Valjean did escape for Cosette’s sake, didn’t he? Would he have escaped if it wasn’t for the promise to Fantine? Maybe not?
Anyway he escapes and goes from Paris to Montfermeil. Along the way everything he does, seems to be to surround himself with extreme poverty as if he does not deserve anything good, which, that is not how it works, Valjean. You’re allowed to have nice things. We get a long description of his clothes to get more of an idea of him as a person- the clothes are respectable but extremely poor. We have the infamous yellow coat here as well. As always, he avoids passers-by and the policemen and the people he meets also judge him on his shabby appearance.
I like the two very different impressions Louis XVIII gives. To himself, as to other ultra-royalists, he probably looks very splendid and pompous, whereas the ordinary person is still probably annoyed at the king’s policies and also at the Spanish War, at least Hugo is, the way he writes about him. The sentence ‘that bigwig there’s the government,’ sum up the feelings of the people towards the king here.
Jean Valjean does his best to try and hide where he is going and stops near Montfermeil to check that his money is safe and meets a child in the woods by a coincidence.
Because we are in a Victor Hugo novel, their meeting has the feeling of Cosette finding Providence and hope for herself. Not only does Cosette have a positive effect on Valjean, but Valjean too on meeting her makes her feel that she can trust this kindly adult. He’s also probably the only one who addresses her this way and treats her kindly in a long time.
Cosette is so matter of fact in her replies to Valjean, and the fact that she says that she does not have a mother, as if it’s just another thing she’s used to, hurts. Everything else that she says, is said very calmly, in the sense that it’s not out of the ordinary for her to be a servant of Madame Thenardier at such a young age and for the other children to have dolls and playthings while she works. It’s the effect that the town and its people have on Cosette, which is so, so heart-breaking.
She shortens Eponine and Azelma’s names when referring to them, it’s a very kid thing to do and also this kind of reduces the importance that Madame Thenardier attached to the names, which I don’t really have any observation to make, but I thought was interesting.
I hate that poor little Cosette cries from not being able to play like the others, but she does have a sword, which she uses to cut salad and flies, which is nice. They come to the stalls and very near the inn and Cosette asks for the bucket back. She’s still so afraid of what Madame Thenardier will do to her. She really is a fly trapped in the spider’s web unable to escape till the kindly gentleman comes (we know it’s Valjean, Hugo, you can call him by his name).
