Les Mis locations: the Barricades & the Corinthe (illustrations)
[Part one with the maps is here] It might be a good idea to read it first. Iโm not really planning on repeating my explanations for this stuff here.
So I know many of you have seen this Charles Marville photo of the Les Mis barricade location. But the thing is, this picture was taken over thirty years later and Rue Rambuteau (which absorbed Rue de la Chanverrerie) was one of the first big rebuilding projects of the 19th century in the historical centre of Paris. Actually I think it was THE first, and it happened even before the whole Haussmann thing started, during Louis-Philippeโs reign.
So my point is, as amazing and cool as this picture isโฆ it doesnโt actually give you a good idea of the location. At least in terms of itโs dimensions, and it doesnโt fit Hugoโs descriptions either. I wanted to comment on that but in the end I realised that the easiest way to explain this would be to draw it myself.
I used the photo as my model and this was the result:
Okay, itโs not very pretty (especially everything thatโs not Corinthe) but itโs not supposed to be. This isnโt fanart, this is a demonstration. :p
So this is basically the same view but reconstructed to look more like how Hugo describes it. (Which is not necessarily perfectly historically accurate but weโre talking about fiction here anyway.) I also tried to add details from the book but obviously thereโs some room for interpretation there tooโฆ Like for example Hugo mentions that the upper floor of the wineshop only had one window but thereโs nothing about WHERE that window was. (Aside from that it was definitely on the Rue de la Chanvrerie side of the house.) He also doesnโt say much about the windows of the apartment of the Hucheloups that was above it. Also I donโt know where on the wall theย โCarpe Horasโ text was exactly or how the signs were positioned etc.
Also Corinthe is green just to make it stand out. :P Thereโs no other reason for that.
So mostly this is about the general look of the place, not the details. I could have drawn the houses as featureless blocks just as well. The details are just more fun.
1: The Rue de la Chanverrerie was much, MUCH shorter than the Rue Rambuteau. This is where it ended. Hugo describes a tall house at the end of the street with a small but sturdy door. Le Cabuc shot the portier of this house. (In real life there were two houses at the end of the street, both only half exposed to the Rue de la Chanverrerie. But again: fiction!) It was also way narrower!
2: The gutters used to be in the middle of the street and the streets would be more or less sloped towards the middle.
3: The Corinthe house is described by Hugo as shorter than the house in the photo. This isnโt super clear in my drawing but itโs supposed to be just ground floor + two floors and attic.
4: The streetlamps used to hang by ropes.
5: The thing at the street corner is a โborneโ which translates either as bollard or milestone. I donโt know which is accurate in this case but I just googled โborneโ in canon era and this is what I got so I went with that. My reference for this comes from here, here and hereย and also somewhatย here. I was vague about the number since I have no idea what it would have been, if there even would have been a number. Hugo describes the bollards asย โencircled with iron hoopsโ which I couldnโt find visual reference for. There were multiple on the street but I only know the exact location of this one because Valjean is mentioned sitting on it at one point.
6: I didnโt colour the street sign since I didnโt colour anything else in real colours either but in case you want to know, the street signs were ochre with either black or red text. Red text was for streets that were parallel to the river, black for every other street. The Rue de la Chanvrerie was parallel to the river so it had red text (and numbers), while the Rue Mondรฉtour had black text (and numbers). I think this system was relatively new. It probably dates back to 1805 but Iโm not entirely sure. Hereโs my source. Also you can see one of the signs (badly) in this painting. I didnโt add the numbers since Iโm not so sure about where they would have beenโฆ but in any case the address of the Corinthe building would have been number 28 Rue de la Chanverrerie and the number would have been marked with red.
7: Obviously there should be all sorts of clutter on the streets but I couldnโt be bothered to draw any of it. And itโs not the point here anyway.
I had to extend the picture a bit so I could include the barricades! Note that the street widens here towards the rightโฆ not that you can tell in the pictureโฆ There might have also been a bit of a slope?
And here we have the barricades. The bars have been removed from the windows of the wineshop too. Otherwise I didnโt really change much. I didnโt draw the tables and chairs that would have been taken outside, or the barrels of powder or other stuff that the revolutionaries needed, or the general destruction that happened during the building of the barricade. This is very very simplified. There should also be a lamp on the small barricade and a torch on the big one but I left them out.
I know the big barricade looks like itโs just made of paving stones but thatโs just because I couldnโt be bothered to extend the picture to include it completely. The random stuff is on the outside. The inside is arranged into steps so the fighters can easily climb it. You can see similar constructions in pictures of real barricades. I mean mine is a bit simple but still. (Obviously the reason people tend to draw the barricades as full of clutter on both sides is because it looks more dramatic but it actually makes way more sense to build the inside tidily out of bricks and the outside out of random stuff that makes it difficult to climb.)
I thinkย the paving stones inside the barricades hadnโt been torn up yet on the 5th? I think they tore them up when they started raising the height of the big barricade and building the third barricade to close the last way out.
Hereโs the close-up map again for quick reference.
I hope this is helpful to somebody! :D Also if you think I made mistakes here, please let me know!
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