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1815,
Waterloo, Valjean's release.....1815 is a big year
D——
Why do old timey books try to be coy and hide the name of the town....its literally Digne
Although it in no manner concerns, even in the remotest degree, what we have to relate,
And so starts a 30,000 word digression on Myriel before we meet Valjean.......Hugo why
His wife died there of a lung complaint
ok 1) myriel confirmed to have FUCKED 2) why does every 19th century lady die of a lung complaint.....I'm not complaining bc it makes me feel kind of cute every time I get bronchitis
Was he, in the midst of one of the reveries or emotions which then consumed his life, suddenly attacked by one of those mysterious and terrible blows which sometimes overwhelm, by smiting to the heart, the man whom public disasters could not shake, by aiming at life or fortune?
Napoleon noticing that the old man looked at him with a certain curiousness, turned around and said brusquely: “Who is this goodman who looks at me?” “Sire,” said M. Myriel, “you behold a good man, and I a great man. Each of us may profit by it.” That evening the emperor asked the cardinal the name of the curé and some time afterwards M. Myriel was overwhelmed with surprise on learning that he had been appointed Bishop of D——.
I'm into the fact that Myriel got promoted because of Napoleon because Hugo's own father did very well in the military under Napoleon and Marius' dad becomes a Baron.......its almost like Napoleon is gonna show up this whole book isn't it
But after all, the gossip with which his name was connected was only gossip: noise, talk, words, less than words—palabres, as they say in the forcible language of the South.
is the forcible language of the south Provençal????
She fully realised the idea which is expressed by the word “respectable;” for it seems as if it were necessary that a woman should be a mother to be venerable. She had never been pretty; her whole life, which had been but a succession of pious works, had produced upon her a kind of transparent whiteness, and in growing old she had acquired what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been thinness in her youth had become in maturity transparency, and this etherialness permitted gleams of the angel within. She was more a spirit than a virgin mortal. Her form was shadow-like, hardly
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Wow i love 19th century sexism......fully desexualized virginal angelic women really made all these old writer guys lose their minds....so VIRTUOUS anyway I stan madam magloire and i love the abrupt switch to her one sentence description following waxing poetic about how thin and pale and innocent baptistine is
His sister had a life estate of five hundred francs
god 500 francs compared to cosette's 600,000 franc dowry...valjean really put that silver to WORK
livres.
historical french currency is potentially more confusing than french history in general but at this point apparently the livre was not being used anymore (francs were introduced in 1795) and a franc was worth around a livre and was still used as the word franc (maybe Hugo put it here since myriel is old as balls and would still use the word livre but this is only a guess)
For the amelioration of prisons, four hundred livres.
hmm....i wonder if prison conditions will ever come up in this book.......who knows
For the relief and deliverance of prisoners,
he gave 100 francs more to the relief and deliverance of prisoners than he did to the general condition of prisoners i wonder what this says about how the parole system treated them...i wonder if we will meet anyone on parole soon........
Association of the ladies of D—— of Manosque and Sisteron for the gratuitous instruction of poor girls, fifteen hundred livres.
unlike tolstoy hugo apparently thinks women should be educated.....the bar is so low
(Matters were getting embroiled with Rome.)
when are they not.....also this must be referring to the french occupation of rome?
there is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher,
The marquis managed to be, at the same time, an ultra-royalist and an ultra-Voltairian, a species of which he was not the only representative.
this is such a great drag im reeling
God gives light to men; the law sells it. I do not blame the law, but I bless God.
My brethren, be compassionate; behold how much suffering there is around you.
He was indulgent towards women, and towards the poor, upon whom the weight of society falls most heavily; and said: “The faults of women, children, and servants, of the feeble, the indigent and the ignorant, are the faults of their husbands, fathers, and masters, of the strong, the rich, and the wise.” At other times, he said, “Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing instruction for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes
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the shade of it all...............
The scaffold, indeed, when it is prepared and set up, has the effect of a hallucination. We may be indifferent to the death penalty, and may not declare ourselves, yes or no, so long as we have not seen a guillotine with our own eyes. But when we see one, the shock is violent, and we are compelled to decide and take part, for or against. Some admire it, like Le Maistre; others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine is the concretion of the law; it is called the Avenger; it is not neutral and does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it quakes with the most mysterious of
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Hugo was really against the death penalty and this reminds me a lot of his short book the last day of a condemned man....also reminds me of all the talk dostoevsky does about his experience almost getting the death penalty in siberia (the part in the idiot where myshkin talks about it) also camus ....everyone be talking abt the death penalty!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is wrong to be so absorbed in the divine law as not to perceive the human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing?
he did not seek to drown grief in oblivion, but to exalt and to dignify it by hope.
hope is such a key theme in this book...where would fantine, valjean, les amis be without hope
He had much respect for the learned, but still more for the ignorant;
Gaspard Bès,
Gaspard de Besse was a real guy, a brigand
Have no fear of robbers or murderers. Such dangers are without, and are but petty. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. What matters it what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think only of what threatens our souls.
It is difficult for a senator and a bishop to look each other in the eye without winking.
Needham’s eels prove that God is useless. A drop of vinegar in a spoonful of flour supplied the fiat lux. Suppose the drop greater and the spoonful larger, and you have the world. Man is the eel. Then what is the use of an eternal Father?
Renunciation, for what? Self-sacrifice, to what? I do not see that one wolf immolates himself for the benefit of another wolf. Let us dwell, then, with nature. We are at the summit and let us have a higher philosophy.
To sacrifice earth to paradise is to leave the substance for the shadow. I am not so stupid as to be the dupe of the Infinite. I am nothing; I call myself Count Nothing, senator. Did I exist before my birth? No. Shall I, after my death? No. What am I? A little dust, aggregated by an organism. What have I to do on this earth! I have the choice to suffer or to enjoy. Where will suffering lead me? To nothing. But I shall have suffered. Where will enjoyment lead me? To nothing. But I shall have enjoyed.
I do not allow myself to be entangled with nonsense. But it is necessary there should be something for those who are below us, the bare-foots, knife-grinders, and other wretches. Legends and chimeras are given them to swallow, about the soul, immortality, paradise, and the stars. They munch that; they spread it on their dry bread. He who has nothing besides, has the good God—that is the least good he can have. I make no objection to it, but I keep Monsieur Naigeon for myself. The good God is good for the people.
I am calm, for I know very well that if any harm happened to him, it would be my death: I should go away to the good Father with my brother and my bishop.
Can people in this book stop willing themselves to die from the absence of their loved ones
these two women knew how to conform to the bishop’s mode of life, with that woman’s tact which understands a man better than he can comprehend himself.
i hate the 19th century bullshit of women in a household conforming to the desires of the men in their life almost unknowingly as if its natural--this comes up later with cosette after she marries marius and its literally some dolls house shit like free yourself why does hugo think a woman will mindlessly conforming to the desires of her keeper
instinctive delicacy
this is such 19th century bullshit women dont have instinctive delicacy this is just like later when cosette like instinctively learns about fashion because shes a woman
Be it so: I shall die in the starlight.
“I mean that man has a tyrant, Ignorance. I voted for the abolition of that tyrant. That tyrant has begotten royalty, which is authority springing from the False, while science is authority springing from the True. Man should be governed by science.” “And conscience,” added the bishop. “The same thing: conscience is innate knowledge that we have.”
after this fatal return of the blast which we call 1814, joy disappeared.
Alas! the work was imperfect I admit; we demolished the ancient order of things physically, but not entirely in the idea. To destroy abuses is not enough; habits must be changed. The windmill has gone, but the Wind is there yet.
Justice has its anger, Monsieur Bishop, and the wrath of justice is an element of progress.
Whatever may be said matters not, the French revolution is the greatest step in advance taken by mankind since the advent of Christ; incomplete it may be, but it is sublime. It loosened all the secret bonds of society, it softened all hearts, it calmed, appeased, enlightened; it made the waves of civilisation to flow over the earth; it was good. The French revolution is the consecration of humanity.
A cloud had been forming for fifteen hundred years; at the end of fifteen centuries it burst. You condemn the thunderbolt.
The judge speaks in the name of justice, the priest in the name of pity, which is only a more exalted justice.
For whom do you weep?—for the innocent child? It is well; I weep with you. For the royal child? I ask time to reflect.
Monsieur, innocence is its own crown! Innocence has only to act to be noble! She is as august in rags as in the fleur de lys.
Monsieur, forget not this; the French revolution had its reasons. Its wrath will be pardoned by the future; its result is a better world. From its most terrible blows comes a caress for the human race.
Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this is recognised: that the human race has been harshly treated, but that it has advanced.
The infinite exists. It is there. If the infinite had no me, the me would be its limit; it would not be the infinite; in other words it would not be. But it is. Then it has a me. This me of the infinite is God.
I succoured the oppressed, I solaced the suffering. True, I tore the drapery from the altar; but it was to staunch the wounds of the country.
the red bonnet.
red phrygian/liberty cap for the french revolution
Succeed; that is the advice which falls drop by drop, from the overhanging corruption.
His universal tenderness was less an instinct of nature than the result of a strong conviction filtered through life into his heart, slowly dropping in upon him, thought by thought; for a character, as well as a rock, may be worn into by drops of water. Such marks are ineffaceable; such formations are indestructible.
