2.6.9-2.6.11
2.6.9
So, we have a description of the old nun, who is quite the centarian, she keeps talking of the 18th century. This seems to be a good way to contrast the 18th century and things past, vs. the 19th Century and how things are being done now in Petit Picpus. She speaks very nostalgically and fondly of the past to the girls. But she does seem to be stuck in the past and unable to make the transition from 18th Century to the 19th Century. This is probably the second time, where we get an indepth description of the nuns. The first time, we had the modern nuns, now we have a nun who is so completely shut in from the outside world and has been for several years, so much that she lives in and talks about another century, though through her we do get a chance to see the customs and traditions which have changed.
Hugo gets a chance to make another pun here which makes the girls giggle. The nun tells amusing stories, the goblets with the monkey’s wine, the lion’s wine, the sheep’s wine and hog’s wine which represent the four stages of drunkenness. The nun does seem relaxed and fun with her quaint manners.
She keeps a mysterious item in the cupboard which turns out to be a plate but I’m guessing there’s some hidden meaning why she kept it wrapped up, although it could be sentimentality. I wish I knew what play this was referring to, it might make more sense, I’ve only heard of the The Misanthrope and The Malade Imaginaire? The love is being given a dose of medicine, I’m not sure if it has a broader significance except as @coelenterata mentioned, she still has her bit of fun because in the end people are still people, maybe this is her little joke? It does seem as if the hype for the treasure did not live up to the actual thing.
2.6.10
So, we get another comparison between the Perpetual Adoration within Petit Picpus and the other convent in the Temple district. The main difference between these two is that the other one was founded by large donations and only admits women who can afford to give large donations. It’s very money oriented rather than based on religious fervour. However, the parlour over there is a salon, where women talk more freely, there aren’t any restrictions, not like in Petit Picpus. Somehow that does not seem to be a good way of connecting with God, according to Hugo, maybe? It definitely does remind me of the comparisons of the different bishops/popes during the Bishop Myriel chapters who were also focused on money.
Here in Petit Picpus, there is a children’s school and while they have Royalists fleeing the Revolution taking sanctuary here, we also have poor women and a mixture of different communities and they are paid pensions. Petit Picpus convent takes everyone in and gives them money, so this is a point in favour of this convent, maybe?
2.6.11
The convent is in decline, things are changing which is why Hugo needs to record these things here. I do love the whole nostalgic lens Hugo views Paris from. The nuns are dying and because the order is so difficult, new people do not join and so the old ways are dying and Hugo is hopeful that religion may come to support social progress, because for Hugo belief in God is important. This chapter while nostalgic is also looking towards the future.
I love the respectful tone Hugo takes in this chapter, ‘we don’t understand everything, but we jeer at nothing’, a lot of it is his own philosophy. This chapter also helps clarify so many things about the previous chapters.
He might not understand much of the ways of the convent, but he accepts and records them the way they were, shining a light for people who may have forgotten or do not remember this side of Paris, which is why we get both the things that are austere but also things that are in favour of this convent model. The convent is certainly educating girls, even supporting some orphan girls without any money or prospects even if the order may be too harsh. Hugo is neither too cynical and mocking of nor too accepting of everything with regards to Catholicism.
Much of Les Miserables, seems to me also to be a way for Hugo to preserve the old Paris as it was. He is a novelist but, in that regard, I think novelists too play a role in preserving history because they are dealing with recording the things/customs/etc of a particular time that may not be applicable later.
The whole bit about studying the past, so we can unmystify it and not repeat the mistakes that we are liable to make if we don’t study it, is a good approach and one that is frequently associated with the studying of history. Hugo is not accepting everything at face value just because the past is a different country but is also examining whether those things from the past belong in this century. He is happy to let them remain a relic of the past if they don’t belong in the future, however as a novelist, he needs to give an accurate account of history of Paris.
In the last two lines he poses a very philosophical question, civilisation does not need convents and religion, especially when it is closed on itself like a tomb shut off from the rest of the world, whereas liberty and freedom would protect the existence of the convent and that the Catholic Nuns worshiped the infinite or God in their own way, even if Hugo might not agree with it. It’s a very interesting question, and something which provides a neat little segue into one of the main ideas of the novel, the Infinite, which guides and provides a moral bearing to all the characters.
