Part I: Fantine

The unabridged version of the book does not start with Jean Valjean’s journey into Digne, but with an in-depth description of the bishop of Digne, Monsieur Charles-Francois-Bienvenu, an elderly man of about 75. To see into his character, read this letter written by his sister (who lives with him) and sent to a friend:

THE BROTHER AS THE SISTER TELLS IT

To give you an idea of the domestic life of Monseigneur, the bishop of Digne, and the way in which those two saintly women subordinated their actions, thoughts, and even their instincts as women easily frightened, to the habits and designs of the bishop, without his even needing to go to the trouble of putting anything into words, we cannot do better than to set down here a letter of Mademoiselle Baptistine to Madame la vicomtesse de Boischevron, her childhood friend. This letter is in our possession.

Digne, December 16, 18---

My dear Madame, Not a day goes by without our talking about you. It is something of a habit we’ve gotten into…I’m as happy as ever. My brother is so good. He gives everything he has to the sick and needy. We are feeling the pinch. The winters here are bitterly cold and of course we have to try and do something for those in need. We manage to stay warm and have light, though. You see how well off we are. My brother has his little ways. When he mentions them, he says that’s just how a bishop should be. Just imagine---the front door of the house is never locked. Anyone can just walk in off the street and make themselves right at home in the middle of his room. He’s not afraid of anything, even at night. That’s his form of courage, as he says. He doesn’t want me to be frightened for him or for Madame Magloire to be frightened. He exposes himself to every danger and he doesn’t want us to even look as though we notice. You’ve got to know him to know what he’s about. He goes out in the rain, he walks in the water, he travels in the winter. He is not afraid of the dark or of dangerous roads or of running into someone. Last year, he went all on his own into territory full of thieves. He wouldn’t hear of taking us along. He stayed away for a fortnight. When he came back, nothing had happened to him, we thought he was dead and he was in great spirits, and he said: “You see how they robbed me!” And he opened up a chest full of all the jewels from Embrum Cathedral which the thieves had given him. That last time I’d gone with some friends of his to meet him at a spot a couple of miles away, and as we were returning home, I couldn’t help but scold him a little, being careful only to talk when the carriage was making a racket to so no one else could hear. In the old days, I used to say to myself: “There is no danger that can stop him, he’s terrible.” Now I’ve ended up getting used to it. I motion to Madame Magloire not to go against him. Let him take whatever risks he will. I cart Madame Magloire away, go to my room and I pray for him and I fall asleep. I’m perfectly calm, because I know full well that if anything happened to him, it would be the end of me. I’d go to the good Lord with my brother and my bishop. It’s been a lot harder for Madame Magloire to come to terms with what she calls his recklessness. But now we have our routine. We both pray, we are both frightened together, and we fall asleep. If the devil came into the house, we’d let him do his worst. After all, what can we be frightened of in this house? There is always someone with us who is the strongest. The devil might pass through, but the good Lord lives here. That is it. My brother doesn’t even have to say a word to me now. I understand him without his needing to speak and we put ourselves in the hands of Providence. And that is how hone should be with a man of his greatness of spirit…Goodbye for now, I’m running out of paper so I must leave you here, very best wishes, BAPTISTINE

(Hugo 28-30) After Jean Valjean was put in prison for stealing the bread, what happened to his sister and the children? Here is the excerpt from the book to answer that question:

What became of his sister? What became of the seven children? What was going to worry about that? What becomes of a handful of leaves from the yellow tree sawn off at its base? It’s the same old story. These poor living beings, God’s creatures, now without support, without a guide, without shelter, drifted off aimlessly, scattered in the wind, who knows?...They left their home country. The bell tower of what was once their village forgot them; the boundary of what was once their field forgot them; after a few years’ sojourn in jail, Jean Valjean himself forgot them. In that heart where there was once a wound, was now a scar. That is all. During the whole time he was in Toulon he had only once heard talk of his sister. It was, I think, toward the end of his fourth year in captivity. I no longer remember through what channel the news reached him. Someone, who had known them back home, had seen his sister. She was in Paris. She lived in a mean street near Saint-Suplice, the rue de Gindre. She had only one child with her by then, a little boy, the baby of the bunch. Where were the other six? She herself, perhaps, did not know. Every morning she went to a printer’s in the rue de Sabot, no. 3, where she was a folder and a stitcher. She had to be there at six in the morning, well before daybreak in winter. In the same building as the printing works there was s school and she took her little boy, who was seven, there. Only, as she started work at six o’clock, and the school did not open till seven, the child had to wait for an hour, in the courtyard, for the school to open; an hour in the dark in the winter in the open air! They wouldn’t let the boy come into the printer’s because he got in the way, they said. As they passed by of a morning, the workers would see the poor little mite sitting on the cobblestones, nodding off to sleep and sometimes sound asleep in the dark, crouched and curled up over his basket. When it rained, an old lady, the concierge, would take pity on him; she would take him into her shabby squat, where there was nothing but a pallet, a spinning wheel, and two wooden chairs, and the little boy would sleep there in a corner, cuddling up to the cat for warmth. At seven o’clock, the school would open and in he would go. That is what someone told Jean Valjean. They spoke to him about it, one day, and just for a moment, there was a flash of lightning, like a window suddenly opening on the destiny of these creatures he had loved, then everything shut again; he never heard another word about them again, not ever. Nothing further about them ever reached him; he never saw them again, never ran into them, and for the rest of this painful story, we will not stumble across them again. (Hugo 73-74)

Since the story of Fantine’s relationship with her lover is completely left out of your version, here is the shortened version: Fantine and three other women, Zephine, Dahlia, and Favorite, were in Paris and hung out together, along with their lovers, wealthy young men who enjoyed being with beautiful young women. Fantine’s lover, Felix Tholomyes, was the leader of their group. Hugo writes the following lines about their relationship and her origins:

Fantine’s was a first love, a unique love, a faithful love. She was the only one of the four to whom one man alone had whispered sweet nothings…She was born at Montreuil-sur-mer. Who were her parents? Who could say? No one had ever known her to have a father or a mother. She called herself Fantine. Why Fantine? No one had ever told her to go by any other name. At the time of her birth, the Directoire still held sway. She had no family name, since she had no family; she had no Christian name, since the Church had become a spent force. She was called whatever the first person who had happened along felt like calling her when they ran across her as a tiny toddler padding around the streets barefoot. A name had fallen upon her the same way water from the clouds fell on her head when it rained. They called her la petite Fantine. That was all anyone knew about her. This human being had come into existence just like that. At the age of ten, Fantine left town and went into service with a farming family in the district. At fifteen, she came to Paris “to seek her fortune.” Fantine was beautiful and remained pure for as long as she could. A pretty blonde with beautiful teeth, she had gold and pearls for a dowry, but her gold was on her head and her pearls were in her mouth. She worked in order to live; then, also in order to live, she loved, for the heart has its own hunger. She loved Tholomyes. For him, it was a simple love affair; for her, passion. (Hugo 104)

One day, two years after they met, the four gentlemen took the women on a grand adventure of a date, ending up at a fancy restaurant for dinner. The men told the women that they had something important planned for them and proceeded to get up and leave the restaurant. An hour later, the following letter was delivered to the women, who were still waiting for the grand finale to the date:

O, lovers of ours! Know that we have parents. Parents are not something you know much about. They are called mothers and fathers in the civil code, which is puerile but honest. Now, these parents are moaning, these old men want to claim us, these good old men and women call us prodigal sons; they want us to return and offer to kill fatted calves for us. Being virtuous, we obey them. By the time you read this, five fiery steeds will be bringing us back to our mamas and papas. We are packing up our tents, as Bossuet would say. We are leaving, we have left. We are fleeing in the arms of Lafitte and on the wings of Caillard. The Toulouse diligence is tearing us away from the abyss and the abyss is you, O, our beautiful little darlings! We are returning to society, to duty, and to order, at a great clip, at the rate of three leagues an hour. It is important for the homeland that we be, like everyone else, police commissioners, fathers of families, council employees, and members of Council of State. Venerate us. We are sacrificing ourselves. Mourn us rapidly and replace us pronto. If this letter tears you apart, tear it apart back. Adieu. For nearly two years, we have made you happy. Don’t hold it against us. Signed: BLACHEVELLE FAMUEL LISTOLIER FELIX THOLOMYES Post Scriptum: The meal is paid for.

The four girls looked at each other. Favorite was the first to break the silence. “Well!” she cried. “That’s a pretty good joke, I’ll give them that.” “Very droll,” said Zephine. “It must have been Blachevelle’s idea,” Favorite went on. “It makes me feel quite in love with him. No sooner lost than loved. That’s the way it goes.” “No,” said Dahlia, “it’s Tholomyes’s idea. You can tell.” “In that case,” retorted Favorite, “down with Blachevelle and long live Tholomyes!” “Long live Tholomyes!” cried Dahlia and Zephine. And they burst out laughing. Fantine laughed with them. An hour later, when she was back in her room, she cried. He was, as we said, her first love; she had given herself to this Tholomyes as to a husband, and the poor girl had a child. (Hugo 121-122)

The character of Javert is not described in depth in your version, especially his background, so read this longer description to better understand Javert:

It is our conviction that if souls were visible to the naked eye, we would clearly see the strange phenomenon whereby every individual member of the human race corresponds to one of the species of the animal kingdom; and we could easily recognize this truth, scarcely entertained by the theorists, that from the oyster to the eagle, from the pig to the tiger, all animals are in man and each of them is in a man---sometimes even several of them simultaneously… The Asturian peasants are convinced that in every litter of wolves there is one pup who is killed by the mother because otherwise it would grow up to devour all the other pups. Give that male wolf puppy a human face, and you’d have Javert. Javert was born in prison to a fortune-teller who read the cards and whose husband was serving time in the galleys. As he was growing up, he felt as though he were on the outside of society and despaired of ever getting in. He noticed that society kept at bay two classes of men, those who attack it and those who guard it; his only choice was between these two classes. At the same time, he felt in himself some kind of basic rigidity, steadiness, honesty, clouded by an inexpressible hatred for that race of bohemians to whom he belonged. He joined the police. He did well there. At the age of forty, he was in inspector. As a young man he had been stationed as a warden in the galleys of the south. Before moving on to better things, let’s be clear about the term human face, which we applied a moment ago to Javert. The human face of Javert consisted of a pug nose, with two wide nostrils, toward which two enormous sideburns climbed down his cheeks. You felt disconcerted the first time you set eyes on these two forests flanking those two cavernous holes. When Javert laughed, which was rare and terrible, his thin lips parted and revealed not only his teeth but his gums, and a line appeared around his nose that was as flat and feral as on the muzzle of one of the big cats. When Javert was serious, he was a mastiff; when he laughed, he was a tiger. For the rest, not much of a skull, a lot of jaw, hair that hid his forehead and fell into his eyes, a permanent frown line between his eyes like a star of anger, a dark glance, a pinched and formidable mouth, a ferocious air of command… In his rare spare time, although he hated books, he would read; the result was that he was not altogether illiterate. This could be gauged by a certain emphasis in his speech. He had no vices whatsoever, as we said. When he was pleased with himself, he allowed himself a pinch of tobacco. That is the thread by which he hung on to humanity. (Hugo 143-145)

After Fantine dropped Cosette off with the Thenardiers, she went to her hometown of Montreuil-sur-mer and got a job in a factory, working for the Mayor of the town. When they found out that she had an illegitimate child, they fired her. It was near the end of the winter and she had to find other ways to earn money to support Cosette…

Fantine did not earn enough. Her debts had mushroomed. The Thenardiers, not getting regular payments, bombarded her with letters the contents of which distressed her and the postage costs of which were ruining her. One day they wrote to tell her that her little Cosette was quite naked in the freezing cold they were having, that she needed a woolen skirt and that the mother would have to send at least ten francs to cover the cost. She accepted the latter and carried it around in her hand all day, screwed up into a ball. That evening she went to the barber’s shop at the end of the street and took the comb out of her hair. Her wondrous blond locks tumbled down to the small of her back. “What beautiful hair!” the barber cried. “How much will you give me for it?” she asked. “Ten francs.” “Cut it off.” She bought a knitted skirt and sent it to the Thenardiers. The skirt made the Thenardiers furious. It was the money they wanted. They gave the skirt to Eponine. The poor little Lark went on freezing… (Hugo 154)

After receiving a letter from the Thenardiers that Cosette had the military fever and they needed 40 francs for the medicine and doctor, the following scene happened…

The next morning, as Marguerite came into Fantine’s room before daybreak, for they always worked together and so could share the one candle between the two of them, she found Fantine sitting on her bed, pale, icy cold. She had not been to bed. Her cap had fallen to her knees. The candle had been burning all night and was very nearly burned out. Marguerite stopped at the door, petrified by the sight of the overwhelming chaos, and cried out: “Lord! The candle’s all burned! Something terrible’s happened!” Then she looked at Fantine, who turned her hairless head toward her. Fantine had aged ten years overnight. “Jesus!” said Marguerite. “What’s wrong with you, Fantine?” “There’s nothing wrong with me,” replied Fantine. “On the contrary, now my little girl won’t die of that terrible disease, for lack of help. I’m happy.” As she spoke, she showed the old maid two napoleons gleaming on the table. “Oh…” said Marguerite. “But that’s a small fortune! Where did you get these gold Louis?” “I got them,” replied Fantine. And with that, she smiled. The candle lit her face. It was a bloody smile. Reddish saliva besmirched the corners of her mouth and inside her mouth was a black hole. The two teeth had been ripped out. She sent the forty francs to Montfermeil. But it was only a trick of the Thenardiers to get more money. Cosette was not sick at all…

Again, Thenardier wrote to her that, really, he had waited far too long out of the goodness of his heart and that he must have a hundred francs immediately; otherwise, he’d show little Cosette the door, convalescing as she was from her great illness---throw her out on the street, in the cold, let her fend for herself and she could drop dead if that’s what she wanted to do. “A hundred francs,” mused Fantine. “But is there anywhere on earth where you can earn a hundred sous a day?” “Get on with it, then!” she said. “Let’s sell what’s left.” The poor girl made herself a whore. (Hugo 156-157)

And so, eight or ten months after what was narrated in the previous pages, around about the first days of January 1823, on a night of snow, one of these dandies, one of these idlers---obviously a true conformist, for he wore a morillo, and was snugly wrapped up in one of those huge greatcoats that then completed the cold-weather fashion plate—was getting his kicks harassing a creature on the prowl in front of the window of the officers’ café in a very low- cut ball gown and with flowers wreathed around her head. The dandy was smoking, for smoking was very much in vogue. Every time the woman passed in front of him, along with a puff of smoke from his cigar, he would toss her a bunch of insults that he found terribly witty and amusing, like: “God, you’re ugly!” or, “Go and crawl under a rock!” or, “You’ve got no teeth!” and so on. This gentleman’s name was Monsieur Bamatabois. The woman, a sad bejeweled specter in a dress, kept walking backward and forward in the snow and did not answer him, did not even glance at him, but continued pacing in silence and with a dismal regularity that brought her back within range of his sarcasm every five minutes, like the condemned soldier going back for the birch. Not making any impression doubtless stung the fop into action and so, taking advantage of a moment when the woman’s back was turned, he snuck up behind her as stealthily as a wolf and, choking back a laugh, swooped down to the group, scooped up a handful of snow, and swiftly thrust it down her back between her naked shoulder blades. The girl let out a howl of rage, spun around, and, springing like a panther, hurled herself at the man, digging her nails into this face as she swore like a trooper in the foulest language that ever spilled into the gutter from some backroom brawl. These obscenities, spewing out in a voice made husky by eau-de-vie, were truly hideous coming from a mouth in which the two front teeth were, indeed, missing. It was Fantine. The racket brought all of the officers running out of the café; passersby gathered, and a great circle, laughing, jeering, and clapping, formed around this whirlwind composed of two beings hard to recognize as a man and a woman, the man thrashing around, his hat on the ground, the woman kicking and punching and screaming, bareheaded, toothless, and hairless and living with rage, truly horrible. Suddenly, a tall man darted out of the crowd, seized the woman by her mud-splattered satin bodice, and barked: “Follow me!” The woman looked up; her furious voice died at once. Her eyes glazed over, from being merely pale, she turned white and began shaking with terror. She had recognized Javert. The dandy took advantage of the incident to sneak away. (Hugo 159-160)

Javert sentenced Fantine to six months in prison for her assault and will not take into account her story of supporting a young daughter. Before Fantine was taken away, the Mayor showed up and reversed the sentence. Fantine was not grateful at first since she hated the Mayor for getting her fired from her job that led to her ruin. The Mayor had not personally been involved in the incident and so listened to her insults and still insisted on setting her free, which Javert protested…

“Inspector Javert,” Monsieur Madeleine replied in a calm, conciliatory tone, “listen. You are an honest man, so I don’t mind spelling things out clearly for you. It’s like this. I happened to be crossing the square as you were carting this woman away. There were still people milling around, I asked a few questions, and I found out the truth; it is the gentleman who was in the wrong, and if the police were doing their job, he should have been arrested.” Javert could not stop himself: “This miserable creature just insulted Monsieur le maire.” “That’s my business,” said Monsieur Madeleine. “My insult is mine, if you like. I can do what I like with it. “I beg Monsieur le maire’s pardon. The insult is not his, it belongs to the system of justice.” “Inspector Javert,” replied Monsieur Madeleine, “the highest form of justice is one’s conscience. I’ve heard the woman out. I know what I’m doing.” “And I, Monsieur le maire, don’t know what I am seeing.” “Then make do with obeying.” “I’m obeying my duty. My duty tells me that this woman should do six months behind bars.” Monsieur Madeleine responded gently: “Listen to me carefully. She will not do a single day…Let me refer you to article eighty-one of the law of December 13, 1799, on arbitrary detention.” “Monsieur le maire, allow---“ “Not another word.” “But---“ “Get out,” said Monsieur Madeleine. Javert took the blow standing, full on and bang in the chest like a Russian soldier. He bowed practically to the ground to Monsieur le maire and left. Fantine moved away from the door and watched in stupefaction as he went past her…She did not know she was trembling. She listened, bewildered, she watched, alarmed, and at each word that Monsieur Madeleine uttered, she felt the awful blackness of hate dissolving and evaporating inside her and she felt something indescribably warm and wonderful well up in her heart; it was joy, trust, and love. When Javert had gone, Monsieur Madeleine turned to her, and said in a careful voice, struggling to sound as though he were in control and not on the verge of breaking down: “I have heard you. It’s all news to me. I believe it’s true and I feel it’s true. I didn’t even know you had left my workshop. Why didn’t you come and see me in person? But here’s how it will be: I will pay your debts, I will have your child come to you, or you will go to her. You will live here, or in Paris, or wherever you like. I will look after your child and you. You will never have to work again, if you don’t want to. I will give you all the money you need. You will go back to being an honest woman by being happy again. And, listen, I tell you here and now, if all is as you say, and I don’t doubt it for a second, you have never stopped being virtuous and holy in the eyes of God. Oh, you poor, poor woman! This was more than poor Fantine could bear. To be with Cosette again! To leave this ignoble life behind! To live free, rich, happy, honest, with Cosette! To suddenly see blossoming in the middle of all of her misery the fruits of paradise! She gazed, stunned, at the man speaking to her and could only let out two or three sobs: oh! oh! oh! Her legs gave way, she fell on her knees before Monsieur Madeleine, and before he could stop her, he felt her take his hand and press it to her lips. Then she fainted. (Hugo 165-167)

After this, the Mayor takes her to his own home, where he set up an infirmary and had two nuns take care of her. He sent money to the Thenardiers so that he could bring Cosette to her mother before she died. However, the Thenardiers just kept demanding more and more money…

Excerpts from this handout were taken from the unabridged version of LES MISERABLES, translated by Julie Rose:

Hugo, Victor. Les Miserables. New York: The Modern Library, 2009. Print.