Part I, Book 5, Chapter 3
Sums Deposited with Lafitte
Book 5 so far really feels like a parallel to Book 1; in the way that Hugo painted us a thorough portrait of who the bishop was as a person, so he now does the same for Père Madeleine—who we know is really Jean Valjean, but I guess we have to play along with this charade.
Chapter 3 gives us a whole plethora of delightful details about Madeleine. Even as mayor, he is an unassuming, low-key guy—really the type of guy more political leaders should be, imho. He’s solitary and shies away from social activity, slipping out of conversations, and honestly this is so relatable to me as a person who identifies as kind but not gregarious. I just want to do nice things for my fellow human without having to, you know, talk to them! Valjean/Madeleine gets it!
He is also always reading. Be still, my heart. “He loved books. Books are cold and dependable friends.”
Is Valjean…me???
Hugo notes that Madeleine uses his “remarkable strength” to help others. Okay, so he’s not me. If people need help getting a stuck cart out of the mud or wrangling a bull, Madeleine is there, and I personally got stuck on the fact that he helps people if they need to “lift a horse.”
I…lifting a horse??? I have shoved horses with all my strength and not been able to budge them at all. How is this man LIFTING HORSES.
(I said all of this out loud to my husband, who said, “I think he means when a horse is lying on the ground and you help to get it up, he’s not actually deadlifting a horse,” and I went, ohhh that makes sense.)
Madeleine, for being all Mr. Business Mayor, is also full of country wisdom; he advises the locals on dealing with pests and weeds, and gives a whole lecture about nettles. I can appreciate the seeming incongruity of this detail, as someone who helps hobby-manage agricultural land and is constantly blown away by how country knowledge is its whole thing.
In his nettle lecture, Madeleine says, “[T]here are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad farmers.” I love this! It feels like a gentler reflection of the bitter conclusion that Valjean came to in prison, where he realizes that people are made wretched by the society that damns them.
It’s also mentioned that children love Madeleine because he crafts little toys for them out of random materials, and this made me all 😭😭😭 because you just know he got this experience from taking care of his seven nieces and nephews, who he has never seen since going to prison, and will never see again.
Possibly my all-time favorite detail from this chapter is the fact that Mayor Madeleine REVERSE BURGLARIZES people. He literally breaks into people’s homes and leaves them money.
I found this nugget of information simultaneously so funny and incredibly poignant; on the one hand, that is some real unnecessarily chaotic good. On the other hand, it feels like Valjean is voluntarily atoning for being a thief, undoing all his thievery by doing the exact opposite of thieving for random people, and as delightful as the reverse-burglarizing is, I just want to absolve him. Madeleine, sweetie, it’s okay! Your soul was bought for God, remember?
With this and the fact that he frequently leaves the house with pockets full of money and returns with pockets empty, I can’t help but think of Madeleine’s whole thing being like that Good Place episode where Tahani and Jason just randomly throw cash at people in a chaotic attempt to do good.
Maybe the most poignant detail is that, at one point, some girls ask to see Madeleine’s bedroom (supposedly because there were rumors about it, but frankly it kind of feels like that was a whole pretense to get with Hot Mayor*), and there’s nothing noteworthy in the room except for a pair of old-fashioned silver candlesticks.
🥺
I am so glad Valjean didn’t sell the candlesticks. Not just because they were the bishop’s sole family heirlooms, but they clearly have come to represent the powers of kindness, guilt, and choice for Valjean. I like to think that they’re the first thing he sees when he wakes up and the last thing he sees before he goes to bed, always reminding him of the bishop and how he can be a better man.
The chapter ends with a little side note that Madeleine is believed to have millions in the bank, but he really only has 630,000-640,000 francs, because he spent his millions on the town. Still, Valjean has come a long way since his 109 francs.
Valjean/Madeleine really is the kind of rich person I would want to be: the kind who gives it all away to others. (The closest living person I can think of with this type of energy is MacKenzie Scott.)
*This is such a lovely, delightful chapter that I hate to ruin it by bringing this up, but: I don’t think Valjean/Madeleine fucks. It’s mentioned in Book 2‘s backstory that he never had time for love or experienced romance, and it doesn’t seem, from this description, that he’s ever let himself experience intimacy. I do think this is somewhat notable given that Victor Hugo was a massive sex pest, and I wonder if his creation of a hero who doesn’t indulge in sins of the flesh is a sort of exorcism of his own weaknesses.
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