Part I, Book 3, Chapter 5
At Bombarda’s
The couples have dinner at Bombarda’s, which is a tavern on the Champs-Élysées which is a subsidiary of a more famous (and presumably high-end) restaurant. This detail cracks me up because it’s Hugo saying they’re basically eating at the equivalent of Eataly.
That little detail is pretty much all we actually get about the Four Bros and the Gal Pals in this chapter, because it turns into a digression about the Spirit of Parisians.
Paris on this summer day is full of sunshine and suburbaners strolling about in their Sunday best. “Everything was radiant. It was a time of undeniable peace and the utmost royalist security.”
I take it that this peacefulness is notable coming off the horrors of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror and all the tumult of the Napoleonic Wars. I suspect it’s also going to be a sharp contrast to the soon-to-come violence of the Uprising of 1832 (where we’ll meet Enjolras and Co.)—so okay, Hugo, the temporary peace has been noted!
It’s so peaceful, in fact, that Hugo quotes a police report sent to the king about the people of Paris: “[T]here is nothing to be feared from these people. They are as easy-going and indolent as cats.”
Once again, I think Victor Hugo is a cat guy. He rebuts the police report: “Police prefects do not believe a cat can possibly turn into a lion. Yet it can, and that is the miracle of the Paris populace.”
I love this. Hugo is defending cats AND Paris in one go. “[W]hen there is glory at stake [the Frenchman] is a wonder, capable of all kinds of fury.” Hell yeah.
We are delivered a pretty amazing passage where Hugo starts positively vibrating with French energy, proudly declaiming the now-well-known stereotype of the French as a people who will drop their baguettes and riot at the drop of a hat. “Is liberty at stake? He rips up the cobblestones. Beware!”
Incredible stuff. All in all, a wonderfully French chapter.
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