#jondrette

I made this on Pinterest in a frenzy over a year ago after reading this scene in the brick which has stuck with me to this day

Marius gliding out of the Gorbeau House. Volume 4, Book 2, Chapter 1.

But Cosette still doesn't.

This part of the book always seemed weird to me; Cosette lived a large part her mostly traumatizing childhood with this family, and i can believe blocking out any memory after finding a much better and far more loving parental figure in Valjean, but she still had nightmares about the Thénardiers, so why finding herself face-to-face with them again would not cause any of her bad memories to resurface?

At least in the book, i can excuse it as the Thénardiers getting so old and decreipt that Cosette genuinely can't tell it's them, but in the 1958 film, the Thénardiers look more or less the same; Monsieur Thénardier looks older and has grown beard plus is wearing different clothes without his hat, but other than that he is still recognizable, same as Madame Thénardier who looks exactly the same barring different clothes.

I can understand not recognizing Èponine (who Cosette is actually girlfriends with in this movie) because obviously her memory of her and her sister would be as well-dressed pampered little girls, a far cry from the poor and malnourished teenagers in rags that they are now, but the Thénardier couple themselves?

Even Shoujo Cosette understood that if the Thénardiers looked exactly the same as before with just different clothing it wouldn't make sense for Cosette to not recognize them and in fact she does!

Patron Minette is a troupe, but not a well-organized one (at least, when Jondrette/Thénardier is in charge). Their 'ambush' begins with this:

"“Where is Montparnasse?”

“The young principal actor stopped to chat with your girl.”"

The lead didn't bother to show up! He got distracted! And by the time they're having this conversation, M Leblanc/Jean Valjean can tell something's wrong, so they can't stall until Montparnasse appears. They have to put on a show without their principal actor, which isn't a great starting point.

I love how Jean Valjean is surprised but not scared, because he knows his strength can get him out of this. @secretmellowblog has a great (and funny) post about his cleverness here, too, with his politeness and dishonesty being both strategic and effective compared to Thénardier's. Still, the reason for his calm is devastating:

"“You are wretches, but my life is not worth the trouble of defending it.""

He's able to remain calm in part because he's so used to living with constant stress that these kinds of emergencies are almost easier (as they are familiar) to deal with, but he's also calm because he doesn't value his life and he knows that Cosette is safe. He does more harm to himself than the ambushers do to him, and while it is an effective way of scaring and shocking them, it illustrates his unfortunate acceptance of martyrdom, too. His life only has value to him through Cosette, and although it's wonderful to see how much happier he's been with their love as part of his life, his lack of self-worth remains concerning. Thénardier is far from his equal in strength and wit, and that's also a big part of why this ambush is a mess, but "Valjean can't be hurt because he doesn't care what's done to him" is a horrible reason for an ambush to fail (from the perspective of caring about the characters - unfortunately, it's good writing, because his lack of self-worth is a very consistent aspect of his character).

And of course there's the shocking turn of this chapter: the mysterious man and M Jondrette are actually Jean Valjean and M Thénardier! (The Jean Valjean twists are rarely surprising because he's always just a sad strong man and he's often described by others, but I will give Hugo credit for Thénardier being less obvious, if still quite recognizable). But now Marius is having a crisis! Trapped between honoring his father and saving the man he respects for being the father of his love, he doesn't have a clear path that would satisfy him personally, nor is he going to be decisive in the way Javert told him to be. In a way, his issue stems once again from his idolization of people. His father was a good person overall, but even a good person can misjudge someone! His intention (help the person who saved his life) was good when he made this demand of his son, but he didn't really know Thénardier; in fact, their entire interaction was a lie, with Thénardier saving him by accident and really having tried to rob him. Marius, however, can't see his father as someone with limitations, nor can he surrender his notions of honor. Consequently, he can't fully process that abandoning his obligation to Thénardier would be the best course of action. He's definitely distressed by his behavior (and understandably so), but in a way that leads to crisis and nearly 'madness,' not to a change of heart.

Thénardier himself reveals a lot about his personality with how he reads Jean Valjean. Seeing his charity as part of a 'goody-goody air' and his earlier poor dress as an attempt at manipulating people through pity highlights his own scheming nature and cynicism, as he can't imagine anyone having a genuine commitment to charity. To him, the practice must be inherently paternalistic, a way to bolster one's own status or feel good about oneself without really giving that much (see his critique of bringing a too-large coat and two blankets alone). And he has a point about the limitations! Those items really can only do so much to help his family! And Valjean's charity does have its problems! As Fauchelevent pointed out, he maintains a distant sort of benevolence, and while he doesn't mean to be paternalistic (he's trying to live up to his image of a good person and is distant to stay safe, and he's also not great at social interactions), that he comes across that way is an unintended consequence of his avoidance of relationships with those he helps. The Thénardiers aren't a great example of this - as the Jondrettes, he'd just met them - but there's still some truth there. There just isn't malice or self-interest in the way that Thénardier assumes there is.

Here, rather than use class stereotypes to his advantage, Thénardier reveals a sense of class entitlement:

"Just see here, Mister millionnaire: I have been a solid man, I have held a license, I have been an elector, I am a bourgeois, that I am! And it’s quite possible that you are not!”"

Having been bourgeois once, it hurts him to lose that status, and not just for the painful poverty that he now lives in. Part of his status seems to have been political ("an elector"), but it was also about being "above" others. From his interaction with Valjean at the inn in Montfermeil, he suspects that he's not who he claims to be (which is true, but he feels angry about this in a class-based way). He saw Valjean as a possible criminal who had gotten rich through crime, and who was hiding his wealth because of its suspect origins. His hatred of Jean Valjean, then, comes from the belief that he was a poor man who came to live above his class (the opposite of what's happened to him) and likely from jealousy, as he's better at crime than he is (and Thénardier has been scheming since he was an innkeeper, so even if he wasn't an actual criminal then, he's always been close enough to recognize the skills involved. In fact, as a bourgeois, he simply used these skills in a more socially acceptable way, employing them to 'defend' his business from 'unsavory' customers like Valjean).

Marius related the adventure to the Inspector. Volume 3, Book 8, Chapter 14.