#lm 1.3.4

[secretmellowblog]

Happy “Fantine rides a Rollercoaster” Day to everyone reading Les Mis along with @lesmisletters ! In this chapter, Fantine and her friends ride the “Russian Mountains” in the Beaujon pleasure gardens. The “Russian Mountains” was actually an early 1817 roller coaster, which looked like this:

Here’s a tiktok video explaining more about how that roller coaster was invented and brought over to France!

[scuttleton]

LM 1.3.1

Guys what year are we talking about

Oh boy we're in footnote city again

Napoleon was on St Helena, and as England refused to provide him with green cloth he was having his old coats turned.

There is something here about Marius and his green coat, I'm sure of it

Fifty footnotes later...

1.3.2

The names of these particular Oscars were Félix Tholomyès

Hey it's the guy everyone seems to hate that Courfeyrac gets compared to

Or at least the last name is the same

Tholomyès had Fantine

HEY IT'S THE LADY THE VOLUME IS NAMED AFTER

Oh wow Favourite's mother sucks B/

She loved Tholomyès. A conquest for him, for her the love of her life.

I can already see where this is going and I already hate this guy for it. Now I better understand where Courfeyrac diverges and I haven't even reached what this scoundrel does.

One day Tholomyès took the other three aside, made sure he had their full attention and said, ‘Fantine, Dahlia, Zéphine and Favourite have been asking us for nearly a year to give them a surprise. We’ve made a solemn promise to do so. . . . At the same time our parents keep writing to us. Attacked on both sides. I think the time has come. Let’s talk.’ At this point Tholomyès lowered his voice and mysteriously described something so amusing that a huge enthusiastic guffaw emerged simultaneously from the mouths of all four of them and Blachevelle cried, ‘That’s a great idea!’

I don't know what the plan is but I already don't like it. Just based on the description given to Tholomyès, I don't trust his plans. (On that note, I didn't expect him to be depicted as so ugly HAHA)

1.3.3

Oh, no matter who you may be, don’t you remember? Have you walked through the bushes, holding aside the branches for the pretty face following behind you?

Oh get out of here with this "No matter who you may be" type nonsense again 🙄

Blondeau mention 🫵 may he rest in peace

1.3.4

Okay, I am becoming increasingly baffled by the fact that Tholomyès is even with Fantine. He seems Like the sort that would prefer to have a lady who is fine with him doing whatever the heck he wants with her, but Fantine won't even get on the swing or accept kisses throughout the day like the other girls.

Maybe it comes back around to the conquest thing. She's pretty and if he can say that he was the one who..... (face of disgust) conquered her... It's like some kind of bragging right. "Yeah I managed to get with the chaste Fantine, that's how suave and impressive I am" kind of mentality. He wants the challenge? Ugh.

"on Sundays tiredness has the day off" oh if only

1.3.5

Horse mention 😔

1.3.6

This prompted Blachevelle to ask, ‘What would you do, Favourite, if I stopped loving you?’ ‘What would I do!’ cried Favourite. ‘Oh, don’t say that even as a joke! If you stopped loving me, I’d come after you, I’d scratch and claw you, I’d throw water over you, I’d have you arrested.’ Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous self-conceit of a man whose vanity is flattered. . . . As she ate, Dahlia said quietly to Favourite amid the uproar, ‘So you really worship your Blachevelle, do you?’ ‘I detest him,’ replied Favourite in a similar undertone, picking up her fork again. ‘He’s stingy. It’s the lad who lives opposite me I love.

HAHA DANG

All the same, I tell Blachevelle I adore him. What a liar I am! Eh? What a liar!’ Favourite paused, then went on, ‘You see, Dahlia, I feel miserable. It’s done nothing but rain all summer, the wind’s always blowing, it gets on my nerves, Blachevelle’s very tight-fisted, there are hardly any peas in the market, you don’t know what to eat. I’m down in the dumps, as the English say, butter’s so expensive, and look, here we are eating in a room with a bed in it. It’s disgusting! It makes me fed up with life.’

... Dang.

You say you love actors, but girl you could be one.

[les-mis-daily-doodles]

FUCK I DIDNT POSG IT

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

Round 2, Matchup 20: I.iii.4 vs I.iii.9

Which chapter title do you prefer?

Tholomyès is So Merry That He Sings a Spanish Song

A Merry End to Mirth

Voting ended onJun 8, 2025

[lesmisletters-daily]

Tholomyès Is So Merry That He Sings A Spanish Ditty

Les Mis Letters reading club explores one chapter of Les Misérables every day. Join us on Discord, Substack - or share your thoughts right here on tumblr - today's tag is #lm 1.3.4

That day was composed of dawn, from one end to the other. All nature seemed to be having a holiday, and to be laughing. The flower-beds of Saint-Cloud perfumed the air; the breath of the Seine rustled the leaves vaguely; the branches gesticulated in the wind, bees pillaged the jasmines; a whole bohemia of butterflies swooped down upon the yarrow, the clover, and the sterile oats; in the august park of the King of France there was a pack of vagabonds, the birds.

The four merry couples, mingled with the sun, the fields, the flowers, the trees, were resplendent.

And in this community of Paradise, talking, singing, running, dancing, chasing butterflies, plucking convolvulus, wetting their pink, open-work stockings in the tall grass, fresh, wild, without malice, all received, to some extent, the kisses of all, with the exception of Fantine, who was hedged about with that vague resistance of hers composed of dreaminess and wildness, and who was in love. “You always have a queer look about you,” said Favourite to her.

Such things are joys. These passages of happy couples are a profound appeal to life and nature, and make a caress and light spring forth from everything. There was once a fairy who created the fields and forests expressly for those in love,—in that eternal hedge-school of lovers, which is forever beginning anew, and which will last as long as there are hedges and scholars. Hence the popularity of spring among thinkers. The patrician and the knife-grinder, the duke and the peer, the limb of the law, the courtiers and townspeople, as they used to say in olden times, all are subjects of this fairy. They laugh and hunt, and there is in the air the brilliance of an apotheosis—what a transfiguration effected by love! Notaries’ clerks are gods. And the little cries, the pursuits through the grass, the waists embraced on the fly, those jargons which are melodies, those adorations which burst forth in the manner of pronouncing a syllable, those cherries torn from one mouth by another,—all this blazes forth and takes its place among the celestial glories. Beautiful women waste themselves sweetly. They think that this will never come to an end. Philosophers, poets, painters, observe these ecstasies and know not what to make of it, so greatly are they dazzled by it. The departure for Cythera! exclaims Watteau; Lancret, the painter of plebeians, contemplates his bourgeois, who have flitted away into the azure sky; Diderot stretches out his arms to all these love idyls, and d’Urfé mingles druids with them.

After breakfast the four couples went to what was then called the King’s Square to see a newly arrived plant from India, whose name escapes our memory at this moment, and which, at that epoch, was attracting all Paris to Saint-Cloud. It was an odd and charming shrub with a long stem, whose numerous branches, bristling and leafless and as fine as threads, were covered with a million tiny white rosettes; this gave the shrub the air of a head of hair studded with flowers. There was always an admiring crowd about it.

After viewing the shrub, Tholomyès exclaimed, “I offer you asses!” and having agreed upon a price with the owner of the asses, they returned by way of Vanvres and Issy. At Issy an incident occurred. The truly national park, at that time owned by Bourguin the contractor, happened to be wide open. They passed the gates, visited the manikin anchorite in his grotto, tried the mysterious little effects of the famous cabinet of mirrors, the wanton trap worthy of a satyr become a millionaire or of Turcaret metamorphosed into a Priapus. They had stoutly shaken the swing attached to the two chestnut-trees celebrated by the Abbé de Bernis. As he swung these beauties, one after the other, producing folds in the fluttering skirts which Greuze would have found to his taste, amid peals of laughter, the Toulousan Tholomyès, who was somewhat of a Spaniard, Toulouse being the cousin of Tolosa, sang, to a melancholy chant, the old ballad <i>gallega</i>, probably inspired by some lovely maid dashing in full flight upon a rope between two trees:—

“Soy de Badajoz,

Amor me llama,

Toda mi alma,

Es en mi ojos,

Porque enseñas,

A tuas piernas.

“Badajoz is my home

And Love is my name;

To my eyes in flame,

All my soul doth come;

For instruction meet

I receive at thy feet”

Fantine alone refused to swing.

“I don’t like to have people put on airs like that,” muttered Favourite, with a good deal of acrimony.

After leaving the asses there was a fresh delight; they crossed the Seine in a boat, and proceeding from Passy on foot they reached the barrier of l’Étoile. They had been up since five o’clock that morning, as the reader will remember; but <i>bah! there is no such thing as fatigue on Sunday</i>, said Favourite; <i>on Sunday fatigue does not work</i>.

About three o’clock the four couples, frightened at their happiness, were sliding down the Russian mountains, a singular edifice which then occupied the heights of Beaujon, and whose undulating line was visible above the trees of the Champs-Élysées.

From time to time Favourite exclaimed:—

“And the surprise? I claim the surprise.”

“Patience,” replied Tholomyès.

[cliozaur]

I really do not care about Tholomyès’ rather bad poetry!

It's frustrating that Hugo continues to portray this group as "the four merry couples" or "happy couples" when Fantine's reality contradicts that label entirely. Yes, she may be enamoured, but there's no sign of true merriment or happiness emanating from her. Her refusal to participate in seemingly harmless fun like kissing or swinging speaks volumes. Add to that Favourite's biting comments, which suggest anything but a close friendship with Fantine.

I wonder why Hugo spends so much time depicting these deceptively careless and happy scenes. Probably he wanted to show that Fantine had a happy and carefree time back then. It’s just that she doesn’t seem very content at the moment.

The Russian Mountains were “Les Montagnes Russes à Belleville” (below), opened in 1817. Unlike its icy Russian counterpart, it utilized wheeled carts instead of sledges, and accidents were not uncommon!

[dolphin1812]

I never have high expectations for Tholomyès, but his song is so bad and I can’t tell if it’s intentional (to emphasize that he’s trying to show off and isn’t actually that intelligent) or if Hugo just wasn’t great at Spanish.

To be perfectly honest, Hugo loses me when he rants about love, so I’m sure there’s a lot of interesting stuff here, but most of it went over my head. One line that did stand out to me, though, was this:

“The patrician and the knife-grinder, the duke and the peer, the limb of the law, the courtiers and townspeople, as they used to say in olden times, all are subjects of this fairy.”

I think presenting love as something that strikes all equally regardless of class is meant to be part of the happy atmosphere of this chapter, but strangely, almost all of the examples here are definitely high-class (”patricians”, “dukes”, “peers,” and “courtiers”). Given his focus on artists in this paragraph, this may be a result of who would have access to “high culture” to, for example, publish poems on love. Someone writing from a court would likely differentiate between different people there and label everyone outside of that “townspeople.” And yet this group is predicated on class inequality. All of the women are workers to some extent, even if their exact situations vary, while all of the men are students from well-off families. Maybe they’re all capable of “falling in love,” but their experiences are shaped by their backgrounds.

What I find frustrating about this section is that sometimes, I can’t tell why Hugo is saying something. For instance, he writes: “Beautiful women waste themselves sweetly. They think that this will never come to an end.” “Waste” and “sweetly” is a strange combination, and he adds that poets love this. Perhaps he’s reflecting on what he considers the tragically fleeting nature of beauty in women (in short: Hugo being weird and sexist)? Or on love itself being fleeting? He also says that women “think” this will never end; with “waste”, could this be foreshadowing something bad? And yet the rest of the paragraph seems positive (?). I just don’t know what to make of it.

On a happier note: the Russian Mountains! It’s the roller-coaster! 

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - Tholomyès is so Merry That He Sings a Spanish Ditty, LM 1.3.4 (Les Miserables 1925)

After viewing the shrub, Tholomyès exclaimed, “I offer you asses!” and having agreed upon a price with the owner of the asses, they returned by way of Vanvres and Issy.