#lm 4.2.2

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

Round 2, Matchup 75: III.iv.4 vs IV.xii.2

Which chapter title do you prefer?

The Back Room of the Café Musain

The Hatching of Crimes in the Incubator of Prison

Voting ended onJun 21, 2025

[secretmellowblog]

For @lesmisletters readers not aware: the thing Hugo’s talking about in the “Few Pages of History” section is the Revolution of 1830, a revolution that happened two years before the June Rebellion of 1832 (the one that’s the focus of Les Mis.)

Basically what happened in 1830 was this:

— Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo in 1815 and kings were restored to the throne: the ancient pre revolution monarchy, the house of the Bourbons.

The first restored king was Louis XVIII, who was ultimately more willing to make concessions to the gains of the revolution: he wasn’t trying to bring back the “pre revolution” monarchy, he was willing to accept the monarchy had to make compromises to survive.

Then Louis XVIII died, and Charles X took the throne.

Charles X was a lot more Ultraroyalist, a lot less willing to compromise. He took a lot of measures to try to claw back the “concessions” the monarchy had been forced to grant to the French Revolution. It was like he was trying to bring back pre-revolution absolute monarchy.

This is what Hugo is talking about here, when he’s talking about why the Bourbons got kicked off the throne:

One morning [the monarchy] drew itself up before the face of France, and, elevating its voice, it contested the collective title and the individual right of the nation to sovereignty, of the citizen to liberty. In other words, it denied to the nation that which made it a nation, and to the citizen that which made him a citizen.

This is the foundation of those famous acts which are called the ordinances of July.

The people of France were not happy about this. Following the monarchy’s nonsense, the Revolution of July happened, and basically the House of Bourbon got kicked out of power.

But instead of being replaced with a Democratic republic…. a series of Political Shenanigans happened and they instead got replaced by another king, Louis Philippe d’Orleans.

Louis Philippe was less conservative and more progressive, far more willing to compromise with leftists. but only like, by the standards of kings. There’s only so far you can go while still being a Monarch XD.

Anyway, this is the political context that Les Amis exist in— trying to boot Louis Philippe and get a democratic republic For Real This Time!

And this section is about Hugo explaining his own thoughts on these revolutions and on the failures of constitutional monarchies.

[patron-minette]

Montparnasse had, in fact, encountered Éponine as she stood on the watch under the trees of the boulevard, and had led her off, preferring to play Nemorin with the daughter rather than Schinderhannes with the father. It was well that he did so. He was free.

So, now we find out what Montparnasse and Éponine were really up to instead of keeping watch on the night of the Gorbeau ambush… and also have confirmation that Montparnasse certainly did more than simply stop for a “chat” with Éponine outside the Gorbeau house!

As detailed in the footnotes of the Julie Rose translation of Les Misérables, this reference to Némorin is ultimately Hugo’s way of saying Montparnasse would rather seduce Éponine than engage with crime (note the other reference made here— to “Schinderhannes”— is a reference to a notorious, real life criminal). If anything, Hugo is practically confirming here in a tongue-and-cheek way that the pair slept together that night, and that Montparnasse likely abandoned Éponine after their tryst, which is why Javert was able to capture her.

For anyone interested, I’ve already made a long post unpacking this quote which can be found here. It explains who Némorin was and what Hugo was likely alluding to when he calls Montparnasse Némorin. I think it’s important to note that in the original French, the phrase is “être Némorin” rather than “to play” Némorin, this arguably demonstrates a deeper closeness between Montparnasse and Éponine than the Hapgood translation makes.

The meaning behind this “Némorin” reference can so easily be missed or simply passed over, but I think it’s crucial to acknowledge what these two were really getting up to that evening together— not solely because I’m interested in their pairing— but also because it provides such complexities when it comes to understanding Éponine’s character. It gives a unique insight into Montparnasse as a character too!

Anyhow, the important point in this minor detail is that Éponine and Montparnasse have some sort of unique relationship— I’m not referring to a completely romantic relationship here, but I’m acknowledging how there’s a certain closeness between them seeing as they seemingly slept together on the night of the Gorbeau ambush. It’s good to keep this in mind when we reach later parts of the novel.

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - Embryonic Formation of Crimes in the Incubation of Prisons, LM 4.2.2 (Les Miserables 1972)

The postilion contained a roll of paper on which only these two lines were written:— “Babet. There is an affair in the Rue Plumet. A gate on a garden.” This is what Brujon had written the night before.

[dolphin1812]

Once again, Javert’s arrests are harmful; Éponine was caught, too, and Montparnasse (who wasn’t involved this time, but is definitely dangerous) is the one who escaped. There’s almost an inverse relationship between arrest and threat level here (excepting Valjean), and it hurts to see. Of course, it’s not as if arresting more people would help, either; Javert is personally upset that he didn’t catch the literal victim of the crime, Valjean, and we know that he’s just trying to live peacefully with his daughter. And Patron Minette can organize in prison, too, so really, the arrests themselves only punish bystanders or less guilty participants. They don’t actually do anything about crime, creating more victims without resolving the issues that produced the circumstances of the crime in the first place.

Also:

“Had this sphinx his fore paws in crime and his hind paws in authority? Javert did not accept such comminations, and would have bristled up against such compromises; but his squad included other inspectors besides himself, who were more initiated than he, perhaps, although they were his subordinates in the secrets of the Prefecture, and Claquesous had been such a villain that he might make a very good agent.”

I love the sentences on Claquesous’ magical disappearance, but here, we have a more concrete answer: he may be a police spy, freed by the very officers involved in arresting him. Having just covered revolutionary groups in Paris, we know that police spies were commonplace enough for that title to be an accusation against speakers in the street, so it’s not surprising that they would be found in the criminal as well as the political sphere. And it would certainly explain his mysteriousness. If he’s giving over information to the police, of course he wouldn’t want his accomplices to recognize him.

We also get an indication of another tension between Javert and other officers. Earlier, we saw that he could be reluctant to communicate information to others because he wants to keep credit for his deeds. When chasing Valjean from the Gorbeau House, for instance, he didn’t say who he suspected this man was for that reason. Someone else would have been sent if a “dangerous” criminal were known to be loose. Here, though, the tension is somewhat unknown because Javert doesn’t know how the spying aspect of the police works (or at least, he doesn’t know all the details). Whether it’s corruption, a recognition that Javert doesn’t think, or a combination, other officers seem to be excluding him from such networks. To him, it’s despicable because it blends the line between authority and and crime that his worldview is based on. To other officers, it might be convenient as a way of getting information (although Javert knows more about the area than them).

To return to the ineffectiveness of prison: Brujon communicated so much from there! I find the image of the bread messages a bit funny; I understand that logically, small bits of bread were what was available to hide messages in, but the image is a bit comical. (Bread symbolism makes sense for the same reason, but it’s still funny). But nothing stops the chain of messages. It’s so effective within a prison, between them (even with gender-based segregation), and outside of them (circulating with Éponine once freed and with Magnon). All in all, the Gorbeau House may not feel like a triumph to Javert because he didn’t catch “enough” people, but really, it’s a tragedy because it hurt the vulnerable and did nothing to stop Patron Minette. And the police don’t care, likely freeing one of the members.

(Although really, the bread messages might be the most effective part of Patron Minette, if their behavior during the Gorbeau Ambush was anything to go by)

[cliozaur]

«Either the fairies or the police had had a hand in it.» Must be the fairies… Hugo does not openly state that Claquesous was a police agent, and that is why he mysteriously disappeared from police fiacre, but this sentence implies it. Javert is not part of this scheme, he is disappointed (or rather, “irritated”), but he must have been aware of such occurrences: “Javert did not accept such comminations, and would have bristled up against such compromises; but his squad included other inspectors besides himself, who were more initiated than he, perhaps, although they were his subordinates in the secrets of the Prefecture, and Claquesous had been such a villain that he might make a very good agent.” Actually, many things irritate Javert after the Gorbeau affair: Montparnasse was not caught, Claquesous was taken by fairies disappeared, the main victim (Jean Valjean) was not arrested, “that booby of a lawyer,” whose name he has forgotten, was nowhere to be found. A triumph turned into a disaster! Even the fact that Éponine was ultimately seized did not console him.

We have some prison anthropology here and find out that an elaborate communication system exists between the different prisons of Paris, both male and female. The example of Brujon demonstrates that prison confinement doesn’t prevent criminals from plotting crimes outside the prison. “To be in prison for one crime is no reason for not beginning on another crime. They are artists, who have one picture in the salon, and who toil, nonetheless, on a new work in their studios.” From theatre metaphors, Hugo switched to those connected with art. First, he denies criminals creativity, and then all he does is compares them to some creative professionals! Very logical.

Oh, more COINCIDENCES! Our old acquaintance Magnon (the one who persuaded Gillenormand that he fathered two children with her) ended up assisting Patron Minette. And am I missing something? Do we already know why the house on the Rue Plumet is significant? Or why Brujon and Co are inquiring about it?

I love how Éponine is presented as a thread that connects different plot lines! She and Azelma are released from the Madelonettes (and probably they have to live on the street), and she was soon sent to check out the house on the Rue Plumet, and returned with a biscuit, indicating that there is nothing of interest there. But Hugo hints that it is not the end of the affair: “This miscarriage had its consequences, however, which were perfectly distinct from Brujon’s programme. The reader will see what they were.” I hope I will.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 4.2.2 “Embryonic Formation of Crimes in the Incubation of Prisons”

This is a chapter about the total failure of the justice system to do anything remotely useful or related to justice. I mean, this is a book about that, but this chapter in particular talks about the variety of roles people play vis a vis the justice system, none of which involve anything resembling an enactment of justice.

Javert’s conviction that Valjean’s disappearance means Valjean is a criminal is absolutely fascinating to me, because he’s not wrong--but Marius also disappeared. Javert assumes that Marius was either flaky or a coward, but not that he’s a criminal. Eventually the chapter alludes to the possibility (”But was he a lawyer merely?”), but not with much seriousness.

Hugo is getting at the incredibly detailed and sophisticated construction of class and who belongs to the category of people the police serve--Marius is poor, but he’s indelibly classed as bourgeois. Valjean may have money, and at this point he walks the bourgeois walk and talks the bourgeois talk--but people keep picking up on something not quite legible about him, and it makes them suspicious. And at some level--though not on a level that should mean anything--they’re perfectly correct about that.

In this chapter we also get the ambiguous sexual relationship between Montparnasse and Eponine, which--as is somehow the way these things keep going--is of great advantage to him here, and somehow zero advantage to her.

And Claquesous. There’s so MUCH in those few paragraphs. On his disappearance:

Nobody knew how it was done, the officers and sergeants "didn't understand it,"

That “nobody knew” is obviously describing the official record and not fact--because, of course, everybody, including Javert knows what happened with Claquesous. Those quotation marks are absolutely dragging the people quoted.

We really get to looking at the corruption of Javert across the text in these paragraphs. He knows what Claquesous is and what happened--”He was more irritated than astonished at it”--but also, we see the first tension between his skill at his job and his position with his superiors. Usually, he’s an obedient and interchangeable cog in the police machine, but it becomes clear that many or all his subordinates are in on the secret of Claquesous’s police spy status, and Javert is excluded. I dunno, it’s interesting that his superiors have been forced to pay enough attention to his personal character to make a specific decision about him as a person. There’s also a huge autistic mood there.

Obviously, he obediently pretends ignorance and gaslights himself into not thinking about or questioning the matter. It’s important to state that he does nothing virtuous or morally useful here--on the contrary, he’s doing the extremely police thing of covering for the police. And if it were a matter of, say, police brutality, that’s pretty clearly also what he would be doing.

Whatever Javert began as, he’s nearly all the way corrupted by his job by now. But I do wonder about that tension with his superiors, and their probable annoyance at having to skirt around a police officer who’s this squeamish. When they send him off to be an obvious spy on the barricade with zero backup plan to do work he’s desperately unsuited for, will it simply be because police officers’ lives weren’t valued much more than the criminals they caught, and he drew the short straw that day? Or is there a thing here that his coworkers have started to find him kind of annoying.

And then we get to Brujon, a lifelong criminal whose father was also a lifelong criminal, and for whom prison is a porous state that’s just one more venue for doing crime.

Which brings us back to the roles people play around prison in this chapter and how there’s absolutely no way in which any part of this system does any good to anyone.

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

Round 3, Matchup 40: III.viii.21 vs IV.ii.2

Which chapter title do you prefer?

One Should Always Begin By Arresting the Victims

The Hatching of Crimes in the Incubator of Prison

Voting ended onJul 27, 2025