Les Miserables 29: Forms Assumed by Suffering During Sleep

So Jean Valjean has been up all night deliberating about whether or not he would go to Arras and denounce himself to save Champmathieu.  At first he seemed set on going, then he seemed set on not going, but now he doesn’t know what he is going to do.  All this time he had been [...]

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Les Miserables 28: A Tempest Within a Brain (cont’d)

Last time we saw Valjean deliberating over whether or not he would go to Arras.  And he was on the point of going to give himself up, when he thought of Fantine and all the others of MSM who were dependent upon him remaining where he was for the sake of their happiness and prosperity.  [...]

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Les Miserables 27: A Tempest Within a Brain (cont’d)

Last time we started to look at Father Madeleine’s agonizing deliberations on whether or not he would go to Arras and turn himself in as Jean Valjean.  At first he thought that all he had to do was sit tight and not do anything.  Providence had arranged for him to be in this place, and [...]

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Les Miserables 26: A Tempest Within a Brain

Now that Victor Hugo has officially outed Father Madeleine as Jean Valjean, we shall look at the deliberations in his mind about whether or not he would go to Arras.
First, Victor Hugo fills us in on a little bit more of what happened to Valjean after he left Digne, telling us that there isn’t much [...]

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Les Miserables 25: Sister Simplice

Last time we saw that Father Madeleine was in the process of trying to wrap things up so that he could shake loose for a couple of days and head to Montfermeil to fetch Cosette and bring her back to Fantine.  In walked Javert, who dropped it on him that Jean Valjean has been found [...]

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Les Miserables 24: How Jean Can Become Champ

Fantine was admitted to the hospital.  Madeleine put her up there, he paid off all her debts, and he agreed to send for Cosette.  This would take some doing, because the Thenardiers were extremely loath to part with her.  Every time he attempted to send for her, the Thenardiers came up with new debts which [...]

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Les Miserables 23: Solution to Some Questions of the Municipal Police

So Fantine became a prostitute.
One night she was walking back and forth in front of the officers’ club in a low-cut dress.  It was a January night in 1823, a little less than a year after she made the decision to become a prostitute.  And it had just finished snowing.  Winter is a much more [...]

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Les Miserables 22: Christus Nos Liberavit

At this point I will just let Victor Hugo speak for himself for a few paragraphs.
What is the story of Fantine about?  It is about society buying a slave.
From whom?  From misery.
From hunger, from cold, from loneliness, from desertion, from privation.  Melancholy barter.  A soul for a piece of bread.  Misery makes the offer; society [...]

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Les Miserables 21: Outcome of the Success

Last time we saw how Fantine got canned because her coworkers at the factory were malicious busybodies.  Father Madeleine required the women at his factory to be honest and have good morals; unfortunately the part about good morals did not extend to gossip and meddling in others’ business.
Now we see Fantine’s descent into utter and [...]

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Les Miserables 20: Madame Victurnien’s Victory

In our last few posts we met Father Madeleine, saw him rise to the position of mayor of Montreuil-sur-mer, and saw that there was in fact more to him than met the eye.
Now we return to Fantine.  She came back to MSM and found it drastically changed from anything she had remembered.  She found Father [...]

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