Someone stick a sock in his mouth. Who named this chapter "Tholomyès Wisdom"?? I'm not sure that second word is completely applicable.
‘O Zéphine, O Joséphine, with your more than unconventional prettiness you’d be attractive if you weren’t crumpled. You look like a pretty face that someone has sat on by mistake.
This was so uncalled for
sugar is a salt
O wise one, yes this is. So very most definitely true. Definitely.
Gentlemen, make conquests. Steal your darlings from each other without remorse. Change partners. There are no friends in matters of love. Wherever there’s a pretty woman there’s open hostility. No quarter given, all-out war! A pretty woman is a casus belli. A pretty woman is flagrant provocation. All the invasions of history have been brought about by petticoats. Woman is man’s entitlement.
x100
Kiss me, Fantine!’ He got the wrong girl, and kissed Favourite.
I cannot stand this man I cannot stand this man I cannot stand this man I cannot stand this man
1.3.8
Horse mention 🫵 "Death of a Horse" maybe this is the horse that haunts me
Fantine, I plead with you to leave this man behind. Why are you in love with him when he talks about other women all the time.
Why.... Why do I feel like these guys all just left. Like. Permanently. "Here's the surprise! It's a disappearing act."
1.3.9
Can everyone stop dragging Fantine for being naive please, guys, c'mon. I don't think they actually like her that much, with how they keep making jokes at her expense.
The waiter replied, ‘It’s a note those gentlemen left for you ladies.’
‘Why didn’t you bring it straight away?’
‘Because,’ said the waiter, ‘the gentlemen told me not to deliver it to you ladies before an hour had gone by.’
Oh boy
O loving mistresses!
We would have you know that we have parents. Parents are not something you are very familiar with. In the civil code for respectable children, they are called fathers and mothers.
I've had it up to (my hand raises up into the sun) here with these guys
Now, these parents are complaining, these old folk are appealing to us, these good men and women are calling us prodigal sons, they want us to come home, and are offering to kill calves for us. Being dutiful, we are obeying them. By the time you read this, five spirited horses will be taking us back to our papas and mamas. We are decamping, as Bossuet puts it. We are leaving. We have left. We are fleeing in the arms of Laffitte and on the wings of Caillard. The Toulouse stage-coach wrests us from the abyss, and the abyss is you, O our beautiful darlings! We are returning to order, to duty, to society, at a brisk pace, at the speed of eight miles an hour. It is important for the country that like everyone else we should be prefects, family men, rural police officers and state councillors. Respect us. We are sacrificing ourselves. Lament us briefly and replace us rapidly. If this letter distresses you, tear it to pieces. Farewell.
For nearly two years we have made you happy. Do not hold it against us.
Signed:
Blachevelle.
Fameuil.
Listolier.
Félix Tholomyès.
P.S. The meal is paid for.
This is worse than breaking up with someone over a text. And since it was Tholomyès idea specifically, the man who is so into Spanish—
Favourite was the first to break the silence. ‘Well, anyway,’ she exclaimed, ‘it’s a good joke!’
Guys... no..........
Fantine laughed with them.
An hour later, back in her room, she wept. He was, as we said, her first love – she had given herself to this Tholomyès as to a husband. And the poor girl had a child.
"The Death of a Horse" is one of the most important chapters in terms of Les Misérables' composition. The whole idea for Les Misérables began with three events that deeply affected Victor Hugo: witnessing a man arrested for stealing bread, intervening in an incident involving an assaulted prostitute, and seeing a horse die. He wanted to weave these three moments into a single narrative. However, long before he began drafting the novel, he wrote a poem about the death of a horse. In a way, this is where Les Misérables truly began.
And, of course, the scene itself foreshadows Fantine's sad fate.
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 1.3.8
“The dinners are better at Édon’s than at Bombarda’s,” exclaimed Zéphine.
“I prefer Bombarda to Édon,” declared Blachevelle. “There is more luxury. It is more Asiatic. Look at the room downstairs; there are mirrors [<i>glaces</i>] on the walls.”
“I prefer them [<i>glaces</i>, ices] on my plate,” said Favourite.
Blachevelle persisted:—
“Look at the knives. The handles are of silver at Bombarda’s and of bone at Édon’s. Now, silver is more valuable than bone.”
“Except for those who have a silver chin,” observed Tholomyès.
He was looking at the dome of the Invalides, which was visible from Bombarda’s windows.
A pause ensued.
“Tholomyès,” exclaimed Fameuil, “Listolier and I were having a discussion just now.”
“A discussion is a good thing,” replied Tholomyès; “a quarrel is better.”
“We were disputing about philosophy.”
“Well?”
“Which do you prefer, Descartes or Spinoza?”
“Désaugiers,” said Tholomyès.
This decree pronounced, he took a drink, and went on:—
“I consent to live. All is not at an end on earth since we can still talk nonsense. For that I return thanks to the immortal gods. We lie. One lies, but one laughs. One affirms, but one doubts. The unexpected bursts forth from the syllogism. That is fine. There are still human beings here below who know how to open and close the surprise box of the paradox merrily. This, ladies, which you are drinking with so tranquil an air is Madeira wine, you must know, from the vineyard of Coural das Freiras, which is three hundred and seventeen fathoms above the level of the sea. Attention while you drink! three hundred and seventeen fathoms! and Monsieur Bombarda, the magnificent eating-house keeper, gives you those three hundred and seventeen fathoms for four francs and fifty centimes.”
Again Fameuil interrupted him:—
“Tholomyès, your opinions fix the law. Who is your favorite author?”
“Ber—”
“Quin?”
“No; Choux.”
And Tholomyès continued:—
“Honor to Bombarda! He would equal Munophis of Elephanta if he could but get me an Indian dancing-girl, and Thygelion of Chæronea if he could bring me a Greek courtesan; for, oh, ladies! there were Bombardas in Greece and in Egypt. Apuleius tells us of them. Alas! always the same, and nothing new; nothing more unpublished by the creator in creation! <i>Nil sub sole novum</i>, says Solomon; <i>amor omnibus idem</i>, says Virgil; and Carabine mounts with Carabin into the bark at Saint-Cloud, as Aspasia embarked with Pericles upon the fleet at Samos. One last word. Do you know what Aspasia was, ladies? Although she lived at an epoch when women had, as yet, no soul, she was a soul; a soul of a rosy and purple hue, more ardent hued than fire, fresher than the dawn. Aspasia was a creature in whom two extremes of womanhood met; she was the goddess prostitute; Socrates plus Manon Lescaut. Aspasia was created in case a mistress should be needed for Prometheus.”
Tholomyès, once started, would have found some difficulty in stopping, had not a horse fallen down upon the quay just at that moment. The shock caused the cart and the orator to come to a dead halt. It was a Beauceron mare, old and thin, and one fit for the knacker, which was dragging a very heavy cart. On arriving in front of Bombarda’s, the worn-out, exhausted beast had refused to proceed any further. This incident attracted a crowd. Hardly had the cursing and indignant carter had time to utter with proper energy the sacramental word, <i>Mâtin</i> (the jade), backed up with a pitiless cut of the whip, when the jade fell, never to rise again. On hearing the hubbub made by the passers-by, Tholomyès’ merry auditors turned their heads, and Tholomyès took advantage of the opportunity to bring his allocution to a close with this melancholy strophe:—
“Elle était de ce monde ou coucous et carrosses
Ont le même destin;
Et, rosse, elle a vécu ce que vivant les rosses,
L’espace d’un mâtin!”
“Poor horse!” sighed Fantine.
And Dahlia exclaimed:—
“There is Fantine on the point of crying over horses. How can one be such a pitiful fool as that!”
At that moment Favourite, folding her arms and throwing her head back, looked resolutely at Tholomyès and said:—
“Come, now! the surprise?”
“Exactly. The moment has arrived,” replied Tholomyès. “Gentlemen, the hour for giving these ladies a surprise has struck. Wait for us a moment, ladies.”
“It begins with a kiss,” said Blachevelle.
“On the brow,” added Tholomyès.
Each gravely bestowed a kiss on his mistress’s brow; then all four filed out through the door, with their fingers on their lips.
Favourite clapped her hands on their departure.
“It is beginning to be amusing already,” said she.
“Don’t be too long,” murmured Fantine; “we are waiting for you.”
The form of the poem is taken directly from a 1599 poem by François de Malherbe titled "Consolation à M. Du Périer - Stances sur la mort de sa fille" (Consolation to M. Du Périer - Stanzas about the death of his daughter). The lines within the poem that Tholomyès is referencing are:
Mais elle était du monde, où les plus belles choses
Ont le pire destin ;
Et rose¹ elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses,
L'espace d'un matin.
But she was of the world, where the most beautiful things
Have the worst destiny;
And rose (pink)¹ she lived what roses live,
The space of a morning.
1. It's not uncommon in French to refer to someone as "rose" much like how in English you would refer to someone as "rosy cheeked." Cosette many times, and even young Marius, get described with just the adjective "rose" in Les Mis.
Tholomyès' parody reads:
Elle¹ était de ce monde où coucous et carrosses
Ont le même destin,
Et, rosse², elle a vécu ce que vivent les rosses,
L'espace d'un : mâtin!³
She¹ was of this world where horse-drawn coaches and carriages
Have the same destiny,
And, nag², she lived what nags live,
The space of a: morning!³
1. "She" referring to the horse that just fell
2. The word "rosse" in French means a nag, as in a pejorative word for a horse (as well as a nasty, unpleasant person) and is a pun on the word "rose" (the color pink or the flower) used in the original. Thanks to @persefoneshalott for bringing that one to my attention last year!
3. The word in French here sounds exactly like "morning" (matin) but is written as "mâtin," the word the cart driver yelled while cracking his whip at his horse. Mâtin means "mastiff" as well as "boar, oaf" and can also be an exclamation like "heavens!" In the text it refers to it as a "sacramental word."
