#lm 2.3.1

[les-mis-daily-doodles]

poor cosette…

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

Round 1, Matchup 86: II.iii.1 vs V.ii

Which chapter title do you prefer?

The Issue of Water at Montfermeil

The Intestine of the Leviathan

Voting ended onMay 2, 2025

[saints-and-poets-maybe]

the montfermeil sequence, according to the musical

[maybeitsapineapple]

LM 2.3.1

a much pleasanter introduction to monfermeil than last time, which serves to make cosette's, and gavroche's, horrible situation seem all the more horrible

i would not say we have "just" read about what happened to fantine. it was twenty-three chapters ago. it was a little more than two books ago

did these bonapartist soldiers just never ask thénardier about his service?

this is why sulphites are useful in wine they help prevent spoilage

[cliozaur]

So much is going on in this relatively short chapter. We learn a thing or two about Montfermeil during Hugo’s era (a town with plaster villas and bourgeois) and back in 1823, when it had problems with drinking water. Almost immediately after this revelation, Cosette, referred to as 'the poor creature,' is reintroduced, highlighting her greatest fear of venturing out after dark to fetch water.

The narrative then shifts, presenting a kaleidoscope of scenes and themes (it comes out that kaleidoscopes were in fashion in 1823). We're immersed in a Christmas fair and a wandering menagerie featuring Brazilian vultures sporting 'a tricolored cockade for an eye'—an attraction likely to evoke nostalgia among local Bonapartists for bygone days.  (I had to look for that bird: it’s not just its eye—good, initially I worried that it was somehow mutilated—but the entire head is adorned in red, blue, and whitish-yellowish hues. To be honest, tricolour is the last thing I would think of looking at this creature). Fragments of peasants' conversations at the tavern offer a glimpse into Hugo's early attempts at creating a polyphonic effect, a technique that will unfold further in subsequent Revolution chapters.

The chapter concludes with the poignant introduction of two children, criminally neglected by the Thénardiers. Cosette, with her bare feet exposed to the winter cold, diligently knitting stockings for other children, juxtaposed with Gavroche, who bursts forth with a cry. The scene is complete with a chilling detail—a whip ominously hanging on the wall. Poor children.

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - The Water Question at Montfermeil, LM 2.3.1 (Les Miserables 1925)

At intervals the cry of a very young child, which was somewhere in the house, rang through the noise of the dram-shop. It was a little boy who had been born to the Thénardiers during one of the preceding winters,—“she did not know why,” she said, “the result of the cold,”—and who was a little more than three years old. The mother had nursed him, but she did not love him. When the persistent clamor of the brat became too annoying, “Your son is squalling,” Thénardier would say; “do go and see what he wants.” “Bah!” the mother would reply, “he bothers me.” And the neglected child continued to shriek in the dark.

[dolphin1812]

Hugo’s description of class in Montfermeil is fascinating. When we’re taking in the town as a whole, it might become a place that the bourgeoisie visit in Hugo’s day, but it’s a small peasant village in 1823. However, as we “zoom in” on the village, we focus on the “aristocracy” that the Thénardiers are part of. Within the town, then, there are hierarchies that have a more tangible day-to-day impact on the lives of the people than their overall class backgrounds. It’s similar to what we saw in Montreuil-sur-Mer’s politics; the central government has a presence there, symbolically represented by the police and tangible when taxes are collected, but otherwise, people mainly saw the mayor as responsible for governance. Similarly, the Thénardiers may not actually be rich, but for the standards of Montfermeil, they’re in a fairly privileged position, and they certainly have power because of it.

When we’re in the inn itself, Hugo reverts to calling the Thénardiers bourgeois, noting that they owned a kaleidoscope and a lamp that were popular in that class in that year. Again, we see that they do enjoy some level of financial comfort; they can not only afford to get water carried uphill for them, but they can buy things that they don’t need fairly regularly (as these decorations were marked with the year). The fact that the people at the inn are bourgeois, craftspeople, or peasants is evident as well from their conversations, which focus on issues like grape-growing for wine, wheat, and grass. 

To an extent, the inn has a cheery atmosphere. Everyone is talking to each other, the customers seem content, and it’s Christmastime. However, the darkness that’s always present with the Thénardiers is there. Of course, we see Cosette working to provide the Thénardier girls with stockings (stockings that the parents could possibly just buy, as they can afford extra decorations). She herself covers her feet with wooden shoes because she doesn’t have any stockings, even though it’s winter. This is her usual position, and yet no one comments on this because they’re all inured to her neglect. Worst of all, there’s now the addition of a child’s voice. Cosette is always visible in the background of the inn, but she’s silent, a songless lark; the Thénardier boy now cries constantly for his mother’s care, but he receives nothing. And still, hearing and seeing this neglect, no one interferes. Montfermeil represents the chilling acceptance of this cruelty by society at large, primarily through simply ignoring it. Cosette`s abuse meets a more vengeful acceptance by the townspeople (seeing the Thénardiers’ care for her in any form as charity beyond what they should be expected to do), but even their own son is treated poorly, highlighting that regardless of the excuses given, the people of the town are simply willing to overlook a great deal of suffering to continue with their own lives. Most specifically, they ignore these children’s pain to keep enjoying themselves. The inn is a space of entertainment that they refuse to acknowledge is marred by horrific abuse and neglect.

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 2.3.2 “Two Portraits Filled In”

Hugo acknowledging how much more stressful and intense and exhausting life is for women while discussing Mme Thenardier is interesting. If Mme Thenardier’s life was hard and she was essentially ten years older than her actual age, then we must imagine how much worse it was for Fantine.

(I desperately wish any of the film versions of the Brick had cast Shawna Hamic from the 2011 US tour as Mme Thenardier. She was absolutely perfect in every way as that role. She’s also really really nice.)

Mme Thenardier is the opposite of Sister Simplice in how not-a-woman she is. Simplice is not a woman because she is essentially a sacred being, a sexless vessel of piety and faith. Mme Thenardier is not a woman because she lacks the grace, poise, frame, etc. Essentially, Simplice is not a woman because she is So Pious and Mme Thenardier is not a woman because she is So Brutish.

Thenardier appropriates and twists the history of the last of the Guard and Cambronne’s death in order to create a fictional glory for himself. Only he’s the lone survivor standing ground against the Hussars Of Death rather than Cambronne standing ground against English artillery. And he gets to survive it, in his story, because of course he does. Cambronne was great because he was defiant despite the fact that he didn’t survive. Thenardier is a sleaze, so he’s going to survive, because that’s what he does. He is the opposite of Cambronne, who will sacrifice his life for France and Napoleon; Thenardier will sacrifice others for his own benefit, and will try as hard as possible to survive himself.

Again, we see Thenardier as the embodiment of that sort of mobile cour des miracles that we saw on the field of Waterloo. He can and will change his manner and face and conversation to fit the circumstances. He can place his past or his origin anywhere in time or space that is most useful. He is an actor, a player on the stage of life in order to swindle whatever he can.

Thenardier plays the trickster role in this book. Some characteristics of a trickster: he breaks both societal and physical rules; he can often often shapeshift; his antics hurt or affect or discomfort the protagonists, but he is usually ultimately left untouched; often a trickster character will have gender variability, which we see in Thenardier’s letters to get money; he is often boastful and openly mocking of authority. We see all of these characteristics in Thenardier across the arc of the novel.

It’s so funny that Hugo says that “practiced eyes” found spelling mistakes in Thenardier’s bills, considering the severe amount of mistakes we see in his letters later on in Paris. Did he just become a worse speller when he left Montfermeil? Or was he better able to hide it because presumably bills only really need certain words?

I get the feeling the Mme Thenardier’s view of Thenardier (at least at this moment) is partially informed by her reading of romance books. She obviously isn’t living the life she wanted, and who knows if she was this brutish before being stuck with Thenardier or not. In any case, she wants something else, and that desire is probably increased by her romance novel-reading, and she start to see Thenardier as unknowable, and as the “object of universal desire” that she gets to have and be jealous over. I wonder how much her romantic propensities blinded her, and if she might have become jaded towards Thenardier even earlier than we see in the book. By the time the Thenardiers are in Paris, that veil has definitely fallen away and Mme Thenardier is much more willing to argue with her husband.

The sheer amount of abuse that Cosette endures is laid out in only a few examples here, but I’m sure it’s much more extensive. Mme Thenardier is physically abusive in a much more “forward” way, beating Cosette and knocking her around and insulting her. Thenardier, in character, is much more sinister. He doesn’t seem to actually interact with her much, but he disallows her shoes and probably takes other things from her like food and warm clothes etc. It was probably him that decided to make her eat under the table like a dog.

“The ideal of oppression was realized in this dismal servitude.” What Cosette is going through is extreme, but she’s another Symbol here. This is how society treats women, collectively. They are made to slave away, cold and hungry, to be called names and beaten and to be denied comfort. There aren’t child labor laws in France for about another decade. Cosette is one girl, one child, but we can imagine that there are many others like her out there. And the Thenardier’s treatment of her is ideal in keeping her oppressed: physical abuse paired with neglect and psychological abuse that renders her passive, silent, and terrified. However, later we see her true personality peek through, and the way her strength carries her through all this suffering.