Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean is the protagonist of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables. The story depicts the character's struggle to lead a normal life and redeem himself after serving a 19-year-long prison sentence for stealing bread to feed his sister's starving children and attempting to escape from prison. Valjean is also known in the novel as Monsieur Madeleine, Ultime Fauchelevent, Monsieur Leblanc, and Urbain Fabre.
Jean Valjean and police Inspector Javert, who repeatedly encounters Valjean and attempts to return him to prison, have become archetypes in literary culture.
Outline of the novel
As a parolee, Valjean is issued a yellow passport with marching orders to Pontarlier, where he will be forced to live under severe restrictions. This document, often called a "passeport jaune", identifies him to all as a former convict and immediately brands Valjean an outcast wherever he travels. His life turns around when Bishop Myriel of Digne, from whom he steals valuable silverware, tells the police that he has given the treasure to Valjean. Out of this encounter, Valjean becomes a repentant, honorable, and dignified man. He becomes kind, a devoted father-figure to a girl, Cosette, who loses her mother, and a benefactor to those in need.Although a known criminal and a parolee, Valjean yet grows morally to represent the best traits of humanity. Bishop Myriel tells him in Volume I that "if you emerge from that sad place with thoughts of hatred and of wrath against mankind, you are deserving of pity; if you emerge with thoughts of good-will and of peace, you are more worthy than any one of us." A few books later Victor Hugo describes that "hat the Bishop had wished to make of him, that he carried out. It was more than a transformation; it was a transfiguration henceforth only two thoughts,—to conceal his name and to sanctify his life; to escape men and to return to God." Whenever Valjean's desire to remain concealed conflicts with his desire to sanctify his life, " d not hesitate to sacrifice the first to the second—his security to his virtue." By the end of the novel, even the police officer Inspector Javert acknowledges that Valjean is "kneeling on the heights of virtue, more nearly akin to an angel than to a man."
His character foil, the police officer Inspector Javert, persecutes him throughout the novel. After Valjean saves his life, Inspector Javert is forced to reconsider the authoritarian worldview he has adopted all his life; there "takes place in him a sentimental revelation entirely distinct from legal affirmation, his only standard of measurement hitherto. justice according to God, running in an inverse sense to justice according to men." This revelation that "authority might be put out of countenance, that the rule might be inadequate in the presence of a fact, that everything could not be framed within the text of the code" leads to his eventual suicide.
In the novel
Part One: Fantine
Victor Hugo devotes the novel's first book to Bishop Myriel, a kind-hearted old clergyman in the town of Digne. The second book opens with the arrival of a stranger to the town of Digne, who is gradually revealed to be the ex-convict Jean Valjean. He searches for a place to stay the night and is repeatedly turned away because of his yellow passport, which marks him as a criminal. At last, he is taken in by the bishop, who trusts him, feeds him supper, and gives him a bed for the night.Hugo then details Valjean's background. He was born sometime in 1769 in a small town and orphaned as a child. He became a pruner and helped support his widowed sister and her seven children. In the winter of 1795, when resources were scarce, Valjean stole a loaf of bread from a local baker by breaking the window. He was caught and imprisoned for five years in the Bagne of Toulon. He attempted to escape three times, and each time his sentence was lengthened by three years; he also received an extra two years for once resisting recapture during his second escape. After nineteen years in prison, he was released, but by law must carry a yellow passport that announces he is an ex-convict.
During the night, he awakens and steals the bishop's silverware and silver plates, and runs off. He is arrested and brought back to the bishop. However, the Bishop admonishes Valjean for forgetting to also take the silver candlesticks that he'd given Valjean, reminding Valjean of his "promise" to use the silver to become an honest man, claiming to have bought Valjean's soul with it, withdrawing it from evil and giving it to God. Despite the Bishop's words, it is later revealed that the police marked the event down in Valjean's permanent record.
Bewildered and not understanding what the bishop is talking about, Valjean heads back out into the nearby mountains and meets a young traveling worker from Savoy named Petit Gervais. Valjean places his foot on a coin that Petit Gervais drops, then refuses to return it, despite Gervais' protests, and threatens to beat him. When the boy flees the scene and Valjean comes to his senses, remembering what the bishop told him, he is ashamed of what he has done and searches for the boy in vain.
Hugo introduces Fantine and explains how she came to be abandoned by her child's father. In late 1815, Valjean, now using the name Madeleine, arrives in Montreuil-sur-Mer. He revolutionizes the town's manufacturing and earns a fortune, which he spends mostly for the town's good, paying for the maintenance of hospital beds, orphanages and schools. He is appointed mayor after refusing the first time. He declines the king's offer to make him a Knight of the Legion of Honor.
Madeleine saves an old man named Fauchelevent from death. Fauchelevent had fallen beneath his wagon as his horse fell and broke two of its legs. Madeleine offers to pay anyone who could raise the wagon but nobody wants to risk his life climbing under the wagon. Madeleine turns pale, but gets down into the mud and lifts the wagon off Fauchelevent. Javert, who witnessed the scene, tells Madeleine that he had only known of one man capable of doing such a feat, and that was a convict doing forced labor in Toulon. Since Fauchelevent had earlier lost his business and now had a broken kneecap, Madeleine arranges a job at a convent for Fauchelevent. Valjean also buys the broken cart and horse as an excuse to give Fauchelevent money.
Later, Javert arrests Fantine, who has become a prostitute, when he sees her scratch and try to hit a Dandy named Bamatabois, who had taunted Fantine and thrown snow down her dress while she walked back and forth trying to get business. Valjean was told what had happened and knew that Bamatabois should have been the one arrested and ordered Fantine free. Javert knew only what he'd seen and was furious with Valjean for interfering with police work. When Valjean orders Javert to leave in front of Javert's squad, Javert leaves and denounces "Madeleine" to the prefect of police at Paris, saying that he suspects Madeleine is Valjean. Javert is told that he must be incorrect because the "real" Jean Valjean had just been found.
Valjean takes Fantine to the local hospital and has her cared for. He learns of Cosette, Fantine's daughter, and tries to pay off the Thénardiers.
Javert then apologizes to "M. Madeleine", and tells him that the "real" Jean Valjean has been found and is to be tried the next day. Javert also asks that he be dismissed in disgrace by Valjean from his job for acting out of revenge incorrectly, saying that since he had been hard on others he could not be less harsh on himself but after Valjean repeatedly refuses, Javert says he will continue acting as police chief until a replacement can be found.
It is only here that the novel finally reveals Madeleine to be Valjean, a fact which was heavily foreshadowed before.
That night, Valjean has a terrific struggle within himself, but finally decides to go to the trial and reveal his identity in order to free Champmathieu. He gives his evidence and proves that he is the real Jean Valjean, but nobody wants to arrest him, so Valjean says that they know where to find him and he returns to Montreuil-sur-Mer. The judge at the trial, although quite impressed with M. Madeleine's work and reputation, is shocked that Valjean, while mentioning a date that another convict had tattooed on himself called Napoleon Bonaparte "the Emperor" instead of "Bonaparte" and orders Valjean arrested for robbing Petit Gervais. Javert comes to arrest him the next day while Valjean is in Fantine's room. Valjean asks for three days to get Cosette from Montfermeil and give her to Fantine before he is arrested and Javert refuses, saying that it would be too easy for Valjean to escape. Fantine was shocked to find that her daughter was not there already and that her savior was being arrested, and died of shock.
Valjean allows Javert to arrest him, but quickly escapes. It is hinted that Valjean escaped with the help of a file hidden in a coin, an item he is later proved to possess. Valjean returns to his house to pack his clothes and hides behind the door when Javert comes looking for him. Sister Simplice, one of the hospital nuns, who had a reputation for never having told a lie in her life, twice lied to Javert that there was nobody there but her to protect Valjean. Javert believed her and left, giving Valjean an opportunity to escape the town.
Part Two: Cosette
A short chapter, mainly consisting of two newspaper articles, informs the reader that Valjean has been re-arrested while getting into the stagecoach to Montfermeil. In July 1823, he was condemned to death for the 40-sous theft and the escape from the jail in Montreuil-sur-Mer, as the prosecutor claims that Valjean was part of a gang of street robbers and the latter refuses to defend himself. His sentence was graciously reduced by the king to only life in prison instead of death. Before he was captured, Valjean had already traveled near to Montfermeil and buried all the money he'd saved as M. Madeleine—a chapter tells of a worker in Montfermeil, a former Toulon convict, who claims having seen, according to a local fairy tale, the devil burying his treasure in the forest. No further explanation is ever given as to why, having buried his money near Montfermeil, Valjean had traveled back to Paris and then attempted to travel back to Montfermeil.Valjean was assigned a new number of 9430, but escapes from a sailing vessel after only a few months' imprisonment, on 16 November 1823, by apparently falling into the sea after a daring rescue of a sailor who had gotten stuck in a dangerous situation up in the ship's rigging. Thereafter he is officially presumed dead.
Valjean goes to Montfermeil, where he meets Cosette alone in the forest on Christmas Eve, 1823. He accompanies her back to the inn; and watches that evening as the Thénardiers mistreat her very badly. He sees the Thénardiers' daughters Éponine and Azelma acting unkindly to her as well, tattling on her to their mother when she tries to play with their temporarily abandoned doll. After seeing this, Valjean briefly leaves the inn and returns with a beautiful new doll to give to Cosette, which she happily accepts. This makes Mme. Thénardier furious with Valjean, affronted that he would do such a thing for Cosette instead of her own daughters. M. Thénardier tells her that Valjean can do as he wishes as long as he pays them. That evening, Mme. Thénardier insists that Cosette will be turned out onto the street the next day.
The next morning, Christmas Day, Valjean offers to take Cosette with him. Mme. Thénardier immediately accepts, but M. Thénardier haggles for a compensation and gets 1500 francs in the end. Valjean takes Cosette with him. Only now does the book confirm that the mysterious man Cosette met is actually Valjean. M. Thénardier is soon overcome with grief at having sold Cosette too cheaply and runs after them. When M. Thénardier demands more money, Valjean gives him the note Fantine signed before she died, saying that the bearer of the note was authorized to take Cosette. M. Thénardier tries to continue following Valjean, but is soon frightened back to the inn.
Valjean takes Cosette to Paris, where they live in No. 50-52 Boulevard de l'Hôpital, in the so-called "Gorbeau House". They cannot live calmly for long—in Spring 1824, Javert, who has been promoted to the police in Paris, finds the house. He has heard of a "kidnapping" from Montfermeil and remembers Valjean's request of three days. He has also heard of a man, poorly dressed, who gives money to other poor people, the "beggar who gives alms", who had a granddaughter with him and who has been heard to say that she came from Montfermeil. Javert goes undercover, discovers that it is Valjean, and makes plans to arrest him.
Valjean recognizes Javert, and taking Cosette, walks out of the house and leaves. They barely manage to get away from Javert, who allowed Valjean to leave the house, believing that Valjean would take him to meet other criminals. Valjean managed to steal a rope from a streetlamp, climb a wall to a convent and pull Cosette up after him. They then climbed down a shed roof into a garden. it turned out that this was the convent where Fauchelevent worked, who wanted to return the favor and save Valjean's life this time. After almost burying Valjean alive in a scheme to get him out of the convent so that he could openly walk back into the convent, Fauchelevent was able to bring in his "brother" Ultimas Fauchelevent. Cosette was admitted to the convent school.