Dolphin's Thoughts

Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (English)

“Courfeyrac took his arm. ‘Take note. This is Rue Platreire, now called Rue Jean-Jacques-Rousseau, on account of an unusual couple that lived here sixty years ago. They were Jean-Jacques and Therese. From time to time there were little ones born here. Therese brought them into the world, Jean-Jacques brought them to the foundling hospital.’” (Les Mis 3.4.3)

Courfeyrac is one of the only members of Les Amis that doesn’t get a signature literary reference during his introduction. The first allusion he makes is actually a few scenes later, when he’s out walking with Marius and Enjolras and he decides to share some juicy gossip about Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Enjolras’s bias) with Marius, which pisses off Enjolras. It’s extremely messy and extremely funny. I love this scene.

The record of Jean-Jacques Rousseau abandoning all five of his children actually comes from Rousseau’s own autobiography. Honestly, the whole autobiography reads a lot like a Youtube apology video, idk how else to describe it. I really love this essay (link) by Paul De Man called “Excuses” that utterly rips into one particular passage in this autobiography as an example of how the whole thing is just full of performative guilt. For the record, it’s not even calling out the part about Rousseau abandoning his children, it’s laying into a totally different passage where Rousseau is confessing to a totally different problematic thing he did as a child. It’s truly a Youtube apology video through and through, and Enjolras is absolutely in the comments defending him.

Fun fact, the book is also the real origin of the phrase “let them eat cake.” Rousseau attributed the quote to some unspecified French princess but then, because Marie Antoinette was growing more and more unpopular at the time the book was published, it erroneously got credited to her. And now that’s how we all remember it. Fascinating! All this to say, this is a great first example of the kind of trendy stuff and messy gossip that Courfeyrac loves. He’s a social guy with a good sense of drama.

The French Charter of 1814 (English)

“The 1814 Charter was coming under criticism. Combeferre was weakly defending it, Courfeyrac was energetically attacking it. On the table was an offending copy of the famous Touqet Charter. Courfeyrac had seized it and was waving it, accompanying his arguments with the rustling of this sheet of paper.” (Les Mis 3.4.4)“‘No granting to the people by royal favour. In all such grants there is an Article 14. Alongside the hand that gives is the claw that takes back.’” (Les Mis 3.4.4)

The 1814 Charter was the basis for constitutional monarchy in France. Courfeyrac hates this thing, but he’s clearly read it so it makes the list! There’s not too much to say about it. Article 14 is specifically the part that gave the king executive power, and Courfeyrac calls it out in particular as evidence that the 1814 Charter is a bad deal for the people of France. This is incredibly prescient, because just a couple years later King Charles X would use Article 14 as his justification for suspending the liberty of the press and several other ordinances that resulted in the July Revolution of 1830. Then, at the end of his scathing review, Courfeyrac dramatically throws a copy into the fire for the vibes and everyone claps watches it burn.

The Age of Louis XIV by Voltaire (English)

“‘A king is a parasite. Kings don’t come free. Listen to this: the cost of kings. When Francois I died, France’s national debt was thirty thousand francs a year. By the time Louis XIV died, it was two thousand six hundred million at twenty-eight francs to the marc, which was equivalent in 1760, by Desmaret’s reckoning, to four thousand five hundred million, which today would be twelve thousand million.’” (Les Mis 3.4.4)

During his rant about the French Charter of 1814, Courfeyrac also makes some very specific claims about the national debt accrued by Louis XIV during his reign and the building of Versailles. This is apparently based on the figures found in Voltaire’s biography of Louis XIV, chapter 30. I love that Courfeyrac read this entire novel just to have receipts on Louis XIV, literally.

There’s actually an interesting podcast I listened to recently that also talks about Versailles and the economic impact of Louis XIV’s reign (Behind the Bastards, link, link). For the record, I fully believe that Courfeyrac would love podcasts. In my modern au, Courfeyrac would absolutely be the type of friend who’s always recommending you some new political podcast he’s found.

The French Civil Code of 1804 (English)

Penal Code of 1810 (English)

“While all this was going on [Marius] qualified as a lawyer. He was supposedly living in Courfeyrac’s room, which was respectable and where a certain number of law books, propped up and augmented by a few odd volumes of novels, represented the library required by the regulations.” (Les Mis 3.5.1)

Courfeyrac's bookshelf! So first things first, Victor Hugo is pissing me off telling me that Courfeyrac has a bookshelf but not telling me which “odd volumes of novels” are on it. He can tell me every excruciating detail about the Parisian sewer system but he can’t tell me what Courfeyrac’s favorite books are?? Sigh, whatever, I’ll just imagine the books on his shelf are the rest of the books on this booklist, I guess. Anyway, let’s talk about those law books.

We’re not told a lot of specifics about the “certain number of law books” on Courfeyrac’s shelf, but we can make a few educated guesses: 1, There are plural books. 2, There are not many of them. The books are propped up so they don't fill a shelf. 3, The books fulfilled the requirements to practice as a lawyer in Paris around the year 1831. And 4, Marius is not actually using these books to practice law. The books are just there to look aesthetically like a lawyer might read them while Marius is actually across town working his translation job that Courfeyrac also got him. Courfeyrac is such a good friend. So basically, for the several books in Courfeyrac’s fake law library, I’m looking for the absolute bare minimum: The Napoleonic Codes.

A bit of backstory. Before the French Revolution, the justice system in France was… bad. The law wasn’t consistent or properly written down and the legal process could be pretty inhumane. The revolutionary government knew it desperately needed an overhaul so in 1791 they created France’s very first written criminal code (link). Under the new code, you could only be accused of a written law, your trial had to be timely, you had the right to a lawyer, and several things that were previously considered crimes were no longer criminal, like homosexuality. Fun fact, France was actually the first European country to decriminalize homosexuality, due in large part to the changes pushed through by one cool guy: Louis-Michel le Peletier. He also advocated for women’s education and was one of the deciding votes to kill King Louis XVI, so of course he’s a villain you have to kill in Assassin’s Creed Unity. Don’t even get me started on that game smh, it consistently has the worst takes. Justice for the girls, the gays, and Louis-Michel.

Anyway, when Napoleon came back to power a few years after the Revolution, he commissioned a civil code, which would become the first of five codes known as the Napoleonic Codes: the Civil Code of 1804, the Code of Civil Procedure of 1806, the Commercial Code of 1807, the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1808, and the Penal Code of 1810. I’m not a law historian, but you can check out this webinar from the Library of Congress if you want more context (link).

Marius would have been going to law school during this era when the Napoleonic Codes were still relatively new and the curriculum apparently was mostly focused on covering the texts of the codes using rote memorization. This so-called Napoleonic method of teaching law, having students memorize the relevant codes instead of taking legal history or philosophy, would be criticized as early as 1819 but not changed until 1838 (link). And we even know one of his teachers, Hyacinthe Blondeau, aka the professor who almost marks Marius absent, was a real law professor at the Faculté de droit de Paris, teaching Roman Law. So, between the Napoleonic education with no focus on social context and Courfeyrac’s shelf including the bare minimum books required to constitute a library… I feel like I have a solid argument for just including the codes here and moving on with my life. The Civil Code is the biggest and most important text, so it definitely deserves a place on Courfeyrac’s shelf. And I threw in the Penal Code as well because whenever you’re looking for primary sources on how people felt about the Penal Code at the time, you almost invariably end up getting linked to Les Mis (see: the story of Jean Valjean’s entire life). The other codes are more specific, so even though they might be on the shelf I’m going to pull a Marius here and include only the absolute minimum.

So, uh, in conclusion… did Courfeyrac even read these books?? Who knows. But he does own them and they sit on a bookshelf in his apartment, so that’s good enough for me.

…I couldn’t find Audry de Puyraveau’s speech

“Over dessert [Marius] said to Courfeyrac. ‘Have you read the paper? What a fine speech Audry de Puyraveau gave!’” (Les Mis 3.6.6)

This is a reference that Marius makes to Courfeyrac after he makes eye contact with Cossette in the garden and starts a two-day manic episode where he talks really fast, spends a bunch of money, eats a surprising amount of food, and impulsively hugs a lot of people. Okay let’s be real, there’s no way that Victor Hugo, living in exile from France and with no internet, was accurately referencing one specific newspaper article about a speech that Audry de Puyraveau gave nearly 30 years prior in early July of 1831. I knew there was no way I’d ever find this specific speech in some particular paper... But I searched anyway. I really wanted to see if Marius was embarrassing himself with a bad take again, but I guess I’ll never know because I couldn’t find the speech. I honestly should have just cut this one from Courfeyrac’s list altogether since I couldn’t find it, it’s not really a book, and there’s no real proof Courfeyrac even read it — I’m just assuming he wouldn’t leave his bro hanging since Marius brought it up. But I had spent too much time researching and the sunk cost kicked in, so here you go.

For context, Audry de Puyraveau was a major figure in the July Revolution of 1830 and one of the people who put Louis-Phillipe on the throne as part of the Paris Municipal Commission (which he served on as a Constitutional Republican). Puyraveau was re-elected to a public office a year later, in July of 1831, which is exactly the right time frame for this Les Mis quote so I thought for sure I’d be able to find some kind of political speech relating to the elections… but no dice. I actually couldn’t find a transcript of any speech from this man’s entire life anywhere. I found a fair number of articles (and some art) about him and his role in the July Revolution, which were actually really funny because everyone on the left thinks he’s way too conservative for pussying out of the July Revolution by putting a king in charge again. And everyone on the right thinks he’s way too liberal for helping to instigate the July Revolution and suggesting that there should be any sort of elective government. So you get these wildly conflicting accounts of this guy who’s honestly just center left. Kind of a perfect guy for Marius to look up to. Like if a modern Marius was super obsessed with Joe Biden.

The best lead I found was in this book from 1844, The History of Ten Years 1830-1840, that says, on page 514, that Puyraveau is one of the people who gave a speech in opposition to hereditary peerage in 1831 (link). But the speech is from September, so it can’t be the one Marius is talking about. I also found another book from 1850, The History of Secret Societies and of the Republican Party of France From 1830 to 1848, that calls the man thoroughly mediocre, which I think is hysterical considering how excited Marius is about him (link).

Anyway, in conclusion, I do not know if this speech was as fine as Marius said or if Courfeyrac liked it. Oh well.

L’Auberge des Adrets by Benjamin Antier, Saint-Amand and Paulyanthe (English, French)

“They went to Porte-St-Martin to see Frédérick in L’Auberge des Adrets. Marius enjoyed himself enormously.” (Les Mis 3.6.6)

Frédérick Lemaître was an actor who made a name for himself while appearing in several plays in the early 1800’s (including Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas in 1838). The play in question here, L’Auberge des Adrets, was one of his first break-out roles as the character Robert Macaire. As the story goes, apparently the play was supposed to be a serious melodrama, but Frédérick and his other leading co-star decided to play their characters as comic figures instead. This idea of making a criminal into a silly character was pretty scandalous at the time and ended up being massively popular. It inspired a bunch of spin-offs and an eventual sequel, but that all came later. 

Anyway, I have no idea what Courfeyrac thought of this play, Victor Hugo doesn’t tell us. He invited Marius to brunch after this and seemed amused, so signs point to him having at least a decent time. It’s also exactly the kind of new, daring, sort of scandalous thing that would usually appeal to Courfeyrac.

Héraclius by Pierre Corneille (English, French)

“Anyone entering the restaurant room would read the following line chalked on the door by Courfeyrac: ‘Enjoy if you can and eat if you dare.’” (Les Mis 4.12.1)

This quote that Courfeyrac has written on the door of the Corinthe is an allusion to Corneille’s historical tragedy Héraclius (act 4, sc iv). Corneille is one of the big four classic French authors, and we are told Jean Prouvaire also loves him. This play is considered one of Corneille’s masterpieces, though it’s not one of his most well-known or most-performed plays. Reportedly, it’s known as one of his most complex works (link), and deals largely with themes of identity and uncertainty. Basically, before the events of the play, the royal governess Léontine switched the emperor’s son Heraclius with Phocas’s son Martian, and has kept the secret of their true identities such a secret throughout the play that even they doubt who they really are. In act 4, she dares Phocas to pick which one of the two he thinks is his son by saying “Devine, si tu peux, et choisis, si tu l'oses.” or, in English: “Guess if you can, and choose if you dare.”So, basically, Courfeyrac is riffing off of this quote to jokingly emphasize the weighty choice you must make to dare eating at this bar. I think you can get the joke pretty readily without knowing the plot of Héraclius, but it does add a certain amount of wit and gravitas to the silly graffiti. Characteristically, it’s also a play and not a book. Courfeyrac likes things that are cerebral and relatively niche, but he still prefers going to the theater to reading!

The ensemble in Les Misérables constantly shifts between being seen as one, unified group and as a collection of individuals. As a group, they embody the collective voice of the miserable people of France, in the form of beggars and workers. They shift between groups as well, which are distinguishable by costumes and music. As a group, the ensemble is a lens for the audience to watch the action through. In this way, they are in charge of the focus and the pace of the narrative. They can isolate or embrace characters from their community, and they can grant authority to people. In contrast to their functioning as a group, the ensemble can also be seen as individuals. From the way that they have been written into the story, some ensemble characters have more space to express their individuality, while other parts are less set, giving more freedom to the performers to make their own characterisation. This freedom of interpretation is not guaranteed for big, corporate musicals. Other musicals are more strict in the way new actors perform the same roles. Within Les Misérables, individualisation comes from both the space that is made in the script and the freedom that actors get to interpret their own roles. Performers can take inspiration from Hugo’s novel too, which has the added benefit of certain audience members recognising the characters on stage, making it easier for them to be seen as individuals. This is less applicable for the women of the ensemble, as their parts generally do not have a counterpart in the book, which does give them more freedom over their own characterisation. While there is a lot of space for individualisation in the show, there is also a feeling of community among the cast. This is helped by most principal cast members having ensemble parts, making the performers feel that they are telling a story together, as one group.

Les Misérables has themes that relate to love, faith and sacrifice in particular, although the ensemble is mostly related to another theme, namely that of social injustice. This theme is prevalent throughout the narrative and affects all characters in one way or another, but it is the ensemble that really embodies it. They are themselves “the miserables.” They are both the people who fight against social injustice, in the form of the students, and the people who they are fighting for, as the poor, the convicts, the factory workers, and so on. While the principal characters represent the individual stories of people undergoing these hardships, the ensemble makes it clear that these are not isolated stories, only the stories that this particular narrative is focussing on. Having the ensemble be both a collective of miserable people, and having them be individuals in their own right, shows that there are numerous people who suffer under the same system and that they are worth fighting for. These are the people who Enjolras wanted to see rise, but also the people who did not join him in the end. While it is disappointing in the moment that the people do not rise, the audience has seen how difficult the actual individual people’s lives are. In “At the End of the Day” the factory workers have already made clear that “the children have got to be fed.” Still, the students show the audience that there are people who will fight for a better tomorrow, for all these faceless people who are actually not that faceless anymore. At the same time, it is a call to action for the audience, to “join in the fight that will give you the right to be free.” That is what gives the audience hope, and that is what makes Les Misérables such a powerful story. It shows that there are people who need someone to fight for them and it shows that there are people who will, and it is the ensemble that embodies both of these people on the stage.

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A full performance analysis of Les Misérables needs to take into account the context of the show, the performers’ materiality, and the background of the audience member watching it. By focusing on the juxtaposition of the collective and the individual, it appears that the ensemble performers in this show differ in the amount of space and freedom they have for individualising their characters, while they are always a part of the collective group of “the miserables.” Every character in Les Misérables suffers under social injustice, most especially a lot of the ensemble parts, which makes this an important theme in the show. Through its narrative and through its ensemble performance, it shows that there are people who are worth fighting for, and people who are willing to fight for them. By presenting these people as individual characters through sung solos, costuming and silent acting – among other things – they are humanised and are no longer a faceless entity of miserable people. This makes the audience empathise with them, and possibly relate their own experiences to these characters.

Relating this to Millie Taylor’s theory of the ensemble musical as a depiction of a utopian future, Les Misérables becomes an embodied display of the realities of contemporary society. One might say that this is not possible, as it is situated in 19th century France, but the struggles that people face in Les Misérables because of social injustices are still true nowadays. Victor Hugo himself prefaced his original novel by saying that similar books will be needed, as long as there is still misery on earth. The musical is a reminder of that. Its popularity comes from its necessity in showing people that there is injustice in the world, while simultaneously giving them hope for a better tomorrow. The ensemble plays an important role in this message. If not for them, the world of Les Misérables would be barren and the collective people would not have a representative on the stage, which would, in turn, weaken the power of the show’s message. The ensemble is needed to give the ordinary people a face, separate from the extraordinary principal characters.