Les Miserables part.3 - Victor Hugo

Les Miserables. 3

Author

Victor Hugo

Publisher

Minumsa | Published 2012-11-05

Category

Novel

Book description

Jean Valjean, a poor ex-convict, is reborn as a saint! A great 19th-century French literary...

Part 3 is Marius's story. Marius later comes to love Cosette, but it's convenient to think of this as the part that begins the story about Marius beforehand. Marius is the son of a soldier named 'Pontmercy,' who rose all the way to 'colonel' in the French army during the reign of Emperor Napoleon. Because the wife Pontmercy married died early (while he was off at the battlefield), he becomes estranged from his own son. Marius's grandfather, Monsieur Gillenormand, sets a condition that he will pass his fortune to 'Marius' on the condition that Marius and his father not meet each other, and so Pontmercy has no choice but to be unable to meet him. Though a colonel, as a mere cavalry squadron commander he didn't have much money, and Pontmercy, having no fortune to bequeath, made this choice in order to at least pass on a minimal fortune to his son (Monsieur Gillenormand lives in a very wealthy household. His assets are enormous). It couldn't be a more heartbreaking thing. To 'Pontmercy,' who spent his whole life amid war, his son may have been everything to him.

This worthy priest was the brother of a sacristan at the Church of Saint-Sulpice, and the sacristan had seen several times this man gazing at that little child, had seen the scar on his cheek, and the tears welling up in his eyes. That a man so truly manly was weeping like a woman moved the sacristan's heart. That face remained in his mind. One day, on his way to Vernon to see his brother, he met Colonel Pontmercy on a bridge, and recognized him as the man from the Church of Saint-Sulpice. The sacristan (old Mabeuf) told the priest about it, and the two went to call on the colonel under some pretext. This visit gave rise to other visits. At first the colonel kept his mouth tightly shut, but at last he opened up, and the priest and the sacristan learned the whole story, and came to know how much Pontmercy was sacrificing his own happiness for his son's future. As a result, the priest came to hold respect and affection for the colonel, and the colonel in turn came to feel warmly toward the priest. And indeed, when both happen to be sincere and good, nothing more easily comes to understand and merge with each other than an old priest and an old soldier. In fact they are the same kind of person. There is no difference, except that one devoted himself to the homeland of this earth, and the other to the homeland of heaven.

The priest, seeing the colonel weeping sorrowfully behind a pillar and gazing at someone, must have wondered why he wept so bitterly and so sorrowfully. From a father's standpoint, and in a situation where his own wife had died so the son had no 'mother' yet still couldn't see his father, that sorrow would be hard to put into words. Pontmercy's only crime is being faithful to his profession. Napoleon even awarded a medal to the faithful Pontmercy. That's how hard he devoted himself on his battlefield. But meanwhile his wife died and his 'father-in-law' even made it impossible to meet his son, so it is truly the very emblem of cruelty. Of course it is a different kind of cruelty from Javert's cruelty, but isn't there a time when we say a father's love is greater than a mother's love? This must be a saying meant precisely for a situation like this.

Among the things that appear in volume 3, the important group is 'The Friends of the ABC.' It is the most important. This group later becomes the main characters who, together with Marius, build barricades and act as a 'mob' that overthrows the constitutional government. They are an organization whose purpose is the reconstruction of mankind, and here ABC = Abaisse (it has the meaning of 'the people' or 'the lowered ones') is the word it expresses. Their main figures are as follows.

Enjolras - the entirety of an ideal that transcends the movement; you could call him <the logic of revolution>.

Combeferre - he is <the philosophy of revolution>, one who values natural rights and humanity and seeks to arrive at peace.

Jean Prouvaire - a truly artistic man. Gentle, sympathetic toward women, and one who grieves over matters concerning children.

Courfeyrac - a man with a genial nature and a bright expression; think of him as the center of the ABC.

Bahorel - so much so that you could call him the devil's masterpiece, he likes mobs, revolution, and activism, but he has more insight than he appears and is a thinker.

Laigle - Bossuet (this name seems most fitting).

Joly - he studied medicine but is closer to an invalid.

Feuilly - a possessor of what could be called 'national thought.'

Grantaire - because he is a skeptic, he is the heretic of this group, but he admires Enjolras.

To group all of the above, you could call them youths who hold the religion of 'progress' (except for Grantaire); they were all people who discussed the rights of the people / human rights / the social contract / the French Revolution / the republic / democracy / humanity / civilization / religion / progress, and so on. To them, Marius would have been a somewhat different being. When Marius 'made contact' with these beings, Marius was an imperialist. Hmm... it would probably be more specific to call him a Bonapartist, but he was certainly different. Because Marius's father was someone who spent his whole life amid war, he would have come to see how great he was while looking at materials about the war. As a result, he may have naturally come to worship the genius Napoleon.

The existence of the Luxembourg Gardens is sufficient in that it is the place that connects the 'two stars' of Cosette and Marius. The men and women of this book are five people: Jean Valjean, Javert, Fantine, Cosette, and Marius, and among them the place where the two young people in love meet eyes and exchange glances can be said to be precisely this Luxembourg Gardens. The young woman falls into no trap at all, while the young man falls into every trap, and they gradually expand their love for each other little by little; but to Jean Valjean, the existence of the young man Marius would have felt like a truly ambiguous person. Because he could feel that, in a sense, Marius 'takes away' Cosette, his happiness. It may be all the more so because, before Cosette existed, Jean Valjean had never poured his devotion onto anyone. To Jean Valjean, Cosette was life, peace, love, hardship, adversity, repentance, and a beginning. To Jean Valjean, who comes to think Marius might take away such a Cosette, Marius could not be a good existence.

But Marius, though he doesn't even know Jean Valjean's name, decides to help him. When Sergeant Thenardier, who had saved his father, threatens and tries to kill Cosette's father Jean Valjean, he calls Javert. Of course he doesn't know what the relationship between Javert and Jean Valjean is. But since Javert was the only police officer nearby, there was no choice. He must have been severely conflicted. Seeing Thenardier, his benefactor, he must have agonized severely over his own values. In the end he sends Thenardier to prison and saves Jean Valjean, but as a result, Jean Valjean and Cosette leave their wretched dwelling and completely move their residence to the Rue Plumet. Because of this, Marius loses Cosette and, suffering the pain of love, cries out for Cosette.

All I have to do is write, but writing isn't easy. Phew..