#2.2.3

There is A Lot going on in this chapter. Hugo clearly isn’t done sharing his opinions about monarchy and revolution, and we are treated to an absolutely brutal excoriation of the Spanish war. The French monarchy intervened on behalf of the Spanish monarchy, crushing the revolution of the Spanish people and bringing darkness to the country. For Hugo, the crushing of liberty is the worst crime, right up there with wasting millions of francs on ceremony while people starve. For all that this book is, in many ways, a testament to his own lifetime of political meandering, he has some very strong core tenants that he does not budge from:

People should be free.

People should be fed.

Everyone is worthy of being human.

And that takes us to the ship Orion, being repaired in Toulon. Hugo is extremely good at describing ships -- so good that I wish he’d been around to also describe trains, because ‘metal dragons shrieking and billowing their way across peaceful countryside’ seems like his jam. But instead we get floating forests, which is such an evocative image. We also get this: “So against the wind, it has rope and canvas; against water, timber; against rock, iron, brass and lead; against darkness, light; against immensity, a needle." I love the idea that a needle -- a clear direction -- is what you need to harness immensity. It says a lot about the era in which Hugo was writing, this era of new discovery and possibility, where the greatest problems of ages past seemed to be being tamed and mastered by humanity. When faced with the infinite expanse of the sea, man now had a compass to guide him home again. (Of course -- as we’ll see with Joly -- the compass itself, being powered by magnetism, may have been seen as an expression of the infinite on its own. Uncaring immensity of the sea meets harnessed infinity of the compass.)

I like to think that the sailor’s miraculously managing to catch himself on the rope but not pull himself up again on his own is a metaphor for society. There is only so much men can do alone to avoid being drowned -- not even the most herculean effort can bring you back up when you’re down. You need the help of others. And sometimes, as in here, that help comes from the most unexpected of places.

Once again, I really love the title, which hints at a small incident in the middle of the chapter, but which is crucial to move the plot forward significantly.

The Great Ship Orion comes to the port for repair, it was a war ship on which the government spent good money while the poor continue to die of hunger. Hugo’s talk of the ship has that feeling of the big and useless monument on which money is being spent instead of on people.  Interspersed with the descriptions of this ship, is the discussion of politics in 1823 and Louis XVIII’s war with Spain being the spark that led to 1830. Hugo does not mince words around. This war was an inverse of 89, it had no glory that Napoleon’s conquests provided for Hugo, it ‘offended the military spirit of France’ while being just as grim and terrible. France undid all the work of diplomacy through fighting this war.  

Hugo also spends time criticising the Bourbons and what they thought was a show of power by going to war against Spain, whereas it was nothing more than a crime, which turned the nation against them.

We return to the descriptions of the Orion and I love how Hugo writes about it, with the ship containing a soul and compass that points north as the ocean tries to lead it astray, being the destroyer of souls and people. I find it interesting that ocean is written as something like a character, always appears, even in the chapter ‘man overboard’ in a somewhat sinister, stormy light.   

To get back to the story, a convict wearing prison hulks, who we know is sentenced to life, and has white hair, is seen asking to rescue the yardman and now we realise that his chain must have been broken through, clearly Valjean during his time in prison was working on the chain but it hadn’t been noticed.

Today was the end of Vol 2; Book 2!

92 chapters read, 273 chapters left

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