#lm 1.3.9

[secretmellowblog]

Javert thrust his bludgeon between his teeth, bent his knees, inclined his body, laid his two powerful hands on the shoulders of Jean Valjean, which were clamped within them as in a couple of vices, scrutinized him, and recognized him. Their faces almost touched. Javert’s look was terrible.

Inspector Javert after unexpectedly encountering Jean Valjean after the barricades, having had no sleep or rest in days but a whole lot of massive massive cognitive dissonance:

[scuttleton]

LM 1.3.7

Holy cow this guy is

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.

[les-mis-daily-doodles]

that was a great surprise thanks men!!

[lesmisletters]

Alas for Fantine!

But congratulations to all the Les Mis Letters readers for making it to the end of book 3!

Here’s to hoping things start looking up for Fantine over the next couple weeks of the Readalong!

[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

[cliozaur]

This is a perplexing mystery: why do girls find this conclusion so amusing? Favourite, Zéphine, and Dahlia genuinely appear to find that offensive joke hilarious. Moreover, they don't seem offended by the humiliating tone of this outrageous letter. The line "Parents—you do not know much about such things" — what's the humour in it? Or in this one: "The Toulouse diligence tears us from the abyss, and the abyss is you, O our little beauties!" And these individuals are so deluded that they believe they will become respectable members of society, unlike these "little beauties." I've just realized that if not for Favourite, the rest of the girls wouldn't even be able to read the letter. It's such a mean and cowardly way to end the relationships, especially considering that they were contractual.

The most crucial part for the plot is in the last two sentences. Poor Fantine. And at the end we are left with this:

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - A Merry End to Mirth, LM 1.3.9 (Les Miserables 1925)

An hour later, when she had returned to her room, she wept. It was her first love affair, as we have said; she had given herself to this Tholomyès as to a husband, and the poor girl had a child.

[dolphin1812]

I’m really interested in the parentheses about how Favourite knows how to read. It’s a reminder that, given their class, it’s likely most of the grisettes were illiterate, making the men’s prank even more bizarre and highlighting the differences between their statuses. To Tholomyès and his friends, being literate is so natural that they likely didn’t even think about whether or not the women would be able to read their note. But for a grisette, reading would be a more specialized skill, because the demands of work don’t leave time or money for education (when was Fantine supposed to learn to read if she’s lived on the streets most of her life?). As cruel as the note is, it’s horrible to imagine that Favourite hadn’t been literate: that the women would have just waited there, received a note, and had to search for someone else to read it for them, possibly having to pay someone to hear the news that they weren’t receiving anything and had been abandoned.

Of course, this chapter is also where we learn that Fantine has a child. Hugo’s language is mixed, but understandable given his audience. The emphasis on her innocence before this and how she acted as if Tholomyès was “her husband” are meant to represent her as “pure,” if naïve, to an audience unlikely to sympathize with a woman in her situation otherwise, but this is honestly one of the least uncomfortable moments on Hugo’s end (partly because it’s brief and feels more clearly about his audience than his own weird thoughts, partly because it actually serves a purpose). Fantine thinking of him as a “husband” meant that she expected him to have responsibilities to her, but in the end, he did even less than was average for a grisette-student relationship. Hugo may have used “husband” to express how she came to have a child, but it also conveys the vast difference in expectations between the two of them in the relationship.

It’s also really impactful to end with this information. We’ve spent so much time focusing on the “pleasures of youth” in the past few chapters that the hardships of the grisettes’ lives have mostly only been hinted at. Fantine loves her daughter, but the vulnerability of her crying by her demonstrates how important this relationship actually was to her and the gap between the responsibilities of the men (pleasing their parents) and of the women (supporting themselves financially and, in Fantine’s case, raising a child on her own).

Additionally, it’s curious that the end of this chapter is the first time we see Fantine pretend. Hugo specifies that she laughs with the other grisettes about the “surprise” before returning home to cry. Before this, the others have consistently found her unusual because her reactions suggest that she doesn’t “know how the world works” (this even happened earlier in the same chapter). I’m not entirely sure what to make of it - could it represent a loss of her naivety? A panicked response in the immediate aftermath of that shock? - but I’m interested in what it could mean that Fantine, who has never been able to conceal her reactions before and is almost too honest, is able to fake her way out of a situation here.