him. It was at that moment that he put the snow down my back. Monsieur Javert, good Monsieur Inspector! is there not some person here who saw it and can tell you that this is quite true? Perhaps I did wrong to get angry. You know that one is not master of one’s self at the first moment. One gives way to vivacity; and then, when some one puts something cold down your back just when you are not expecting it! I did wrong to spoil that gentleman’s hat. Why did he go away? I would ask his pardon. Oh, my God! It makes no difference to me whether I ask his pardon. Do me the favor to-day, for this once, Monsieur Javert. Hold! you do not know that in prison one can earn only seven sous a day; it is not the government’s fault, but seven sous is one’s earnings; and just fancy, I must pay one hundred francs, or my little girl will be sent to me. Oh, my God! I cannot have her with me. What I do is so vile! Oh, my Cosette! Oh, my little angel of the Holy Virgin! what will become of her, poor creature? I will tell you: it is the Thénardiers, inn-keepers, peasants; and such people are unreasonable. They want money. Don’t put me in prison! You see, there is a little girl who will be turned out into the street to get along as best she may, in the very heart of the winter; and you must have pity on such a being, my good Monsieur Javert. If she were older, she might earn her living; but it cannot be done at that age. I am not a bad woman at bottom. It is not cowardliness and gluttony that have made me what I am. If I have drunk brandy, it was out of misery. I do not love it; but it benumbs the senses. When I was happy, it was only necessary to glance into my closets, and it would have been evident that I was not a coquettish and untidy woman. I had linen, a great deal of linen. Have pity on me, Monsieur Javert!”

She spoke thus, rent in twain, shaken with sobs, blinded with tears, her neck bare, wringing her hands, and coughing with a dry, short cough, stammering softly with a voice of agony. Great sorrow is a divine and terrible ray, which transfigures the unhappy. At that moment Fantine had become beautiful once more. From time to time she paused, and tenderly kissed the police agent’s coat. She would have softened a heart of granite; but a heart of wood cannot be softened.

“Come!” said Javert, “I have heard you out. Have you entirely finished? You will get six months. Now march! The Eternal Father in person could do nothing more.”

At these solemn words, <i>“the Eternal Father in person could do nothing more,”</i> she understood that her fate was sealed. She sank down, murmuring, “Mercy!”

Javert turned his back.

The soldiers seized her by the arms.

A few moments earlier a man had entered, but no one had paid any heed to him. He shut the door, leaned his back against it, and listened to Fantine’s despairing supplications.

At the instant when the soldiers laid their hands upon the unfortunate woman, who would not rise, he emerged from the shadow, and said:—

“One moment, if you please.”

Javert raised his eyes and recognized M. Madeleine. He removed his hat, and, saluting him with a sort of aggrieved awkwardness:—

“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor—”

The words “Mr. Mayor” produced a curious effect upon Fantine. She rose to her feet with one bound, like a spectre springing from the earth, thrust aside the soldiers with both arms, walked straight up to M. Madeleine before any one could prevent her, and gazing intently at him, with a bewildered air, she cried:—

“Ah! so it is you who are M. le Maire!”

Then she burst into a laugh, and spit in his face.

M. Madeleine wiped his face, and said:—

“Inspector Javert, set this woman at liberty.”

Javert felt that he was on the verge of going mad. He experienced at that moment, blow upon blow and almost simultaneously, the most violent emotions which he had ever undergone in all his life. To see a woman of the town spit in the mayor’s face was a thing so monstrous that, in his most daring flights of fancy, he would have regarded it as a sacrilege to believe it possible. On the other hand, at the very bottom of his thought, he made a hideous comparison as to what this woman was, and as to what this mayor might be; and then he, with horror, caught a glimpse of I know not what simple explanation of this prodigious attack. But when he beheld that mayor, that magistrate, calmly wipe his face and say, <i>“Set this woman at liberty,”</i> he underwent a sort of intoxication of amazement; thought and word failed him equally; the sum total of possible astonishment had been exceeded in his case. He remained mute.

The words had produced no less strange an effect on Fantine. She raised her bare arm, and clung to the damper of the stove, like a person who is reeling. Nevertheless, she glanced about her, and began to speak in a low voice, as though talking to herself:—

“At liberty! I am to be allowed to go! I am not to go to prison for six months! Who said that? It is not possible that any one could have said that. I did not hear aright. It cannot have been that monster of a mayor! Was it you, my good Monsieur Javert, who said that I was to be set free? Oh, see here! I will tell you about it, and you will let me go. That monster of a mayor, that old blackguard of a mayor, is the cause of all. Just imagine, Monsieur Javert, he turned me out! all because of a pack of rascally women, who gossip in the workroom. If that is not a horror, what is? To dismiss a poor girl who is doing her work honestly! Then I could no longer earn enough, and all this misery followed. In the first place, there is one improvement which these gentlemen of the police ought to make, and that is, to prevent prison contractors from wronging poor people. I will explain it to you, you see: you are earning twelve sous at shirt-making, the price falls to nine sous; and it is not enough to live on. Then one has to become whatever one can. As for me, I had my little Cosette, and I was actually forced to become a bad woman. Now you understand how it is that that blackguard of a mayor caused all the mischief. After that I stamped on that gentleman’s hat in front of the officers’ café; but he had spoiled my whole dress with snow. We women have but one silk dress for evening wear. You see that I did not do wrong deliberately—truly, Monsieur Javert; and everywhere I behold women who are far more wicked than I, and who are much happier. O Monsieur Javert! it was you who gave orders that I am to be set free, was it not? Make inquiries, speak to my landlord; I am paying my rent now; they will tell you that I am perfectly honest. Ah! my God! I beg your pardon; I have unintentionally touched the damper of the stove, and it has made it smoke.”

M. Madeleine listened to her with profound attention. While she was speaking, he fumbled in his waistcoat, drew out his purse and opened it. It was empty. He put it back in his pocket. He said to Fantine, “How much did you say that you owed?”

Fantine, who was looking at Javert only, turned towards him:—

“Was I speaking to you?”

Then, addressing the soldiers:—

“Say, you fellows, did you see how I spit in his face? Ah! you old wretch of a mayor, you came here to frighten me, but I’m not afraid of you. I am afraid of Monsieur Javert. I am afraid of my good Monsieur Javert!”

So saying, she turned to the inspector again:—

“And yet, you see, Mr. Inspector, it is necessary to be just. I understand that you are just, Mr. Inspector; in fact, it is perfectly simple: a man amuses himself by putting snow down a woman’s back, and that makes the officers laugh; one must divert themselves in some way; and we—well, we are here for them to amuse themselves with, of course! And then, you, you come; you are certainly obliged to preserve order, you lead off the woman who is in the wrong; but on reflection, since you are a good man, you say that I am to be set at liberty; it is for the sake of the little one, for six months in prison would prevent my supporting my child. ‘Only, don’t do it again, you hussy!’ Oh! I won’t do it again, Monsieur Javert! They may do whatever they please to me now; I will not stir. But to-day, you see, I cried because it hurt me. I was not expecting that snow from the gentleman at all; and then as I told you, I am not well; I have a cough; I seem to have a burning ball in my stomach, and the doctor tells me, ‘Take care of yourself.’ Here, feel, give me your hand; don’t be afraid—it is here.”

She no longer wept, her voice was caressing; she placed Javert’s coarse hand on her delicate, white throat and looked smilingly at him.

All at once she rapidly adjusted her disordered garments, dropped the folds of her skirt, which had been pushed up as she dragged herself along, almost to the height of her knee, and stepped towards the door, saying to the soldiers in a low voice, and with a friendly nod:—

“Children, Monsieur l’Inspecteur has said that I am to be released, and I am going.”

She laid her hand on the latch of the door. One step more and she would be in the street.

Javert up to that moment had remained erect, motionless, with his eyes fixed on the ground, cast athwart this scene like some displaced statue, which is waiting to be put away somewhere.

The sound of the latch roused him. He raised his head with an expression of sovereign authority, an expression all the more alarming in proportion as the authority rests on a low level, ferocious in the wild beast, atrocious in the man of no estate.

“Sergeant!” he cried, “don’t you see that that jade is walking off! Who bade you let her go?”

“I,” said Madeleine.

Fantine trembled at the sound of Javert’s voice, and let go of the latch as a thief relinquishes the article which he has stolen. At the sound of Madeleine’s voice she turned around, and from that moment forth she uttered no word, nor dared so much as to breathe freely, but her glance strayed from Madeleine to Javert, and from Javert to Madeleine in turn, according to which was speaking.

It was evident that Javert must have been exasperated beyond measure before he would permit himself to apostrophize the sergeant as he had done, after the mayor’s suggestion that Fantine should be set at liberty. Had he reached the point of forgetting the mayor’s presence? Had he finally declared to himself that it was impossible that any “authority” should have given such an order, and that the mayor must certainly have said one thing by mistake for another, without intending it? Or, in view of the enormities of which he had been a witness for the past two hours, did he say to himself, that it was necessary to recur to supreme resolutions, that it was indispensable that the small should be made great, that the police spy should transform himself into a magistrate, that the policeman should become a dispenser of justice, and that, in this prodigious extremity, order, law, morality, government, society in its entirety, was personified in him, Javert?

However that may be, when M. Madeleine uttered that word, <i>I</i>, as we have just heard, Police Inspector Javert was seen to turn toward the mayor, pale, cold, with blue lips, and a look of despair, his whole body agitated by an imperceptible quiver and an unprecedented occurrence, and say to him, with downcast eyes but a firm voice:—

“Mr. Mayor, that cannot be.”

“Why not?” said M. Madeleine.

“This miserable woman has insulted a citizen.”

“Inspector Javert,” replied the mayor, in a calm and conciliating tone, “listen. You are an honest man, and I feel no hesitation in explaining matters to you. Here is the true state of the case: I was passing through the square just as you were leading this woman away; there were still groups of people standing about, and I made inquiries and learned everything; it was the townsman who was in the wrong and who should have been arrested by properly conducted police.”

Javert retorted:—

“This wretch has just insulted Monsieur le Maire.”

“That concerns me,” said M. Madeleine. “My own insult belongs to me, I think. I can do what I please about it.”

“I beg Monsieur le Maire’s pardon. The insult is not to him but to the law.”

“Inspector Javert,” replied M. Madeleine, “the highest law is conscience. I have heard this woman; I know what I am doing.”

“And I, Mr. Mayor, do not know what I see.”

“Then content yourself with obeying.”

“I am obeying my duty. My duty demands that this woman shall serve six months in prison.”

M. Madeleine replied gently:—

“Heed this well; she will not serve a single day.”

At this decisive word, Javert ventured to fix a searching look on the mayor and to say, but in a tone of voice that was still profoundly respectful:—

“I am sorry to oppose Monsieur le Maire; it is for the first time in my life, but he will permit me to remark that I am within the bounds of my authority. I confine myself, since Monsieur le Maire desires it, to the question of the gentleman. I was present. This woman flung herself on Monsieur Bamatabois, who is an elector and the proprietor of that handsome house with a balcony, which forms the corner of the esplanade, three stories high and entirely of cut stone. Such things as there are in the world! In any case, Monsieur le Maire, this is a question of police regulations in the streets, and concerns me, and I shall detain this woman Fantine.”

Then M. Madeleine folded his arms, and said in a severe voice which no one in the town had heard hitherto:—

“The matter to which you refer is one connected with the municipal police. According to the terms of articles nine, eleven, fifteen, and sixty-six of the code of criminal examination, I am the judge. I order that this woman shall be set at liberty.”

Javert ventured to make a final effort.

“But, Mr. Mayor—”

“I refer you to article eighty-one of the law of the 13th of December, 1799, in regard to arbitrary detention.”

“Monsieur le Maire, permit me—”

“Not another word.”

“But—”

“Leave the room,” said M. Madeleine.

Javert received the blow erect, full in the face, in his breast, like a Russian soldier. He bowed to the very earth before the mayor and left the room.

Fantine stood aside from the door and stared at him in amazement as he passed.

Nevertheless, she also was the prey to a strange confusion. She had just seen herself a subject of dispute between two opposing powers. She had seen two men who held in their hands her liberty, her life, her soul, her child, in combat before her very eyes; one of these men was drawing her towards darkness, the other was leading her back towards the light. In this conflict, viewed through the exaggerations of terror, these two men had appeared to her like two giants; the one spoke like her demon, the other like her good angel. The angel had conquered the demon, and, strange to say, that which made her shudder from head to foot was the fact that this angel, this liberator, was the very man whom she abhorred, that mayor whom she had so long regarded as the author of all her woes, that Madeleine! And at the very moment when she had insulted him in so hideous a fashion, he had saved her! Had she, then, been mistaken? Must she change her whole soul? She did not know; she trembled. She listened in bewilderment, she looked on in affright, and at every word uttered by M. Madeleine she felt the frightful shades of hatred crumble and melt within her, and something warm and ineffable, indescribable, which was both joy, confidence and love, dawn in her heart.

When Javert had taken his departure, M. Madeleine turned to her and said to her in a deliberate voice, like a serious man who does not wish to weep and who finds some difficulty in speaking:—

“I have heard you. I knew nothing about what you have mentioned. I believe that it is true, and I feel that it is true. I was even ignorant of the fact that you had left my shop. Why did you not apply to me? But here; I will pay your debts, I will send for your child, or you shall go to her. You shall live here, in Paris, or where you please. I undertake the care of your child and yourself. You shall not work any longer if you do not like. I will give all the money you require. You shall be honest and happy once more. And listen! I declare to you that if all is as you say,—and I do not doubt it,—you have never ceased to be virtuous and holy in the sight of God. Oh! poor woman.”

This was more than Fantine could bear. To have Cosette! To leave this life of infamy. To live free, rich, happy, respectable with Cosette; to see all these realities of paradise blossom of a sudden in the midst of her misery. She stared stupidly at this man who was talking to her, and could only give vent to two or three sobs, “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

Her limbs gave way beneath her, she knelt in front of M. Madeleine, and before he could prevent her he felt her grasp his hand and press her lips to it.

Then she fainted.

[cliozaur]

 The one in which Valjean, driven by guilt, is ready to do anything for Fantine to fix it. Javert assumes the role ‘I am the lawr.’ And he is also terribly stubborn. Fantine goes into details, explaining her circumstances and asking for mercy but to no effect, because she is talking to a piece of wood. From her desperate monologue we learn about the grim realities of her new life, including her meagre earnings and the solace she seeks in brandy. Her laments: “I was honest with him; I did not speak to him,” and then: “Perhaps I did wrong to get angry,” highlight the impossibility of living with one's head down under the weight of such resentment. Later, from her words and actions we get sense of how profoundly angered she is at M. le Maire. However, when the circumstances change and she learns new facts about him, Fantine quickly adjusts, assimilating this information and assessing its implications for herself and Cosette. Consequently, she undergoes an immediate change in attitude, and she “knelt in front of M. Madeleine, and before he could prevent her he felt her grasp his hand and press her lips to it.” She is the second person after Fauchelevent to do so.

[pilferingapples]

rbing for Les Mis Letters today!

I think most people know that Hugo based the scene with Fantine and Bamatabois on an incident he saw himself?  Here’s some of his full account of it, taken as a snippet from a story titled in translation A Woman of The Streets. Since the account of the attack itself is pretty much just what he wrote in LM, I’m just copying over his account of post-arrest conversations with the police.  Some notes:  this is from a one-volume collection of various Hugo works put out by Black’s Readers Service , initially in 1927.  The translator is uncredited. 

I’m not entirely sure when this was written, but it takes place a couple days after Hugo was elected to the Academy in 1841–specifically two days after, and follows a dinner with Delphine Gay-Girardin, who I’ve mentioned before.  For some reason, Our Humble Author refers to himself in 3rd person as “V.H.” throughout. Under a cut for Long Post!

Keep reading

[akanague]

In honor of today's chapter I’ll leave here this meme I wanted to make when I first read it

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - The Solution of Some Questions connected with The Municipal Police, LM 1.5.13 (Les Miserables 1925)

When Javert had taken his departure, M. Madeleine turned to her and said to her in a deliberate voice, like a serious man who does not wish to weep and who finds some difficulty in speaking:—

“I have heard you. I knew nothing about what you have mentioned. I believe that it is true, and I feel that it is true. I was even ignorant of the fact that you had left my shop. Why did you not apply to me? But here; I will pay your debts, I will send for your child, or you shall go to her. You shall live here, in Paris, or where you please. I undertake the care of your child and yourself. You shall not work any longer if you do not like. I will give all the money you require. You shall be honest and happy once more. And listen! I declare to you that if all is as you say,—and I do not doubt it,—you have never ceased to be virtuous and holy in the sight of God. Oh! poor woman.”

This was more than Fantine could bear. To have Cosette! To leave this life of infamy. To live free, rich, happy, respectable with Cosette; to see all these realities of paradise blossom of a sudden in the midst of her misery. She stared stupidly at this man who was talking to her, and could only give vent to two or three sobs, “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

Her limbs gave way beneath her, she knelt in front of M. Madeleine, and before he could prevent her he felt her grasp his hand and press her lips to it.

Then she fainted.

[gavroche-le-moineau]

For those of you keeping track, we have our first instance of "les misérables" being used in the text, and our second instance of a main character being called a "misérable"!

Fantine is referred to as a "misérable" three times in 1.5.13, twice by the narration and once by Javert.

In the first sentence of the chapter we have: “Javert thrust aside the spectators, broke the circle, and set out with long strides towards the police station, which is situated at the extremity of the square, dragging [la misérable] after him.”

The second instance is less direct, and it's here that we get the title of the book: “Great sorrow is a divine and terrible ray, which transfigures [les misérables]." The preceding sentence describes the manner in which Fantine gave her pleading speech to Javert, and the sentence after states that in this moment she had become beautiful again.

The last instance is when Javert calls her a "misérable": “This [misérable] has just insulted Monsieur le Maire.”

[dolphin1812]

This chapter!

Fantine’s behavior here is really similar to how Valjean acts around the bishop. In the same way that he was extremely polite and deferential when he entered the bishop’s house, Fantine tries her utmost to appease Javert, complimenting him and admitting her “fault” so that he might treat her more mercifully (which, of course, Javert would never do). Then, when Madeleine helps her, she can’t believe it. She rambles more than before, clearly in shock. It’s also interesting how she initially ascribes all of this kindness to Javert. While it is specified that she’s blamed Madeleine for her suffering this whole time, and it therefore makes sense that she wouldn’t automatically switch to thanking him, it also resembles Valjean’s conflicted feelings over the bishop. When he heard that he was part of the religious establishment, his first instinct was to mention the bishop he remembered from prison and how distant he was. He was still polite in the way he said it, but it’s clear that he couldn’t reconcile that man with the compassion of the bishop in front of him. He doesn’t even realize his high status until he’s almost sent to prison again. Moreover, although his experience with kindness is less complicated than Fantine’s in some way (his hatred of Myriel wasn’t specific in the way Fantine’s hatred of Madeleine is; he blamed society as a whole for his state, not the bishop), that image of a divine struggle is something they both share. This passage is long,  but it’s important:

“Nevertheless, she also was the prey to a strange confusion. She had just seen herself a subject of dispute between two opposing powers. She had seen two men who held in their hands her liberty, her life, her soul, her child, in combat before her very eyes; one of these men was drawing her towards darkness, the other was leading her back towards the light. In this conflict, viewed through the exaggerations of terror, these two men had appeared to her like two giants; the one spoke like her demon, the other like her good angel. The angel had conquered the demon, and, strange to say, that which made her shudder from head to foot was the fact that this angel, this liberator, was the very man whom she abhorred, that mayor whom she had so long regarded as the author of all her woes, that Madeleine! And at the very moment when she had insulted him in so hideous a fashion, he had saved her! Had she, then, been mistaken? Must she change her whole soul? She did not know; she trembled. She listened in bewilderment, she looked on in affright, and at every word uttered by M. Madeleine she felt the frightful shades of hatred crumble and melt within her, and something warm and ineffable, indescribable, which was both joy, confidence and love, dawn in her heart.”

Here, we have all the parallels between what Fantine feels in this moment and Valjean’s redemption: the dark vs light imagery; the references to the divine; the idea of changing one’s soul; and Fantine losing her hatred and rage as she’s filled with kindness now that someone else has shown her compassion.

On another note, I like how we see Javert’s emotional investment in the law in this chapter. I feel like his very literal obedience to it makes it easy to imagine him as an emotionless vessel for its dictates (he himself would probably like that image), but his identity is so bound up in this system that any challenges to it hurt him. He’s already in shock because of Fantine’s “crime;” someone outside of society insulting a citizen is unimaginable to him. And an authority figure intervening on the side of the poor? Especially an authority figure who’s suspicious (which is already provocative)? He fears that he’s going “mad” as he experiences “the most violent emotions which he had ever undergone in all his life,” underscoring just how much these rules impact him emotionally. He even trembles and turns blue and pale upon hearing Madeleine repeat himself; his reaction is so strong that it’s outwardly visible.

[katenepveu]

So I see in Les Mis Letters today we have another person choosing, after serious internal struggle, to abandon hate because of an act of extreme kindness by a stranger. I wonder if this is a two nickels situation or a pattern? (Reminder that I know very little about the story, which I am experiencing for the first time! In other words, that was rhetorical.)

[empressofkashyr]

Today's chapter

[secretmellowblog]

One thing that's often overlooked about the scene where Javert arrests Fantine is how much every other member of law enforcement supports him. When he turns his back on Fantine, the soldiers in the stationhouse dutifully restrain her the way they're supposed to:

“Come!” said Javert, “I have heard you out. Have you entirely finished? You will get six months. Now march! The Eternal Father in person could do nothing more.” (....) Javert turned his back. The soldiers seized her by the arms.

A lot of adaptations change this scene so that the other police express astonishment at Javert's cruelty, or portray it as something strange/out of the ordinary that Javert only does for bizarre personal reasons. But in the book there's a huge emphasis on how much this is simply Business As Usual. There's nothing unusual about Javert's cruelty here; he's simply doing his job, and his job is to enforce vicious bigoted violent laws. Everyone working in the station house understands that this the usual regular level of cruelty that they should expect, and they perpetrate that cruelty without a second thought.

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

Round 1, Matchup 45: I.v.9 vs I.v.13

[fremedon]

Brickclub I.5.13, “Resolving Some Questions of Municipal Policing”

“Curiosity is a form of gluttony," Hugo says, of the onlookers trying to peer through the station house door. "To see is to devour."

This is the most direct statement of a theme Hugo comes back to over and over--the destructive power of gossip and idle curiosity. It's a theme that pulls a lot of weight, but starting on this reread so soon after my last one, one thing I'm wondering is how much that theme is supposed to be setting us up to excuse Marius's lack of inquiry into the version of his history Valjean shares.

Observations on Fantine:

--Fantine, a panther during the fight, now cowers "like a frightened dog" in the station. I think the panther line might be the only feline metaphor Fantine gets. 

--"She would have softened a heart of granite, but you cannot soften a heart of wood." Fantine has been turning herself to stone for the last few chapters, but there are worse things to be.

--And one of those is to become even stonier. In her last monologue, right before she attempts to leave: "Oh! I won't do it again, Monsieur Javert! Whatever anyone does to me now, I won't react in any way." 

--Fantine's two long monologues keep coming back to two points: The injustice of prison wages, both to the prisoners and their competitors, and her ability to be respectable when given the means to support herself. She used to have so many changes of underwear, and now she just has one silk dress for the evenings. She still owes 100 francs to the Thenardiers, but she's up to date on her rent now, just ask her landlord. And at the end, Madeleine agrees with this: "I will give you all the money you need. You shall again become honest in again becoming happy." 

We've seen, and will continue to see, how the lack of means bars access to 'honesty'/respectability, but the reverse of that statement is surprisingly hopeful: only provide the means to live honestly, and a person will be honest. 

--Madeleine and Javert's battle for Fantine's liberty is framed almost exactly like the battle for Valjean's soul between his convict self and the bishop in "Petit-Gervais," and Fantine's heart softening back to trust is a much more direct parallel of Valjean's change of heart than I had realized. Valjean never manages to reach Javert this way, but he does pull Fantine back to humanity for her final weeks.

There is one major difference, though, and it’s not actually in the level of their transgressions. Fantine has spit in the face of the mayor in the place of his power; Valjean has stolen a sentimental treasure from his host, in the home where he was given shelter. Both insults are a thing that can be absorbed or shrugged off, practically, but with immense symbolic weight behind them. 

But Valjean’s reverie ends with him obliterating the convict within him and letting the bishop take full possession of his soul. Fantine keeps hers. She doesn’t have to go through any of Valjean’s extreme self-abnegation to get her humanity back. 

And speaking of extreme self-abnegation, there’s Javert. This got long. 

Javert, despite being wood and not stone, is the one who gets the statue imagery in this scene. From the moment right before he stops Fantine from leaving, after Madeleine instructs that she be freed: "Up to that moment Javert had stood stock still, staring at the ground, out of place in the midst of this scene like some statue left in the way, waiting to be put somewhere." I am reminded of the cart in Montfermeil--the broken cart that is a metaphor for outmoded institutions, left in the way to finish decaying. Javert, the automaton of the law, is left in the way, waiting for a purpose.  

Twice in this scene, we see him imagine himself an empty vessel for the law. It’s the only kind of grandiosity he ever has--humbleness to the point of self-obliteration, so he can embody The Law. 

The first is while he is first handing down Fantine’s sentence, and I’m going to quote at length: 

"It was one of those moments in which he exercised without restraint, but with all the scruples of a strict conscience, his formidable discretionary power. At this moment he felt that his policeman's stool was a bench of justice. He was conducting a trial. He was trying and condemning. He called all the ideas of which his mind was capable around the grand thing that he was doing. The more he examined the conduct of this girl, the more he revolted at it. It was clear that he had seen a crime committed. He had seen, there in the street, society, represented by a property holder and an elector, insulted and attacked by a creature who was an outlaw and an outcast. A prostitute had assaulted a citizen. He, Javert, had seen that himself. He wrote in silence." (Wilbour)

And the second is after Madeleine intervenes to demand Fantine’s liberty a second time: 

"It was obvious that Javert must have been 'thrown out of kilter,' as they say, to allow himself to address the sergeant the way he did after the mayor's request that Fantine should be set free. Could he have forgotten monsieur le maire's presence? Had he in the end convinced himself it was impossible that any authority could have given such an order, and that surely monsieur le maire must have said one thing instead of another without meaning to? Or in view of the outrages he had witnessed over the past two hours, did he tell himself it was necessary to act with the utmost resolve, that the humble must assume greatness, the sleuth must turn himself into a judge, the police agent must become an agent of justice, and that in this exceptional extremity he, Javert, was the personification of law, order, morality, government, the whole of society?" (Donougher)

Hoooo boy. There is just so much to unpack here, and I’m glad we have another year and change of brickclub to keep unpacking it. 

Just on the surface: Law, order, morality, government, and society are all the same thing to Javert. The purpose of law is to uphold the social order. It is a contradiction in terms that authority should seek to undermine itself: 

"Javert felt he was about to go mad. At that moment he underwent in rapid succession and almost all at once the most violent emotions he had ever experienced in his life. To see a common prostitute spit in the face of a mayor--this was something so monstrous that in his most dreadful imaginings he would have regarded it as sacrilege to believe it were possible. On the other hand, obscurely, at the back of his mind, he made a hideous comparison between what this woman was and what this mayor might be, and then he had an inkling of something very simple about this extraordinary attack that appalled him. But when he saw this mayor, this magistrate, calmly wipe his face and say, 'Set this woman free,' he was stunned, thoughts and words failed him equally. His capacity for astonishment was exceeded. He remained speechless." (Donougher)

Refusing to punish this transgression against established hierarchies undercuts Madeleine’s legitimacy in his head so much that he takes it upon himself to contradict the mayor, to argue with him, to put forward his abstract embodied Authority as more valid than the mayor’s actual authority. Madeleine only wins by literally citing the legal code, in a scene that reads almost like a battle between wizards. 

Going back to Fantine’s attempted departure--"The sound of the latch roused him. He raised his head with an expression of supreme authority, an expression that is always the more frightening the lower the level at which power is invested, ferocious in the wild beast, atrocious in the man of no account." Wilbour says "in the undeveloped man"; I prefer Donougher here, because it gets the ambiguity in "the lower the level at which power is invested"--both that power is frightening in the hands of beings who cannot, personally, wield it well,  but also that small concentrations of unaccountable power create petty tyrannies. 

Javert knows he is a small man who, on his own merits, neither possesses nor deserves power over others. But he is a small man channeling the whole of social authority, and that makes him terrifying. 

If what he were channeling was actually Justice, it would also make him--well, it would make him Enjolras. But it’s not. I talked a couple of chapters ago about the themes I’m starting to think of as Hugo’s major arcana, and one of the big ones is Fatalite. He brings it up in the very first sentence of the prologue: 

“So long as there shall exists, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates with human fatalite a destiny that is divine...”  

The divine destiny--the intention of Providence--seems to be whatever humanity is capable of achieving. Fatalite is whatever human-made factors interfere with that achievement: Social condemnation. Custom. And Law. It’s all fatalite.  

The more Javert imagines himself an empty vessel for the law, the more self-abnegating he is in his duty, the worse he is, because what he is channeling is the force that creates hells on earth. 

He has lost this purity in Paris, and to some extent that accompanies real tolerance of corruption--this Javert would have resigned rather than serve with men he knows are taking bribes and enabling double agents like Le Cabuc. But this Javert would also never have casually granted Bigrenaille's request for tobacco in solitary. And I’m not sure this Javert would have noticed the grievances in his suicide memo--certainly, he doesn’t respond at all to Fantine’s repeated refrain about the prison wages. 

I really like @everyonewasabird's idea that Javert, in frightening Fantine to death--in taking an innocent life, one he has no claim over--Javert will break a geas. He loses the ability to be this empty vessel, and is muddling through on his own instincts and prejudices after that--and his own instincts and prejudices are terrible, make no mistake. But they’re malleable, in a way that the whole force of abstract social condemnation isn’t.

And also, god, now I’m thinking about Valjean standing there listening to Fantine talk about the unfairness of prison wages. What must be going through his head.  

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 1.5.13 ‘Solution of some questions of the municipal police’

The first thing that strikes me is how Fantine and Javert both know the script. Others have spoken about how sex workers and police would have been in constant interaction--sex work was legal, but regulated, and everything sex workers did was subject to such constant and contradictory regulations that they could be arrested at any time.

Now that things have gone bad for Fantine, Javert follows his script, and Fantine goes meekly, because her side of the script has been drilled into her by now. They’re both part of the group of people who suffer from the law and who are harmed by it; Javert has made sure to rise to the top of that group, but the fact remains. Bamatabois is not part of that group and slunk off with no repercussions. Only the people downtrodden by the law need to have memorized its scripts.

I always think of Javert as someone who really likes scripts. Here, he’s bought into it so fully that he thinks in following it perfectly he’s being just.

Poor Fantine knows there’s no justice here, but there’s no way to explain that to Javert. There’s no argument she can make.

(How on earth is Bamatabois a voter? The text made it clear he was well off but not even well-off enough to be very notable in Paris--iirc, his income is half of Bahorel’s. Voting was restricted, I believe, to one half of one percent of the population.)

Both their reactions to Madeleine are so fantastically telling.

Fantine is just “Oh, so YOU’RE the mayor?” *spits in his face*--which just emphasizes that he’s been so hands off and distant with his workers that she doesn’t even know him by face.

And with Javert, we see yet more confirmation that his ideal has never, ever been the letter of the law as written but rather this script of common roles used in policing. Madeleine pulling rank on him doesn’t break the law, it breaks the script--as does the notion that Bamatabois (a Property Owner) could possibly be in the wrong.

I’d forgotten how affected Javert is by this scene! He’s described as experiencing the most violent emotions of his life, and as being “a statue waiting to be put back into position.” I love so much how gradual Javert’s fall is. I’m not sure this is the absolute first step on the descent--that might have been when he started harboring suspicions of a Mayor (GASP), but this is the first time it starts to break him.

(We’ve talked about autism spectrum Fantine, but... you know. A character just froze and went nonverbal because his script was taken away, and it’s all far too relatable. Anyway.)

Everything about Valjean has always kind of broken Javert from the very beginning. I love the unbalancedness of that dynamic: Valjean spends a decade disrupting Javert’s sacred status quo, throwing him off balance, and Ruining Everything, and as far as Valjean as concerned, Javert is more or less interchangeable with every other police officer.

Fantine’s vision of Javert and Madeleine as warring giants matches Valjean’s vision of Valjean versus the bishop the night after the candlesticks. LIke him, she has been given over to hatred and misery, and like him she has a vision of the struggle for her soul.

And she has the same initial resistance he did--her spitting in his face is either Valjean’s theft of the silver after the bishop’s kindness or it’s Petit Gervais.

Both of them experience this struggle as external. The bishop took Valjean’s soul in some sense forcibly, and though Valjean envisioned Jean Valjean as one of the participants in the hallucinatory struggle, he perceived him like some monster who was not himself. For Fantine, the struggle literally is waged by two other people, but it may be that the parallel is pointing in the other direction: that while this literal argument is happening, Valjean and Javert personify her own internal struggle over what to do with this mercy. Shall she remain in the law paradigm, or return to the humane one?

..Fantine is so much better at processing new information and acting on it than Valjean and Javert are. She just seems mentally flexible in a way that they aren’t. She’s not sure what’s going on, but she’s definitely getting out of this room as soon as she’s heard someone authoritative say she can. And when Madeleine saves her and she has to realize that, and then he tells her she has always been holy before God, and that she can be reunited with Cosette, she believes him. She has a level of faith Valjean has never had and a level of flexibility Javert isn’t capable of.