#mhmhmhm.

We all know the story about how Eddie Redmayne totally lied about being able to ride a horse and during his audition rode one and couldn’t make it stop and had to be chased down by actual professionals, right? And then in the movie, during the rebellion, Marius rides a horse and carries a massive red flag and leads the people to la rue where they begin building the barricade. Right, okay. Well, that got a lot of people thinking. What was the idea behind the horse? There’s no big horse moment in Les Misérables. Why have it? 

So here’s a cool historical fun fact: 

Shortly before five o'clock that afternoon (5th of June, 1832), a figure described as "spectral" appears on a black stallion. He carries a red and black flag bearing the words, "Liberty or Death!"

In certain translations of the book, Marius is described as a spectre of the old, which you can find the synonym of in this passage:

Marius on that barricade after the octogenarian was the vision of the young revolution after the apparition of the old.

Marius is described repeatedly as someone caught in the middle; A remnant of the past being reintroduced to the new. He is raised as a royalist, then becomes an avid supporter of Bonaparte ( though grossly outdated and rather late in fashion ). When he meets Les Amis, he is once again a piece of the past caught in the currents of the future. He’s kind of like a ghost; Caught in between worlds.