You Have Strength of a Different Kind

The Revolution of 1830 quickly came to a halt. As soon as a revolution runs aground the astute break up the beached vessel. The astute in our century have conferred on themselves the title of statesmen, with the result that this word ‘statesmen’ has ended up becoming something of a slang word. After all, let us not forget that where there is only astuteness there is inevitably pettiness. To say ‘the astute’ is another way of saying ‘the mediocre’. Similarly, to say ‘statesmen’ is sometimes tantamount to saying ‘traitors’.

Ah

According to the astute, then, revolutions like the July Revolution are severed arteries. Prompt ligature is needed. Too grandly proclaimed, right destabilizes. So, once right has been asserted, the state must be strengthened. After freedom is secured, thoughts must turn to authority.

Ah

At this point the wise have not as yet parted company with the astute, but they are beginning to be wary. Authority, agreed. But firstly, what is authority? Secondly, where does it come from? The astute do not seem to hear this murmured objection, and press on with their scheme.

They said 🙉

According to those politicians expert at putting the mask of necessity on advantageous fictions, the first requirement of a nation after a revolution, when that nation belongs to a monarchic continent, is to acquire a dynasty. That way, they say, it can have peace after its revolution, in other words time to dress its wounds and rebuild its house. A dynasty hides the scaffolding and shields the ambulance.

I am just amazed at how well he writes on a topic that could easily feel boring and dull. This has all the potential to be stuffy, but he's dressed it up in words enjoyable to read without it being too complex.

If you put yourself – with all due reservations, of course – in the position of ‘statesmen’

HAHA

So the great art is this: to give success the ring of catastrophe so that those who profit by it may tremble also, to season with fear every step forward, to prolong the transition curve, thereby delaying progress, to dull the brightness of that dawn, to denounce and suppress the asperities of enthusiasm, to cut corners and trim claws, to stifle triumph and muffle right, to wrap the giant nation in flannel and very quickly put it to bed, to impose a diet on that exuberant health, to put Hercules on a convalescence regime, to dilute the event with expediency, to offer to spirits thirsting for the ideal that nectar diluted with tisane, to take precautions against undue success, to furnish the revolution with a sun-blind.

Sometimes Hugo lists a million different ways to say one thing in a single paragraph and it works so well. Concerns of redundancy fears this man.

1830 is a revolution stopped in mid-course. Semi-progress. Quasi-right. Well, logic takes absolutely no account of the more-or-less, as the sun takes no account of the candle. Who stops revolutions in mid-course? The bourgeoisie. Why? Because the bourgeoisie is satisfied self-interest. Yesterday it represented appetite, today it represents repletion, tomorrow it will represent surfeit.

Just like it has a surfeit of vowels

Some people have wanted wrongly to identify the bourgeoisie as a class. The bourgeoisie is simply the contented section of the people. The bourgeois is the man who now has time to sit down. A chair is not a caste.

🔥🔥🔥✍️

But the very progress of the human race may be halted because of a desire to sit down too soon. This has often been the failing of the bourgeoisie. A class is not made up of those with a failing. Selfishness is not one of the divisions of the social order.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥✍️

Can you imagine being bourgeois in the 19th century and reading this. Hugo just shoots you point blank.

Besides, we must be fair, even to selfishness: the state to which that part of the nation, the bourgeoisie, aspired after the upheaval of 1830 was not inertia, which involves indifference and laziness and includes a little shame. It was not sleep, which implies a momentary forgetfulness accessible to dreams. It was a state of pause – a halt. A halt is the restoration of strength. It is armed rest in a state of alert. It is the new reality that posts sentinels and remains on guard. A halt implies fighting yesterday and fighting tomorrow. It is the interval between 1830 and 1848. What we here call fighting may also be called progress.

And then he hands you a bandage and goes well, could have done worse. Could have done better, but also could have done worse.

So the bourgeoisie as well as the statesmen needed a man who would represent that word ‘halt’. An ‘although–because’. A composite individual, signifying both revolution and stability, in other words, consolidating the present through the obvious compatibility of the past with the future.

Footnote says: "although–because : For the left, Louis-Philippe, although a Bourbon, was an acceptable replacement as head of state; and because he was a Bourbon, he was also acceptable to the right."

The two hundred and twenty-one made Louis-Philippe king. Lafayette was responsible for the consecration. He called it ‘the best of republics’. Paris’s Hôtel de Ville replaced Reims cathedral. This substitution of a half-throne for the whole throne was ‘the achievement of 1830’.

Another interesting footnote here: "Lafayette : Gilbert de Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), made his name under George Washington fighting for the American Revolution, and successfully lobbied the French government to recognize the independence of the United States. In Revolutionary France he was a reformist in the National Constituent Assembly, but as an upholder of order he lost the support of the people and had to flee the country. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies during the Hundred Days in 1815, he presented the motion requiring Napoleon to abdicate after the defeat at Waterloo. Again as a deputy, he was a key player in the July Revolution: effectively head of the provisional government, the preferred candidate of some permanently to replace Charles X, he gave his public support at the Hôtel de Ville to Louis-Philippe, wrapping him in a tricolour flag and embracing him. In the words of Chateaubriand, ‘Le baiser républicain de La Fayette fit un roi’ (‘Lafayette’s Republican kiss created a king’; Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe , bk 32, ch. 15). Although Lafayette denied having said that Louis-Philippe was ‘la meilleure des républiques’ (‘the best of republics’), he was popularly believed by his contemporaries to have done so, as recorded for instance by the anarchist sociologist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–65) in his Du Principe Fédératif (1863; published in English as The Principle of Federation ), pt I, ch. 4."

I guess his approval of Louis-Philippe made a big difference.

When the astute were done, the great iniquity of their solution became apparent. Absolute right was left out of the whole thing. Absolute right cried, ‘I protest!’ Then, ominously, it fell back into the shadows.

The two years immediately following the July Revolution – 1831 and 1832 – stand out as one of history’s most distinctive and striking moments. . . . The social masses, the very foundations of civilization, the solid grouping of overlapping and tenacious interests . . . keep appearing and disappearing through storm clouds of systems, passions and theories. These continual appearances and disappearances have been named ‘resistance’ and ‘movement’.

And the footnote says: "‘resistance’ and ‘movement’ : The terms used to refer to the two main political tendencies, the Resistance being the more conservative and right-wing, the Movement the more liberal. Louis-Philippe first entrusted his government to the banker Jacques Laffitte, leader of the Movement, but replaced him in February 1831 with Casimir Périer, leader of the Resistance. Périer died in the outbreak of cholera that swept through Paris in 1832."

History class has begun

The Restoration had been one of those transitional periods hard to define, when exhaustion . . . dormancy and tumult prevail, periods that are nothing other than a great nation coming to the end of one stage in its progress before embarking on the next. . . . At first the nation wants nothing but rest. Its only thirst is for peace, its only ambition, to be small. Which is a translation of ‘to keep quiet’. Of great events, great dangers, great adventures, great men, people have had enough, thank you very much, they have had more than enough.

I mean yeah I'd want some peace after all of that too, honestly. A breather from it all.

They have marched since daybreak, it is now evening after what has been for them a long, hard day; the first part of the way they went with Mirabeau, the second with Robespierre, the third with Bonaparte. They are worn out. Everybody is asking for a bed.

I like that analogy

Peace, tranquillity, leisure, are theirs. And they are happy. Yet at the same time certain realities surface, they present their credentials, and they too come knocking at the door. These realities are the result of revolutions and wars, they are, they exist, they are entitled to take their place in society, and they do. And most of the time these realities are just the quarter-masters and foragers sent in advance to make ready the accommodation of principles. . . . As weary men demand rest, new realities demand guarantees. Guarantees are to new realities what rest is to men. . . . These guarantees are a necessity of the times. They must be provided. Princes ‘grant’ them but in fact it is force of circumstance that supplies them. . . . The predestined family that returned to France when Napoleon fell had the fatal naivety to believe it was the family that was giving, and that what it had given it could take back again. That the House of Bourbon had divine right, France had nothing. And that the political right conceded in Louis XVIII’s Charter was no more than a branch of that divine right lopped off by the House of Bourbon and graciously bestowed on the people until the day when it might please the king to have his gift back again. Still, from the offence caused by the gift, the Bourbons should have sensed it was not theirs to give.

I'm thinking of the charter that Courfeyrac threw in the fire. To give the people a false satisfaction, to settle them down, to get them to settle for something less. To appease.

It thought it had power because the Empire had been swept away before it, like a stage set. It did not notice that it had itself been established in the same way. It did not see that it was the work of the same hand that had removed Napoleon. It thought it had roots because it identified itself with the past. It was wrong. It was part of the past, but the whole past was France. The roots of French society lay not in the Bourbons, but in the nation. These strong and hidden roots constituted not the right of a family but the history of a people. They were everywhere except beneath the throne. . . . People could do without the Bourbons. They had done without them for twenty-two years. There had been a break in continuity. Of this the Bourbons were oblivious.

I thought this would feel like a trudge but I quite like the way he's writing this actually

A great mistake, which led this family to withdraw the guarantees ‘granted’ in 1814, the ‘concessions’, as it called them. Deplorably, what it called its concessions were our conquests. What it called our infringements were our rights.

(The Charter of 1814, that is. I had to double check when everything was happening haha so if anyone out there is like me...)

When it thought the time was ripe, the Restoration, imagining itself to be victorious over Bonaparte and well rooted in the country – that is to say, believing itself to be strong and deeply entrenched – took a gamble and abruptly declared itself. One morning it confronted France and, raising its voice, contested the collective right of the nation to sovereignty and the individual right of the citizen to liberty. In other words, it denied to the nation what made it a nation and to the citizen what made him a citizen. This is the foundation of those famous decrees called the July Ordinances. The Restoration fell.

From Wikipedia:

The ordinances of 26 July: - Suspended the liberty of the press - Appointed new, reactionary Councillors of State - Dissolved the newly elected Chamber of Deputies of France - Reduced the number of deputies in future Chambers - Summoned new electoral colleges for September of that year - Withdrew the Deputies' right of amendment - Excluded the commercial middle-class from future elections They were intended to restore the previous political order. However, the ordinances had the opposite effect of angering the French citizens. Journalists gathered to protest at the headquarters of the National daily, founded in January 1830 by Adolphe Thiers, Armand Carrel, and others. The final result was the July Revolution and Charles X's abdication and exile.

Kinda crazy he just skipped over all that in the book. Where's the chapters of the Amis being part of all of that. Surely they would have been. Where are those chapters.

It deserved to fall. Yet, to tell the truth, it had not been totally hostile to all forms of progress. Great things had been accomplished with the Restoration standing by. Under the Restoration the nation had grown used to calm discussion, in which the Republic had been wanting, and to greatness in peace, in which the Empire had been wanting. A free and strong France had been an encouraging sight to the other peoples of Europe. The Revolution had spoken under Robespierre. The cannon had spoken under Bonaparte. Under Louis XVIII and Charles X came the turn of intelligence to speak. . . . For fifteen years these great principles . . . could be seen at work in full peacetime, in full public view: equality before the law, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the accessibility of every office to all who had the capacity to hold it.

Let the people experience good stuff and then take it away lol yeah how did he expect anything but a revolution in the face of that 💀

The July Revolution is the triumph of right in the overthrow of reality. A splendid thing. Right overthrowing reality. Hence the magnitude of the 1830 Revolution, hence also its mildness. Right that triumphs has no need to be violent. Right is that which is just and true. Characteristic of what is right is to remain eternally beautiful and pure.

Fini rubbing off on me, now I'm thinking of Combeferre.

Reality, even the most apparently inexorable, even the best-accepted by its contemporaries, if it exists only as reality and contains but too little right or none at all, is surely destined to become in the course of time distorted, squalid, perhaps even monstrous. . . . This conflict between right and reality has been going on ever since societies came into being. To end this duel, to marry purity of concept with human actuality, to instil right in reality and reality in right, that is the work of the wise.

I'm still thinking of Combeferre haha

The day after these events took place

Are you telling me I don't get to see Javert dunk on Marius for never firing the gun??????? What a disappointment. No Marius realizing that if Leblanc's handkerchief is U.F., he's most likely been sniffing and sleeping with and showing off the old man's handkerchief and being embarrassed about it because he's too busy freaking out about Thénardier (maybe he would be too weird to even care in the first place), and now no getting made fun of for not being able to fire the gun like he said he would. Bummer.

Darkness had fallen. This child was pale, thin, dressed in rags, wearing cotton trousers in the month of February, and he was singing at the top of his voice.

orz

Another poor child underdressed for the cold urghh

At the corner of Rue du Petit-Banquier a bent old woman was rummaging in a pile of rubbish by the light of a street lantern. The child bumped into her as he went by, then backed away, crying out, ‘Hey! There was me thinking that was a huge, huge dog!’ He pronounced the word ‘huge’ the second time with a swell of his jeering voice that might be fairly well represented by capital letters: ‘a huge, HUGE dog’.

HAHAHA???? WHAT A BRAT

The old woman straightened up in a fury. ‘Cheeky brat!’ she grumbled. ‘If I hadn’t been bending over, I can tell you where you’d have felt the end of my foot.’ The boy was already some way off. ‘Kss! kss!’ he goaded her. ‘And you know what? Maybe I was right!’ Choking with indignation, the old woman drew herself up to her full height, and the red gleam of the lantern fell directly on her ghastly pale face, all sharp angles and wrinkles thrown into relief, crow’s-feet down to the corners of her mouth. Her body disappeared into the shadows and only her head was visible. She looked like a mask of Decrepitude carved out by a light in the dark. The boy considered her. ‘Madame’s is not my kind of beauty,’ he said.

Wow this kid is just fine actually, huh

Must be that healing Paris air. I think that Paris air should heal Éponine a bit more, and Azelma too. They seem all sad and messed up but this kid is having a grand ol' time. Maybe they need to get out of the house more and away from their dad. That might be the cure, actually

At the end of these three lines he paused. He had arrived outside number 50–52, and finding the door closed he began to kick it, delivering resounding and heroic kicks more indicative of the man’s shoes he wore than the child’s feet he had.

Wait isn't that The Place. The place we just left. The den of criminals.

The old woman was shouting herself hoarse. ‘Is that how buildings are treated these days?’ All of a sudden she stopped. She had recognized the lad. ‘Why, it’s that little devil!’ ‘Well, if it isn’t the old biddy,’ said the boy. ‘Good evening, Burgonmuche. I’ve come to see my kin.’

OH!!! Omg I forgot Éponine mentioned a brother

More proof that the cure is staying away from those parents...?

‘There’s no one here, ragamuffin.’ ‘Bah!’ retorted the boy. ‘Where’s my father, then?’ ‘At La Force.’ ‘You don’t say! And my mother?’ ‘At St-Lazare.’ ‘Oh well! And my sisters?’ ‘At Les Madelonnettes.’ The lad scratched behind his ear, stared at Mame Burgon and said, ‘Ah!’ Then he twirled on his heels, and a moment later the old woman, still standing on the doorstep, heard him singing in his clear young voice as he headed off under the elm trees, shivering in the winter wind.

WOW HE'S SO CHILL ABOUT IT?

How many times has this happened. Like is this a reoccurring event he's used to - his entire family being gone, that is - or is this the first and he's just so whatever about it anyway

Actually though where is Éponine

I suppose it's smart not to come back to the scene of the crime so to speak, but. But where is she. Where did she sleep last night.

Glad he said "screw it" and went in anyway because good grief these guys should not get away with this. Stupid Marius

Dismayed, the villains scrambled for the weapons they had abandoned all over the place in the interests of escape. In less than a second these seven men, dreadful to behold, had grouped together and adopted a defensive stance, one with his poleaxe, another with his key, another with his cudgel, the rest with shears, crowbars and hammers. Thénardier had his knife in his hand. The Thénardier woman took up an enormous paving-stone that stood in the corner by the window and served her daughters as a stool. 

1v9(?) (Not sure if Thénardier is being counted as part of the 7 or not, and I've lost track of how many there were)

Javert put his hat back on his head and took a couple of steps into the room, with his arms folded, his cane under one arm, his sword in its scabbard. 

1 sword and cane vs 9(?) Weapon Variety Pack

Good luck 🫡

‘Stop right there!’ he said. ‘You won’t exit by the window, you’ll exit by the door. It’s less dangerous that way. There are seven of you, there are fifteen of us. Let’s not descend to brawling like a bunch of Auvergne peasants. Let’s have some co-operation.’ 

Oh, Thénardier must count as part of the seven. And I guess the woman is of no concern to Javert, which is stupid. I think she could bash someone's head in.

Also love him trying to talk them down lol yeah I'm sure that'll work

Bigrenaille drew out a pistol he had concealed under his overall and placed it in Thénardier’s hand, whispering in his ear, ‘It’s Javert. I daren’t fire at that man. What about you?’  ‘God damn it!’ replied Thénardier.  ‘Well, you shoot then.’ 

HAHA dang, what kind of rep does this guy have to where he's scared to shoot at him?? Gun vs sword generally does not bode well for the sword side. 

Thénardier took the pistol and aimed at Javert.  Only three paces away, Javert gazed steadily at him and merely said, ‘Now then, don’t shoot. You’ll miss.’ 

THE CONFIDENCE IS ASTONISHING

Thénardier pulled the trigger. He missed.  ‘Didn’t I tell you!’ said Javert. 

THE CONFIDENCE IS WELL-PLACED???????????

Bigrenaille threw his bludgeon at Javert’s feet. ‘You’re the devil supreme! I surrender.’  ‘And the rest of you?’ Javert asked the other villains.  They responded, ‘Us too.’  Javert went on calmly, ‘That’s it, well done, as I said, we’re co-operating.’ 

I THOUGHT HE WAS INSANE TO TELL THEM TO COOPERATE BUT NO HE'S JUST-

Well maybe he is insane, so insane it scares them. Who has that kinda confidence. It's clearly not baseless look at that, absolutely buckwild. A devil supreme indeed.

‘I have just one request,’ said Bigrenaille, ‘that I won’t have to go without tobacco while I’m in solitary.’  ‘Granted,’ said Javert. 

Love the calm little negotiation here. This is all so funny

And he turned and called out behind him, ‘Come in now!’  A squad of police officers, swords in hand, and policemen armed with truncheons and clubs, poured in at Javert’s summons.

Dude had so many fellas with him and came charging in suavely with just himself. Incredible.

‘Handcuff the lot of them!’ shouted Javert.  ‘Just you try!’ yelled a voice, which was not the voice of a man, but no one would ever have been able to tell it was a woman’s. The Thénardier woman had entrenched herself in one of the corners by the window, and it was she who had just let out this bellow. The policemen and agents fell back. She had thrown off her shawl but kept her hat on. Her husband, crouching behind her, was almost hidden under the discarded shawl; she was shielding him with her body, the paving-stone raised above her head, poised like a giantess about to hurl a rock. 

LOL her husband hiding behind her under the shawl, crazy coward behavior

Everyone retreated towards the corridor. . . . Javert smiled and stepped forward into the empty space that the Thénardier woman kept under her smouldering gaze.  ‘Don’t come any closer,’ she shouted, ‘or I’ll flatten you.’  ‘What a fighter!’ said Javert. ‘You’ve got the beard of a man, missus, but I’ve got the claws of a woman.’  And he continued to advance on her. 

This dude is nuts, I kinda love it

Dishevelled and terrifying, the Thénardier woman . . . hurled the paving-stone at Javert’s head.  Javert ducked, the stone flew over him, struck the wall behind, knocked off a huge piece of plaster and, ricocheting from one corner to another across the luckily almost empty hovel, eventually came to rest at Javert’s heels. 

AMAZING

At the same moment Javert reached the Thénardier couple. One of his big hands clamped on the woman’s shoulder, the other on her husband’s head.  ‘Cuffs!’ he shouted.  The policemen crowded back in and within a few seconds Javert’s order had been carried out. 

The way the other cops dipped the second she made that threat. Like… are they cowards or do they know that Javert is a cryptid that can't be hurt, so they were just getting out of the way for him to do his thing

Defeated, the Thénardier woman stared at her shackled hands and at those of her husband, dropped to the floor and cried out, weeping, ‘My daughters!’  ‘They’re in the clink,’ said Javert. 

One of them is, which is kind of crazy; she's like, what, fifteen? And put up to this by her parents? Well. Javert wouldn't care, I guess.

‘Keep your masks on,’ said Javert.  And inspecting them . . . he said to the three ‘sweeps’, ‘Good evening, Bigrenaille! Good evening, Brujon! Good evening, Deux-Milliards!’  Then turning to the three masked men, he said to the man with the poleaxe, ‘Good evening, Gueulemer!’  And to the man with the cudgel, ‘Good evening, Babet!’  And to the ventriloquist, ‘Greetings, Claquesous!’ 

Yeah this guy is a cryptid, he is not of this world, he is a creature, not a man, he's. Crazy. This is fun.

At that moment he caught sight of the villains’ prisoner, who, keeping his head down, had not uttered a word since the police came in.  ‘Untie the gentleman!’ said Javert. ‘And no one’s to leave!’  That said, in the manner of one whose authority is beyond question he sat at the table . . . and began to write his report. When he had written the first lines, which were just the standard wording, he looked up.  ‘Bring forward the gentleman whom these gentlemen here had tied up.’  The policemen looked round.  ‘Well,’ said Javert, ‘where is he?’  The villains’ prisoner . . . had disappeared. The door was guarded, but not the window. As soon as he was left untied and while Javert was drawing up his report, he had taken advantage of the confusion . . . to make a dash for the window. An agent ran to the casement and looked out. There was no one to be seen outside. The rope ladder was still swaying.  ‘Damn it!’ Javert said to himself. ‘He must have been the real prize.’ 

‘Where’s Montparnasse, then?’ ‘The leading man stopped to chat with your daughter.’

😒

Monsieur Leblanc was very pale. He was looking at everything around him in that wretched place like a man who realizes full well his predicament, and his head, turning to all the faces surrounding him one by one, moved on his neck with an attentive and wondering slowness, but there was nothing in his manner resembling fear. He had improvised for himself a defence wall out of the table, and the man who only a moment ago had seemed just a kindly old gent had suddenly turned into some sort of athlete, laying his robust fist on the back of his chair in a gesture that was fearsome and unexpected.  So resolute and so brave in the face of such danger, this old man seemed to be one of those people who are courageous in the same way as they are kind – easily and simply. The father of a woman we love is never a stranger to us. Marius felt proud of this man he did not know. 

I know I just mentioned Marius, but I immediately forgot about him and then got confused for a second when it started talking about "the father of a woman we love". Then I saw Marius' name and I went Ah. Right.

+1 point to Val theory. Suddenly strong and agile? Sounds like him.

Three of the bare-armed men . . . had helped themselves from the pile of old iron, one, to a pair of heavy shears, another, to a crowbar, the third, to a hammer, and had without uttering a word taken up a position barring the door. . . .  Marius decided that within a few seconds it would be time to intervene, and he raised his right hand towards the ceiling in the direction of the corridor, ready to fire his pistol. 

Oh good he remembers what he's here for

Jondrette turned back to Monsieur Leblanc and repeated his question, accompanying it with that terrible, low suppressed laugh of his, ‘So you don’t recognize me?’ Monsieur Leblanc looked him straight in the face, and replied, ‘No.’

lol. lmbo even.

. . . in this attitude of wild beast about to bite he cried, ‘My name isn’t Fabantou, my name isn’t Jondrette, my name is Thénardier. I’m the innkeeper at Montfermeil! Do you hear? Thénardier! Now do you recognize me?’ 

YEAHHHHHH THEORY CONFIRMED HAHAHA I NAILED IT

An almost imperceptible flush passed across Monsieur Leblanc’s brow, and with not a tremor in his voice, without raising it he replied with his customary serenity, ‘No more than before.’ 

+1 point to Val theory. Always cool as a cucumber under these types of circumstances.

Marius did not hear this reply. Anyone who had seen him at that moment in that darkness would have seen that he was aghast, stupefied, thunderstruck. At that moment when Jondrette said, ‘My name is Thénardier’, Marius had trembled in every limb and collapsed against the wall as if he felt the cold blade of a sword run through his heart. 

OH NO I FORGOT HE WAS LOOKING FOR THIS GUY BECAUSE HE (supposedly) SAVED HIS DAD

Is he going to have a mental breakdown over the fact that the man who saved his father is actually a terrible criminal 

Now is not the time, Marius

Then his right arm, ready to fire the signal, had slowly dropped, and when Jondrette repeated ‘Do you hear? Thénardier?’ Marius’s wilting fingers had almost let the pistol fall. By revealing who he was, Jondrette had left Monsieur Leblanc unmoved, but he had thrown Marius into turmoil. 

Now is not the time, Marius

That name he had worn on his heart, written in his father’s will! He bore it in the depths of his mind, in the depths of his memory, in that sacred injunction: ‘A man by the name of Thénardier saved my life. If my son ever meets him, he will do the best he can for him.’ That name, remember, was one that his soul held in veneration, that in his filial devotion was associated with his father’s name. What! This was Thénardier, this was the innkeeper of Montfermeil he had for so long sought in vain! He had found him at last and – how could this be? – his father’s saviour was a villain! That man, to whom Marius had a burning desire to dedicate himself, was a monster! The man to whom Colonel Pontmercy owed his deliverance was engaged in a crime whose precise nature Marius did not yet clearly apprehend but which looked like murder! And God Almighty! – who was his victim! What a twist of fate! What a bitter irony! 

Welp, them's the breaks. Aim your pistol at the sky, Marius, there are more important things at stake than your mental breakdown

At last he was going repay this man for saving his father’s life amid a hail of grapeshot on the heroic battlefield of Waterloo – and he was going to repay him with the scaffold! 

Wait

He had sworn to himself that if ever he found this Thénardier he would approach him only by throwing himself at his feet. And now he had actually found him, but he was delivering him to the executioner! His father had said to him, ‘Help Thénardier!’ And he was responding to that adored and sainted voice by destroying Thénardier! 

Now hold on a moment

Georges was a good man, I don't think he'd condone the actions taking place here, I think he'd probably change his instructions if he knew

Marius-

Treating his father, in his tomb, to the spectacle of the execution on Place St-Jacques of the man who at the risk of his own life had wrested him from death. Executed because of his son, because of this same Marius to whom he had commended that man! And what a mockery for so long to have worn on his breast his father’s last wishes, written in his own hand, and then, appallingly, to have done exactly the opposite! 

Marius, are we sure he'd even get executed-

But on the other hand, to be witness to an ambush and not prevent it! 

IS THAT EVEN ON THE TABLE??

MARIUS YOU CANNOT SERIOUSLY HAVE THAT OPTION ON THE TABLE

Everything depended on him. He held in his hand the fate of these unwitting individuals playing out their parts beneath his gaze. If he fired his pistol Monsieur Leblanc was saved and Thénardier doomed. If he did not fire it Monsieur Leblanc would be sacrificed and – who knows? – Thénardier would escape. Be the undoing of one, or the downfall of the other! Remorse, either way. What should he do? What should he choose? 

TO SAVE THE INNOCENT MAN YOU ABSOLUTE BAFOON YOU BOOBY YOU NINNY YOU IDIOT WITH A HEAD FULL OF PILLOW FLUFF

It seemed to him that he could hear ‘his Ursule’ on the one hand, beseeching him for her father’s sake, and the colonel on the other commending Thénardier to him. 

You spent so long learning about your father and yet 

And yet you seriously think he'd want you to spare a criminal at risk of an innocent life

Boy you don't know your father at all what did you even go around talking to all the people who knew him for????

‘Ah!’ he cried. ‘At last I’ve found you, monsieur the philanthropist! Monsieur the threadbare millionaire! Monsieur who gives away dolls! Old fool! Ah! you don’t recognize me! No, it wasn’t you who came to Montfermeil, to my inn, eight years ago, on Christmas night of 1823! It wasn’t you who carried away from my house Fantine’s child, Alouette! . . . You don’t recognize me? Well, I recognize you! I recognized you straight away, the minute you poked your nose in here. And now you’re about to find out it isn’t all roses, going into people’s houses like that, on the grounds that they’re inns, dressed all shabby, looking that much of a pauper anyone would’ve given you a sou, deceiving people, acting bountiful, taking away their livelihood, threatening them in the woods. And you don’t get away with it just because later, when people are ruined, you bring them a coat that’s too big and two miserable hospital blankets, you old scoundrel, you child-stealer!’ 

SO IT IS (almost definitely) COSETTE WITH HIM!!!

+1 point to Val theory, though there's still a chance for her to be retrieved by someone else… Heavily doubt it though…

I was licking your boots this morning but I’ll be sinking my teeth into you this evening!”’ 

Gotta hand it to Thénardier, he can do a good monologue sometimes

Monsieur Leblanc did not interrupt him, but when he paused said, ‘I don’t know what you mean. You’re mistaken. I’m a very poor man and anything but a millionaire. I don’t know you. You’re getting me mixed up with someone else.’  ‘Ah!’ growled Thénardier. ‘What humbug! You’re sticking to that story! You’re floundering, old man! Ah! You don’t remember! You can’t see who I am!’  ‘Forgive me, monsieur,’ said Monsieur Leblanc in a polite tone of voice that was strangely powerful at such a moment, ‘I see that you’re a villain!’ 

HAHA

Who has not noticed that hateful individuals have their own sensitivity, that monsters are ticklish! At this word ‘villain’ the Thénardier woman sprang from the bed, Thénardier grabbed his chair as if he was going to smash it to pieces.  ‘You stay where you are!’ he shouted to his wife. And turning to Monsieur Leblanc he went on, ‘Villain! Yes, I know that’s what you call us, you rich folk! Well, it’s true my business went bust, I’m in hiding, I’ve no food, I’ve no money, I’m a villain! I’ve not eaten for three days, I’m a villain! 

Yes… Yes it's you being hungry and poor that makes you a villain, yes that's definitely why he called you that. It has nothing to do with the group of men with their weapons and the very obvious trap laid and threats you have made. He only said that because you're poor.

And you come into our dens, yes, our dens, and call us villains! But we shall eat you, poor things! We’ll devour you! 

Nothing villainous about that statement, nope 

Then, addressing Monsieur Leblanc with renewed frenzy, ‘And this too I’ll have you know, monsieur the philanthropist! I’m not some shady customer! I’m not some nameless individual who comes along and abducts children from people’s houses! I’m a French veteran, I should have been decorated! I was at Waterloo, I was! And in the battle I saved a general called Comte somebody-or-other. He told me his name but his damned voice was so weak I didn’t hear. All I heard was “merci”. I’d sooner have had his name than his thanks. It would have helped me to find him again. This picture you see here, it was painted by David in Brussels. You know what it represents? It represents me. David wanted to immortalize that feat of valour. I have that general on my back, and I’m carrying him through the grapeshot. That’s the story! And he never did a thing for me, that general, he was no better than the others! But all the same I saved his life at the risk of my own, and I have pockets full of documents to prove it! I was a soldier at Waterloo, for God’s sake! And now I’ve been good enough to tell you all that, let’s get on with it, I want cash, I want a great deal of cash, I want enormous quantities of cash, or I’ll kill you, God damn it!’ 

Hey Marius look he insulted your dad, maybe you should forget about helping that guy (but of all the times to bring up the Waterloo thing, ugh)

Marius had regained some control over his feelings of anguish and was listening. The last possibility of any remaining uncertainty had just vanished. This was, for sure, the Thénardier of the will. Marius shuddered at this accusation of ingratitude directed against his father and which he was so perniciously about to justify. It worsened his predicament. 

Okay worsened it in what direction though

Since he had stopped blocking Marius’s field of vision, Marius could now observe this object, and in the daub he actually recognized a battle, a smoky background and a man carrying another man. This was the Thénardier and Pontmercy composition, the saviour sergeant and the colonel saved. Marius felt as if drunk. This picture in some way brought his father back to life, it was no longer the signboard of the tavern at Montfermeil, it was a resurrection, in which a tomb opened and a ghost arose from it. Marius heard his heart pounding at his temples, he had the cannon of Waterloo in his ears, his bleeding father indistinctly depicted on that sinister panel scared him, and it seemed to him this shapeless figure was staring at him. 

He's a total goner isn't he

Very well, I'll do it myself

In the midst of this silence a throaty voice delivered this ominous gibe from the corridor, ‘If there’s heavy work needs doing, I’m your man!’  It was the man with the poleaxe, who was looking forward to some fun. 

Why is that so character select screen dialogue

‘Why’ve you taken your mask off?’ Thénardier shouted angrily.  ‘For a laugh,’ replied the man. 

HAHA well it made me laugh

While rebuking the man with the poleaxe, he turned his back on Monsieur Leblanc.  Monsieur Leblanc seized this moment. He kicked the chair over, shoved the table back, then, before Thénardier had time to turn round, with amazing agility and in one bound he was at the window. To open it, to clamber on to the sill and climb over it, took a second. He was half out when six strong hands grabbed hold of him and forcibly dragged him back into the den. 

MAN SO CLOSE

+1 Val theory though with that agility (am I reading into everything now? Perhaps)

One of the ‘sweeps’ . . . whom Marius recognized in spite of the grime as Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, raised above Monsieur Leblanc’s head some kind of bludgeon consisting of an iron bar with a leaden knob at either end.  Marius could not hold out against this spectacle. ‘Father,’ he thought, ‘forgive me!’ And his finger sought the trigger of his pistol. 

FINALLY

The shot was about to go off when Thénardier’s voice shouted, ‘Don’t harm him!’ 

You've gotta be fricking kidding me if you don't try to harm him the booby next door won't ever fire his gosh darn gun and if he doesn't fire his gosh darn gun I am going to tear my ears off

And unwittingly, his first achievement was to stop the pistol going off and to paralyse Marius, for whom all urgency disappeared and who, faced with this new development, saw no harm in further delay. Who could tell? Something might turn up that would deliver him from the horrible alternatives of either letting Ursule’s father perish or sealing the doom of the colonel’s saviour. 

Shaking him shaking him shaking him shaking him

Dang you get em Leblanc (+1 for Val theor-)

Aww, they got him back...

Thus, overpowering some and overpowered by the others, crushing those below, smothered by those on top, vainly trying to shake off all the constraints piled on top of him, Monsieur Leblanc disappeared beneath the heinous band of ruffians like a wild boar beneath a howling pack of mastiffs and bloodhounds. 

Not a pack of wolves? Lol

They succeeded in throwing him back on the bed nearest the window, and kept him at bay there. The Thénardier woman had not let go of his hair.  ‘You keep out of this,’ said Thénardier. ‘You’ll tear your shawl.’  The Thénardier woman obeyed, as the she-wolf obeys the male, with a growl. 

…

I spoke too soon

Monsieur Leblanc seemed to have given up resisting. He was searched. He had nothing on him except a leather purse containing six francs, and his handkerchief. Thénardier put the handkerchief into his own pocket. 

Huh

‘Tie him to the foot of the bed,’ he said.  And noticing the old man who had been left sprawled across the room by the punch from Monsieur Leblanc and was not stirring, he asked, ‘Is Boulatruelle dead?’  ‘No,’ replied Bigrenaille, ‘he’s drunk.’  ‘Sweep him into a corner,’ said Thénardier.  Two of the sweeps shoved the inebriate with their feet over to the heap of old iron.  ‘Babet,’ Thénardier said quietly to the man with the cudgel, ‘why did you bring so many. They weren’t needed.’  ‘What can you do?’ replied the man with the cudgel. ‘They all wanted to be in on it. It’s a bad time. There’s nothing doing.’ 

Incredibly funny stuff actually

"Sweep him into a corner" and "I didn't plan to bring this many guys but there's nothing else to do and they all wanted to come :( "

‘Monsieur, you shouldn’t have tried to jump out of the window. You might have broken your leg. Now, if you don’t mind, we’re going to have a quiet chat. First of all, I have to tell you something I’ve noticed, which is that we’ve not yet heard so much as a peep out of you.’  Thénardier was right. True as it was, though, this detail had in his agitation escaped Marius. Monsieur Leblanc had uttered no more than a few words, without raising his voice. Even in his struggle with the six blackguards by the window he had maintained the most profound and peculiar silence.  Thénardier went on, ‘My God! You might have cried thief and I wouldn’t have thought it improper! Or murder! People do on occasion – and I wouldn’t have taken it amiss. It’s perfectly normal to create a bit of a rumpus when you find yourself with individuals that don’t inspire enough trust. If you had, no one would have stopped you. You wouldn’t even have been gagged. And I’ll tell you why. This room’s very out of the way. That’s the only thing in its favour but it has got that. It’s like a cellar. You might let a bomb off inside it, and at the nearest guard-house it’d sound like the snoring of a drunk. Here a cannon would make a pop and thunder a whisper. It’s a handy place to live. But anyhow, you didn’t cry out, and so much the better, I congratulate you on that, and I’ll tell you what conclusion I draw. My dear monsieur, when you cry out, who comes? The police. And after the police? Justice. Well! You didn’t cry out. That’s because you’re no keener than we are to have the police and justice turn up. That’s because – I’ve long suspected it – you’ve an interest in hiding something. We ourselves have the same interest. So we can come to an understanding.’ 

Where's my popcorn 

Also +1 Val theory- now I'm definitely reading into things. Making stuff up. Last I saw him he said "come arrest me as you please". But maybe something changed. Look, listen to me, I want it to be him. It would be so very tasty of a plot if it was. Imagine when Javert arrives. Well, if Marius ever actually fires his gun. But imagine. Presumably, if this is Val, Javert still has it out for him. Another assumption, I'll admit, but wouldn't it make for a good story?

Except, darn, wait a second. If Marius believes this, he'll go, "well then, what's the problem with letting Thénardier get away with it? This man must be a crook too!" And excuse his conscience like that. 

But whoever he might be, trussed up, surrounded by thugs, half buried, as it were, in a hole that every moment deepened beneath him inch by inch, in the face of Thénardier’s fury as in the face of his suaveness, this man remained impassive. And Marius could not helping admiring, at such a time as this, that magnificently melancholy countenance.  This was obviously a person incapable of being scared and with no notion of what it was to feel panic-stricken. He was one of those men who in desperate circumstances overcome their bewilderment. No matter how dire his predicament, no matter how inescapable his doom, there was nothing here of the drowning man’s anguish, with those ghastly eyes, open underwater. 

+1 V-

(Also not the reaction I expected from Marius, but alright. A better one, to be sure.)

Thénardier stood up in a matter-of-fact way, went to the fireplace, moved aside the screen, which he rested against the nearby pallet, and thus exposed the brazier full of glowing embers in which the prisoner could plainly see the white-hot chisel, spangled here and there with little flecks of scarlet. 

Uh oh

‘We can come to an understanding. Let’s settle this amicably. I was wrong to lose my temper just now, I don’t know what I was thinking of, I went much too far, I was talking wildly. For example, because you’re a millionaire I told you I was demanding money, a lot of money, a huge amount of money. That would be unreasonable. Good God, for all that you’re rich, you have your expenses, who hasn’t? I don’t want to ruin you, after all I’m no bloodsucker! I’m not one of those people who, because they’re in a stronger position, take advantage of it to be ridiculous. Listen, I’ll take a cut and make a sacrifice on my side. All I want is two hundred thousand francs.’ 

I gotta admit, I enjoy his dialogue. He makes for an entertaining, interesting villain. Even if I wanna remove him from this plane sometimes for how he treats his family.

Thénardier went on, ‘As you see, I take my wine with a fair amount of water. I don’t know what your fortune stands at but I do know that money’s no object to you, and a charitable man like yourself can well afford to give two hundred thousand francs to a family man down on his luck. You too are surely reasonable, you don’t imagine I’d go to all this trouble and organize this evening, a well planned operation as all these gentlemen will agree, to end up asking you for enough to go and drink red at fifteen sous a glass and eat veal at Desnoyers’s. Two hundred thousand francs, that’s what it’s worth. Once that little trifle is out of your pocket, I assure you, that’ll be that, and you need have no fear anyone will lay a finger on you. You’ll say: “But I haven’t got two hundred thousand francs on me.” Oh! I’m not unrealistic. I’m not expecting that. I ask only one thing of you. Be good enough to write down what I am about to dictate to you.’  Here Thénardier paused, then lingering on his words and casting a smile towards the brazier, he added, ‘I warn you, I won’t accept that you don’t know how to write.’ 

What did I say about torture

I don't remember if it was here or discord but STILL

Okay this isn't really a torturing interrogation like I'd mentioned but a threat of physical pain is still happening

The prisoner finally spoke. ‘How do you expect me to write? I’m tied up.’ ‘That’s true,’ said Thénardier, ‘you’re right, forgive me.’ And turning to Bigrenaille, ‘Untie the gentleman’s right arm.’ 

Bold. Brave. Bhoping he takes advantage of freedom.

‘Bear in mind, monsieur, that you’re in our power, at our mercy, that no human strength can get you out of this 

You don't know. You don't know what Val is capable of (I slip further into potential delusion. Am I no better than Marius?)

Thénardier began to dictate. ‘“My daughter—”’  The prisoner shuddered and looked up at Thénardier. 

B( he wants to keep her out of this…

‘Put “My dear daughter”,’ said Thénardier.  Monsieur Leblanc obeyed.  Thénardier continued, ‘“Come immediately—”’ He interrupted himself. ‘You use tu when you address her, don’t you?’  ‘Who?’ asked Monsieur Leblanc.

LOL

‘Damn it!’ cried Thénardier. ‘The child, Alouette.’  Monsieur Leblanc replied without showing the slightest emotion, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’  ‘Just carry on,’ said Thénardier, and he went on dictating, ‘“Come immediately. I need you urgently. The person who delivers this note is instructed to bring you to me. I’m depending on you. Come without any misgiving.”’  Monsieur Leblanc had written all of this down.  Thénardier reconsidered. ‘Cross out “Come without any misgiving”. That might suggest everything was not quite straightforward and that there might be room for misgivings.’ 

Man he's so funny sometimes

‘Now,’ said Thénardier, ‘sign it. What’s your name?’  The prisoner laid down the pen and asked, ‘Who’s this letter for?’  ‘You know full well,’ replied Thénardier. ‘For the child. I just told you so.’ 

Play dumb x100

He went on, ‘Sign. What’s your name?’  ‘Urbain Fabre,’ said the prisoner.  Thénardier, with a cat-like movement, stuck his hand in his pocket and drew out the handkerchief that had been taken from Monsieur Leblanc. He held it up to the candlelight, looking for the initials on it.  ‘UF. That’s right. Urbain Fabre. Well, sign it UF.’ 

I was hoping he'd pick a fake name as a sign, but if it's just initials… darn it. Too clever.

That done, Thénardier said, ‘Write the address. “Mademoiselle Fabre”, at your house. I know you live not very far from here, somewhere near StJacques-du-Haut-Pas, because that’s where you go to mass every day, but I don’t know what street it is. I see that you understand your situation. As you haven’t lied about your name, you won’t lie about your address. Write it yourself.’  The prisoner remained thoughtful for a moment, then he took up the pen and wrote, ‘Mademoiselle Fabre, care of Monsieur Urbain Fabre, Rue St-Dominique-d’Enfer, number 17’. 

Here's to hoping Marius doesn't have hawk eyes and can't see the address written 🙄 he doesn't need that info. I hope he didn't even give a real address. Also maybe Fabre isn't the real surname, so it won't work after all...

And off goes wife and polearm guy to deliver the letter and, in return, the girl

Which, by the way, Marius, you have put at risk by not firing the gun before they left to get her

Marius waited, with everything adding to his anxiety. The mystery was more impenetrable than ever. Who was this ‘child’ that Thénardier had called Alouette? Was she his ‘Ursule’? The prisoner had seemed unresponsive to that word ‘Alouette’, and had replied as naturally as could be, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ On the other hand, the two letters UF were explained: they stood for Urbain Fabre, and Ursule was no longer called Ursule. It was this that Marius saw most clearly. Some sort of ghastly fascination kept him nailed to the spot, where he was able to observe this whole scene from a commanding viewpoint. There he stood, almost incapable of thought or movement, as though overwhelmed by such dreadful things seen at close hand. He waited, hoping for something to happen, no matter what, unable to collect his wits and not knowing what to do. 

When is he ever capable of thought

‘In any case,’ he said, ‘if she is Alouette, I’m sure to find out, for the Thénardier woman is going to bring her here. Then there are no two ways about it, I shall lay down my life if necessary, but I shall save her! Nothing will stop me!’ 

(head in hands with the deepest sigh)

Right… be her white knight… of course… 

Thénardier went on: ‘Be patient, my wife will be back shortly. I think Alouette is in fact your daughter and it seems to me quite right you should keep her. Now pay attention. My wife’s going to fetch her with your letter. I told my wife to dress up, as you saw, so that your young lady would go along with her without any fuss. They’ll both get into the carriage with my colleague behind. Somewhere beyond the gate there’s a gig with two very good horses harnessed to it. Your young lady will be taken there. She’ll get out of the carriage. My colleague will get into the gig with her, and my wife’ll come back here to tell us it’s done. As for the young lady, no harm will come to her. The gig will take her somewhere safe and just as soon as you’ve given me the small sum of two hundred thousand francs she’ll be returned to you. If you have me arrested, my colleague will take care of Alouette. There you have it.’ 

It's almost like making stupid choices leads to bad consequences, Marius. The girl won't even be here for you to save, idiot

Frightful images went through Marius’s mind. What! That young girl they were abducting was not going to be brought back? One of those monsters was going to carry her off into the dark? Where to? And what if it was her? – and it was all too clear that it was! Marius felt his heart stop beating. What was he to do? Fire the pistol? Put all these wretches in the hands of the law? But that dreadful man with the poleaxe would still be completely beyond reach with the young girl, and Marius thought about those words of Thénardier’s, suspecting their deadly meaning: ‘If you have me arrested, my colleague will take care of Alouette.’ 

I wish he would learn from this, but alas

I have not any hope

And no sooner had he spoken than the Thénardier woman rushed into the room, red-faced, breathless, panting, eyes ablaze, and slapping her huge hands on both thighs simultaneously she cried out, ‘False address!’ 

YEAHHHHH HAHAHA I WAS HOPING HE MIGHT DO THAT

Choked, she paused, then continued, ‘Monsieur Thénardier! That gaffer’s been stringing you along! You’re too good, you see! If it’d been me I’d’ve carved his face up to begin with! And if he’d fought back I’d have roasted him alive! He’d have had to talk, and tell us where the girl is and where he keeps his hoard! 

TORTURE INTERROGATION

But wow dang no mercy with this lady

Finally he said to the prisoner in a measured and particularly ferocious tone of voice, ‘A false address? What did you expect to gain by that?’  ‘Time!’ cried the prisoner in a ringing voice.  And in the same instant he shook off his bonds. They had been cut. The prisoner was now tied to the bed by only one leg. 

+10 TO VAL THEORY I BELIEVE IN IT I BELIEVE IN HIM WHO ELSE COULD DO SUCH A THING

Though uh. One leg. A whole bed. I hope he didn't skip leg day.

Before the seven men had time to gather their wits and throw themselves at him, he leaned over to the hearth, reached out his hand to the brazier, then straightened up again. And now Thénardier, the Thénardier woman and the ruffians, huddled in shock at the far end of the hovel, stared at him dumbfounded as he stood there, almost free, and striking a fearsome attitude with the red-hot chisel raised above his head, casting a sinister glow. 

Hand back in the popcorn bowl 

The subsequent judicial investigation into the ambush at the Gorbeau tenement recorded that a ten-centime coin, cut and worked in a special way, was found in the garret when the police raided it. This ten-centime coin was one of those marvels of ingenuity produced in the shadows, and for the shadows, by patience learned in the prison hulks – marvels that are nothing less than instruments of escape. . . . The poor wretch who aspires to free himself contrives, sometimes without any tools, with just a pocketknife or any old blade, to saw a coin into two thin discs, to hollow out these discs without damaging the impressions stamped on the coin, and to work a thread into the rim of the coin so that the discs can be put back together again. To be screwed and unscrewed at will. The thing is a box. In this box he hides a watch-spring, and this watch-spring, adeptly handled, cuts heavy shackles and iron bars. . . . They also found a tiny blue-steel saw that could be hidden inside the coin. 

In prison hulks, you say? 👁️👁️ +20 again, why not

Nevertheless the prisoner spoke out. ‘You’re miserable wretches, but my life isn’t that much worth protecting. As for thinking that you’ll make me talk, that you’ll make me write what I don’t want to write, that you’ll make me say what I don’t want to say …’ He rolled up his left sleeve: ‘Look!’ At the same time he stretched out his arm and laid on his bare flesh the glowing chisel that he held by the wooden handle in his right hand. 

…

(looks at camera)

(looks at book)

…

(gestures in a "are you reading what I'm reading?" type of way)

…

????????

The sizzle of burning flesh could be heard and the smell that belongs to torture chambers spread through the hovel. Marius reeled, horror-stricken, the villains themselves shuddered, the strange old man’s features barely contracted; and while the red-hot iron sank into the steaming wound, impassive and almost sublime he fixed on Thénardier his splendid gaze bearing no hatred, in which suffering dissolved into serene majesty.

You. You were so cool, freeing yourself and grabbing the iron, like who needs Marius, you can save yourself, and ???

You use it for this??? Is this roll for intimidation??? Is this part of the plan????

‘Wretches!’ he said. ‘Have no more fear of me than I have of you!’  And drawing the chisel away from the wound he hurled it through the window, which had been left open. The horrible glowing implement disappeared, spinning into the darkness and falling to the ground far off, where it was quenched by the snow.  The prisoner said, ‘Do what you will with me.’ 

???????????????

Val or not, I think THIS guy needs a doctor, what the HECK

‘There’s only one thing left to do.’  ‘Finish him off.’  ‘That’s right.’  It was the husband and wife conferring. Thénardier slowly walked over to the table, opened the drawer and took out the knife. 

Well? Well? This is more of a threat than an iron knob or whatever poised to strike him in the head!! Marius, go on!!! Go on now!!!!

Marius worried the handle of his pistol. In an agony of indecision! For the last hour there had been two voices in his conscience, one telling him to respect his father’s will, the other calling on him to rescue the prisoner. These two conflicting voices kept up an uninterrupted battle that was torture to him. Right up until then he had been vaguely hoping to find some way of reconciling these two duties, but no possible solution had emerged. However, the danger was now urgent, there was no more time to delay, a few paces from the prisoner was Thénardier, considering, knife in hand. 

I'm so sick of this guy. Fellas, I'm so sick of this guy. Please. Are you for real. What. What. I am. I don't even. I don't evne know. Take a good look down the barrel of the gun, Marius, a really good long last final look. Please. Where's Bahorel, he could fix all of this. Any of the Amis could, I'm sure of it. Skies above, stars in heaven, take me back to them. I miss them.

Marius looked round in panic, the automatic last resort of despair. Suddenly he gave a start.  At his feet, on the table, a beam of bright light cast by the full moon illuminated and seemed to point out to him a sheet of paper, on which he read the following line, written in big letters by the older Thénardier girl that very morning: ‘THE BASHERS ARE HERE.’  An idea flashed into Marius’s mind. This was what he was looking for, the solution to the dreadful problem that was torturing him: how to spare the assassin and save the victim. He knelt down on the chest of drawers, reached out his arm, grabbed the sheet of paper, quietly detached a chunk of plaster from the partition wall, wrapped the paper round it, and threw them both together through the hole in the wall into the middle of the den. 

The… The hole is that big???

‘How did that get in here?’ asked Thénardier.  ‘Honestly!’ said the woman. ‘How do you think it got in? It came in through the window, of course.’  ‘I saw it come in,’ said Bigrenaille.  Thénardier rapidly unfolded the paper and held it up to the candle. ‘It’s Éponine’s handwriting. Damn it!’  He signalled to his wife, who hurried over; he showed her the line written on the sheet of paper, then added in a lowered voice, ‘Quick! The ladder! Leave the bacon in the mousetrap and let’s get out of here!’  ‘Without cutting the man’s throat?’ asked the Thénardier woman.  ‘We haven’t time.’ 

I'm relieved Leblanc will go unharmed (well, save for the harm he inflicted upon himself, the freak), but like. I'm kind of mad that it worked out for Marius. When is that blockhead going to actually have to make a real decision with real consequences and learn a thing that sticks.

As soon as the ladder was fixed in place, Thénardier cried, ‘Come on, wife!’ And he rushed to the window.   But just as he was about to climb through it Bigrenaille seized him roughly by the collar. ‘Not so fast, old man! After us!’  ‘After us!’ yelled the villains.  ‘You’re behaving like children,’ said Thénardier, ‘we’re wasting time. We’ve got the law at our heels.’  ‘Well,’ said one of the villains, ‘let’s draw lots for who goes first.’ 

HAHAHA they're so cartoonish I love it

Not enough time to slit his throats, but let's draw lots, fellas!

Seriously though, the villains are outshining Marius by far. Hugo why are your villains more entertaining than one of your main characters.

‘Are you mad!’ Thénardier exclaimed. ‘Are you crazy! What a bunch of idiots! You want to waste time, do you? Draw lots? By choosing the wet finger? Or the short straw! By writing down our names! And putting them in a hat!’  ‘Would you like my hat?’ a voice called out from the doorway.  Everyone turned round.  It was Javert. He had his hat in his hand and was holding it out to them with a smile. 

BY THE STARS IT'S THE MAN

AND WHAT AN ENTRANCE HE HAS MADE 👏👏👏👏 10/10 FOR STYLE AND WIT AND A SMILE TO BOOT