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Round 3, Matchup 47: IV.x vs V.iii.8

Which chapter title do you prefer?

The 5th of June, 1832

The Torn Coat-Tail

Voting ended onJul 29, 2025

#les miserables #lm chapter title bracket #round 3 #lm 4.10 #lm 5.3.8

In which Thénardier is likened to an angel and surprisingly becomes a blessing for Jean Valjean. It’s the only time I am glad to encounter Thénardier with his ‘governmental key.’ But what a sneaky bastard! He approached Jean Valjean so quietly it almost provoked a jump-scare.

Thénardier's judgment remains consistently bad! Every time he meets Valjean, he misreads him. No wonder all his enterprises ended in bankruptcy. He completely misinterprets the whole scene in the sewer and misunderstands Valjean's motives. However, he grasps Valjean's ultimate aim—to escape the sewers. Thénardier is annoyingly talkative here! He just never shuts up! But at the same time, he attempts to keep quiet, 'from time to time he laid his finger on his mouth, and muttered, "hush!"' Valjean, unaware that his favorite policeman is on guard outside, presumes other thugs are nearby and Thénardier doesn't want to share the spoils. So, he also slightly misjudges Thénardier. However, Valjean acts extremely wisely: he remains silent and keeps his face hidden from the light regardless of Thénardier's actions or words.

Thénardier's reasoning about the pros and cons of disposing of the body in the river versus the sewers reveals Hugo's contemplation on this issue. On one hand, 'The sewer is treacherous and tells tales of you.' Additionally, “the police are full of cleverness” (unexpectedly, Thénardier shows respect to his grave enemy?) And on the other hand, “The river, that great hider of folly, is what you want… At the end of a month they fish up your man in the nets at Saint-Cloud. Well, what does one care for that? It’s carrion! Who killed that man? Paris.” Wow!

I find it extremely amusing when Thénardier says: “Phew! you don’t smell good.” It’s quite an understatement!

Anyway, Jean Valjean willingly parts with all the money he has on him (well, it’s his favorite pastime) to secure his escape. And finally, we're out of the sewers! It's worth a small celebration, I reckon.

#les mis letters #lm 5.3.8 #les miserables #jean valjean #thenardier

And the blouse man is revealed as Thénardier!

I hate knowing that Valjean’s apparent calm is the product of trauma, but it’s always a bit satisfying to watch him handle Thénardier so smoothly. Thénardier is just so awful that it’s really enjoyable to watch him be outdone without even knowing it. Granted, he can’t be trusted and certainly isn’t looking out for Valjean here (even if this apparent criminal-to-criminal solidarity offers an interesting contrast to the attitude of the police – the solidarity ranking so far does seem to be Les Amis-criminals-the police), but Valjean’s aware of that. He also knows, though, that getting out of the sewer is what’s most important.

We get another hint that the sewers are tied to some sort of criminal network (possibly Patron Minette, given Thénardier’s presence) because of the smoothness with which the gates open. The tiger comparison for Thénardier doesn’t help matters; the escape may have been necessary for Valjean, but he’s not safe, either. Cats may signify the marginalized in the way that wolves signify crime, but Thénardier is both a wolf and a tiger, underscoring his predatory nature. That’s obvious in that he’s robbed Valjean, but he even leaves as a tiger, implying that the threat he represents lingers.

#les mis letters #lm 5.3.8 #jean valjean #thénardier

Brickclub 5.3.8 “The torn coattail”

Oh shit, I take back everything I said at the end of last chapter.

HE THOUGHT ABOUT COSETTE. WHEN HE WAS CLOSE TO DEATH, HE THOUGHT ABOUT COSETTE.

The most strikingly awful thing about Valjean’s burial at the convent was that he didn’t think about her. He thought about the logistics, he thought about Fauchelevent and Mestienne and his own possible death. But he didn’t think about Cosette, and he didn’t ask about her after he woke up.

That’s how we knew he was dead. He’s been dead ever since.

Valjean dragged the near-corpse of his enemy through new deaths of earth and water and lived, he prayed to God for the first time in his life, he saw the light of heaven from the depths of hell and ran towards it, and he found at the end a prison gate where he saw the Spider of Fatality clearly. Now he sits exhausted, and who should pop out of the dark but Thenardier, asking to go halves on the spoils of an imagined murder.

But he was thinking about Cosette. That is, maybe for the first time since.. I have no idea when, Valjean was truly thinking about the future.

That’s so, so huge for him.

Valjean doesn’t have any hope at this point, but.... I don’t know, we’re in the palm of the hand of Grace in a way we haven’t been in this story for a really, really long time. Something has turned for the better, outside of his sight.

He’s no longer hoping for it, but he’s ready for it.

At what should be his lowest, partially by coincidence--that is, by Providence--he’s perfectly in control: his face is to the dark, where Thenardier, to face him, had to come into the light. What is that light symbolism DOING, how have we turned shadow into grace? It’s always Thenardier who keeps his face in shadow, it’s his biggest strength. Thenardier is also very good at keeping his mouth shut when he needs to be the spider catching flies--but here he’s unbalanced on the wrong foot, rambling nervously, outplayed at his own game.

Valjean has always been very like Thenardier--not in personality or goodness or anything like that, but in illegibility to society’s notions of class. Nobody knows what either of them is or how to read them, and Thenardier has always used that to his advantage--and it’s always been Valjean’s greatest weakness.

Now, suddenly, having passed through the greatest of all darkness, the darkness has become Valjean’s strength. As it always was, maybe, but he’s spent a long time trying to pretend to be bourgeois and not use it. It really has weighed on him, pretending to be something he isn’t.

Thenardier, here in the role of Providence because his short-term cunning without any larger foresight makes him an easy pawn for larger forces and currents to work on--which does, come to think of it, sound exactly like the kind of cruel buffoon who manages to ride the wave of current events to make himself a dictator, nice job, Hugo--unlocks the prison door and lets him go.

Because, in resembling a prison gate, this gate has exactly the relationship to Paris’s career criminals that the actual prison gates do, in that it’s just one of the more unseemly elements of the normal course of their work, and grim as it looks it lets them come and go freely.

I wonder how this would read to me if I didn’t know the plot. We know Javert is out there, waiting.

Would I be saying “oh no, oh no, he’s out of the frying pan, into the fire”? Or would it still feel like the hand of grace has this one?

#brickclub #lm 5.3.8

Round 2, Matchup 4: I.i.7 vs V.iii.8

Which chapter title do you prefer?

Cravatte

The Torn Coat-Tail

Voting ended onJun 5, 2025

#les miserables #lm chapter title bracket #round 2 #lm 1.1.7 #lm 5.3.8

V.iii.8 Le pan de l’habit déchiré

Which is your favorite translation of this chapter title?

The Torn Coat-Tail