#lm 2.4.4

[les-mis-daily-doodles]

woah that coat has so much stuff in it

[maybeitsapineapple]

LM 2.4.4

valjean acts so fucking suspiciously. looking over your shoulder and running away is NOT SUBTLE

cat fursona for the principal lodger, to show that although she’s snooping she’s not that bad (previous stealthy animals having included tiger and wolf)

why is he just … sawing wood in the corridor. of all the things not to elaborate on

WIIIGGSSS. several wigs

[secretmellowblog]

Happy Wig Pocket day to everyone following @lesmisletters!

She also noticed that there were all sorts of things in the pockets [of Valjean’s coat.] Not only the needles, thread, and scissors which she had seen, but a big pocket-book, a very large knife, and—a suspicious circumstance—several wigs of various colors. Each pocket of this coat had the air of being in a manner provided against unexpected accidents.

[cliozaur]

The one with Valjean’s wigs in a pocket. The old man tries to keep a low profile but in a peculiar way. He definitely likes to walk and, reasonably enough, he does it only at twilight. However, he attracts attention with his generous alms-giving. And if that’s not enough, he goes out in his YELLOW coat. How can someone in a yellow coat not attract attention?

His dynamic with Cosette is still extremely sweet. He discovered that she was “a very gay little person” — it took Valjean to appear in Cosette’s life for her to reveal it. And he replaced the glass door to her dressing-room with a solid door, respecting her privacy. Cosette, in her turn, prefers Valjean’s company to anyone else’s.

The third important character of this chapter is an old portress. Hugo, as always, is not kind about old women. Her worst quality is her curiosity: she spies on Valjean, inspects his room and pockets in his absence. However, she also has some redeeming qualities: she looks after Cosette when Jean Valjean goes away and, despite discovering thousand-franc bank-bills in his coat, she is honest enough not to steal them.

I also like the image of Valjean “sawing some wood, in his shirt-sleeves” — what a view! It’s a pity the virgin inspector is nowhere near to see him.

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

Round 1, Matchup 50: I.vii vs II.iv.4

Which chapter title do you prefer?

The Champmathieu Affair

Matters Observed by the Chief Tenant

Voting ended onApr 25, 2025

[imsorryimlate]

but also, i find it interesting that the evidence of valjean’s disguises (the wigs) is mentioned just before we see javert disguised as the beggar. they continue to mirror each other, both knowing how to pass as someone else (but to different ends). it’s also a good storytelling technique, to introduce the concept of disguise in the chapter before someone (else) is actually disguising themselves.

[dolphin1812]

We’ve reached Valjean’s wigs!

Although the old woman in the Gorbeau house is a gossip (which, after seeing the consequences of Madame Victurnien’s actions for Fantine, doesn’t bode well for Jean Valjean and Cosette), I do have to give her credit for one thing: helping to take care of Cosette.

“Every evening, at twilight, he walked for an hour or two, sometimes alone, often with Cosette, seeking the most deserted side alleys of the boulevard, and entering churches at nightfall. He liked to go to Saint-Médard, which is the nearest church. When he did not take Cosette with him, she remained with the old woman; but the child’s delight was to go out with the good man. She preferred an hour with him to all her rapturous tête-à-têtes with Catherine. He held her hand as they walked, and said sweet things to her.”

She also questioned Cosette, which, while related to her concerning love of gossip, demonstrates that she engages with her. Her care isn’t comparable to Valjean’s, but it highlights that (1), he’s not completely alone in raising her, regardless of what he thinks and (2), there’s a chance that Cosette will not only grow up loved, but less isolated than Valjean. His tendency towards isolation is completely understandable (due to both the legitimate fear of being caught and his trauma), but it’s also deeply unhealthy. Perhaps this early exposure to other people in a way that isn’t scary (as all the people visiting the inn in Montfermeil either ignored Cosette or thought her treatment was justified, her interactions with people outside of the Thénardiers have been negative with the exception of Valjean) will help her recover as well. 

As usual, I love the care between Valjean and Cosette. She’s so happy to spend time with him, and the way he’s so attentive towards her (holding her hand, saying kind things) is adorable.

Valjean is also accidentally hilarious? The wigs are funny on their own, of course, but I also love how he tries to “stealthily” give out alms and is failing. It reminds me of his reverse robberies as mayor, where people generally knew that it was him, but he still couldn’t directly give assistance. Here, he is being more direct, but his position is more uncertain as well. As mayor, his habits were just eccentricities. Here, where he’s a “beggar” himself, his habits make him mysterious and, therefore, dangerous. We see this in the gossip over his thousand-franc bill, which, while understandable to an extent (it makes sense that it would shock the old woman if it’d only been her second or third time seeing one), centers around trying to determine his class to determine his place in the social order: how can a man so poorly dressed have so much money? Where does it come from? Why is he like this? Such questions are ominous ones for Valjean, who is firmly outside of the social order. 

Unfortunately, Valjean’s strangeness is also sad. All of his bizarre behaviors (only going out at night, carrying wigs and other emergency materials, sneaking money to the poor) are mixed up with the demands of staying hidden (going out at night when he can’t be seen, for instance), his trauma from prison (isolation, increased paranoia at being sent back), his guilt (his almsgiving), or a combination of all of the above. Still, at least he now does these activities in the company of Cosette, who brings so much joy into his life.

Spoilers below:

Cosette’s different social background is something that I really wish Hugo explored in greater depth. We never really see her leave this isolation, but unlike Valjean, she might be equipped to. This woman was an early example of an interaction that wasn’t outwardly toxic (eight-year-old Cosette wouldn’t have had the full context for the issues with her gossip or why she was asking questions), and in the convent, she also would have had the chance to speak to other girls, to Valjean and Fauchelevent, and to the nuns. What she learned there wouldn’t be directly transferable to Parisian bourgeois society, but it was something! It would have been nice to see her make friends and have connections outside of Valjean and Marius (or even better, helping Valjean connect with others at the same time that she builds her own circle). 

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 2.4.4 ‘What the landlady discovered’

WIG WATCH: Valjean’s wigs have made their first and final appearance.

“It turned out that Cosette was very playful” is a line that gets it’s own paragraph, and there’s so much contained in that. We don’t get to see how sweet this was, but we know it was. And yet, there’s something so bitter and damning about that line. “It turned out”--as if this couldn’t have been “discovered” years earlier, had her circumstances been such that anyone got to know her and she ever had a chance to play

Valjean’s conspicuously ancient outfit and the mysterious yellow coat, his strange solitude, and the fact that no one can tell how much money he does or doesn’t have are coming back to bite him. This chapter is the beginning of the end for this idyll, because Valjean’s harmless eccentricity is dangerous.

Of his above mistakes, the one that actually matters is the money. Valjean doesn’t understand that everyone in society needs to know how much money everyone else possesses in order to judge them. In giving mixed signals about his wealth, he’s drawing the attention of every single person who reads the world the way the Thenardiers do.

Valjean feels here to me like an otherworldly creature pretending to be a man who doesn’t quite know the rules. The unnamed landlady spying through keyholes is the girl in all those stories who gets too curious about it and delves too deep--Cupid and Psyche, Bluebeard, etc. There’s always a price to that curiosity, but in the ones I’m recalling at least, it’s usually the girl who's in danger.

Which is, in fact, how the landlady feels: Valjean’s being wealthy and concealing it feels threatening to people like her, because it seems suspicious, because who, given enough money, wouldn’t want to live like a rich person if they could? Myriel pulled that off, but only because when you scratched the surface of Myriel you found extreme social respectability all the way down. Eccentricity is acceptable if all you have to hide is aristocracy. Valjean, with his real and dangerous secrets, doesn’t have the luxury of being good the way Myriel was good.

And the landlady, frightened, perhaps subliminally fearing herself to be the protagonist of the Bluebeard story, gets at the paradox of policing: the police make socially secure people feel safe by causing terror and harm to socially insecure people.