Part II, Book 5, Chapter 3
Consult the 1727 Map of Paris
It’s remarkable that I can be on the edge of my seat while Victor Hugo goes on about city history and gentrification.
In explaining where Valjean is, he gives us extra backstory on the area and how it has changed, how the streets whose names he’s referencing are different now, etc. It feels like this would have been relevant for the reader who consumed this story in the years right after Les Misérables was published, but it doesn’t hit the same way for me, a reader several hundred years in the future, without this intimate familiarity with Paris.
At the same time, I do get why he does this. In the part of the Bay Area I grew up in, there were at the time lots of random empty fields scattered through suburbia, and sometimes there were even cows and horses who lived in these fields! But if I were to write a story that mentioned these random fields with pasture animals in them, a reader who is familiar with that part of the Bay now would be like, “wtf is she talking about, that place is all pavement and expensive soulless townhomes now.” And Hugo strikes me as the kind of guy who does not want to be mistaken as a writer who just makes things up willy-nilly, despite the fact that at this point the reader is 111 chapters into a story that is completely made up.
Ah well. I can appreciate Hugo’s ability to really create a sense of place even if that place is a little fuzzy to me.
Plot-wise, Valjean has come to a fork in the street, and after a quick glance he takes the way that leads to a less-inhabited area—man was clearly taught Robert Frost in prison school. He picks up Cosette because she’s slowing him down, the poor tired girl.
Valjean stays on the dark side of the street so as to not be seen, and then hits a wall. One way along the wall leads to a dead end; the other connects to a main road, which would be Valjean’s only means of escape. He’s about to take that way when he spots a figure waiting on that side, obviously keeping watch and blocking the erstwhile escape route.
Honestly, while this is bad news either way, I have to say that it does not seem smart to be so easy to spot if you’re trying to catch a fugitive on the run! Javert is not sending his best.
With the sole route along the wall blocked, Valjean is trapped, and realizes Javert is fast closing in on him. “He looked up to heaven in despair.”
And that’s how the chapter ends. Hugo, you cannot leave me hanging like this!!
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