The seemingly simple point of Montfermeil’s geography as a village in the woods, causes a problem of supplying water to the village from across the woods, which is quite a difficult task for anyone in the village as it requires a lot of travelling, especially at night when the regular water delivery guy stops working. This is a chore that Cosette is entrusted to in the Thenardier household.
The point that I noticed reading it this time around is that, Thenardiers at this point are wealthy or well off because of the inn, yet they still exploited both Fantine and used Cosette as their personal servant. It became even worse when Fantine became unable to pay. This child lives in constant trauma and fear of being asked to fetch water from the other side of the woods at night and so ensures that the water is well supplied. She is also around 7 or 8 years old at this time, I think and living in constant fear of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of Madame Thenardier and that hurts.
I like Hugo pausing to explain Christmas in 1823, for after all he is writing this as if he is chronicling the event, it seems that way even in his talk of comparing Montfermeil as it was then to as it is now, and there are a number of curiosities on display, including a Vulture especially brought from Brazil for the sake of the tricolour cockade and Bonapartists went to see it as a relic of the past glory, as the flag was replaced to white by the Bourbons, I think. It’s interesting that an exotic creature should become something that represents/reminds them of old France.
But to get back to the story, the Christmas saw the inn filled with guests talking about various topics, Thenardiers either belong to the bourgeois or aspire to belong to it, as they keep relics that show their bourgeois status. The conversations revolve around politics and the Spanish war or something local.
Cosette meanwhile is sitting on the crossbar of the kitchen table, near the chimney trying to knit something for the Thenardier children while dressed in rags herself. Eponine and Azelma, who are happy and well cared for at this point, play with the kitten. We have further proof of Madame Thenardier’s abuse because of the leather strap hung from the nail. Madame Thenardier also neglects baby Gavroche, and even considers his birth ‘an effect of the cold’, poor Gavroche, I am filled with rage at Madame Thenardier on Gavroche’s part. He keeps crying without his mother caring about him a little, and for Hugo who talks a lot about mothers, this is probably a mark against Madame Thenardier.
Madame Thenardier’s love only extended to Eponine and Azelma but also it feels that since they can’t use Gavroche like Eponine and Azelma are used later on, and are being groomed for- to do favours and earn money that way, they do not even care what happens to him, whether he lives or dies.
This chapter is heart breaking, but it also emphasises in bold letters what terrible people the Thenardiers are and what predicament poor little Cosette and baby Gavroche are living in and honestly, everything hurts. (Where’s Chou Chou when you need him to make things slightly more bearable?) :P
