Part I: Fantine

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.

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