Victor Hugo on Love

Upon reading the title of this blog, one may assume that it will cover the story of Cosette and Marius, which is the central love story in the second half of the novel. Maybe it will be about Éponine’s unrequited love for Marius throughout Marius’s pursuit of Cosette. One may think of Fantine and her endless love for her daughter Cosette, and the sad and tragic end to her story. It could cover Jean Valjean, a man who never truly experienced love until he raised Cosette as essentially his daughter. These are many of the things we think of when we think of Les Misérables and stories of love. However, this blog will be centered around one small, tender moment from early on in the novel that could easily be forgotten after absorbing 1300 pages of the grand, epic story of Les Misérables.

My personal favorite part of Les Misérables, the one page that has stuck in my mind the most after reading the novel, was the description of Monsieur Myriel, or “Monseigneur Bienvenu”, the bishop of Digne’s last few years of life before his passing. This comes from Chapter Four, Book Five, Part One. The chapter revealed that Monsieur Myriel had died at the age of eighty-two, while Jean Valjean was creating his new life as “Pere Madeleine” in Montreuil-sur-Mer. It also revealed that Monsieur Myriel was blind in his last few years of life. Hugo describes him as having been “contentedly blind”, as he had the company of his sister. What follows is an incredible beautiful description of love, of how Monsieur Myriel’s reliance on his sister, and in turn her reliance on Monsieur Myriel, showed how much love they had for each other, that although he had lost his sight, Monsieur Myriel did not truly lose anything because he could feel the love of his sister through her presence and her actions.

“Incidentally, let us say that on this earth where nothing is perfect, to be blind and to be loved is in fact one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness.”

— Victor Hugo

Hugo writes expertly and profoundly on the weight and power of love and of feeling loved, how it prevails over any negative circumstance or physical affliction. Despite his deteriorating physical condition and the loss of one of his five senses, Monsieur Myriel is described as being at his happiest, at his most content, at complete peace, because he knew he was loved. Of all of Hugo’s descriptions of love throughout the many pages of this novel, nothing was quite as touching and affecting as this one very short description of the end of Monsieur Myriel’s life.

Throughout the four weeks we spent in London and Paris, my mind kept coming back to this passage. In particular, I thought of this moment a lot during week one of the class, which we spent in London. I was feeling more homesick than I would have liked to admit, and I found myself missing family and friends much more than I expected to.

Throughout our explorations of London and Paris, every time we experienced something new, I thought of the people in my life who would have loved those experiences, and thought of how great it would be to be there again with them. As we walked through Borough Market in London, I thought of my foodiest friends who would have loved trying all of the different food stalls with me, and of my family who influenced me to love food more than almost anything. As we watched the stage production of Les Misérables, I thought of my friends who love musical theater, and how excited they would have been to sit with me and enjoy the show. As I walked into a new random bakery in Paris nearly every day, I thought of a friend who loves baking and trying new baked goods who would have appreciated the boulangeries even more than I did. As I walked through The Louvre, I thought of a friend with a passion for art history who would have had a greater level of appreciation and understanding for the endless walls of art than I ever could.

During these experiences and all of these thoughts and reminders of people in my life, I kept coming back to this passage about Monsieur Myriel. I realized that with every new experience I had that made me think of someone new, I felt their love with me, even though I couldn’t see them. I realized what a privilege it is to miss people. There’s a certain magic to walking through two new countries and having nearly every new experience remind me of someone who would love it even more than I would, and make me want to come back with them. More than a source of sadness or homesickness, I realized that thinking of people elevated these experiences for me, and made them all the more special.

“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that you are loved, loved for yourself, better still, loved despite yourself”

— Victor Hugo

Stepping Into the Author’s Life

Statue depicting the iconic image of Cosette carrying the water bucket

In Paris, the class went to the “Maison de Victor Hugo”, or the Victor Hugo house. This is a museum located in the house that Victor Hugo lived in from 1832-1848, shortly before he was exiled from France. Walking through the museum led us through several recreations of what the rooms of his apartment would have likely looked like, and the walls were completely filled with mostly paintings that depicted Hugo’s works throughout the years that were made by other artists, but also some paintings by artists Hugo admired and some pieces of art that were made by Hugo himself.

I mentioned in one of my earlier blog posts that the class had gone to the Charles Dickens Museum while we were in London. This is a very similar museum, a recreation of one of Charles Dickens’s homes, in a house he used to live in, filled with items related to him. As you may recall, I didn’t have many great things to say about that experience. It felt almost violating in a way. The museum was filled with not just items related to Dickens’s works throughout his life, and they were not just recreations of the rooms he used to live in that gave us an insight into how he lived and what he was interested in while he was writing his many famous novels. Instead, the Charles Dickens Museum was filled to the brim with deeply personal items and insights into the less flattering parts of Dickens’s personal life. In the recreation of his dressing and personal grooming room, there was a collection of items like razors, combs, etc., and there was a locket with a real strand of Dickens’s hair on display. In other rooms, there were letters he had written and received on display regarding his divorce, his relationships, his affairs. I’m sure a historian, or someone with an extreme interest in Dickens, would read all of this and think that the Dickens house is a goldmine for interesting exhibits, and not understand my uncomfortability with the whole thing. But to me, the Charles Dickens Museum felt like I was looking at a lot of things that I wasn’t meant to see.

By contrast, the Victor Hugo house didn’t feel like that at all. It’s strange, since the museum is essentially an identical concept to the Charles Dickens Museum, but I didn’t feel any of the same uncomfortability with it that I did with Dickens’s house. To me, the Victor Hugo house felt like it was more specifically focused on Hugo’s works and the interests and tastes that influenced them, rather than the nitty gritty of his personal life and affairs. As I mentioned before, the walls were lined with works by many artists depicting scenes from novels Hugo had written. There were plenty of paintings depicting The Toilers of the Sea, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and most famously and relevant to this class, Les Misérables. There were tons of depictions of Jean Valjean’s plight, along with depictions of characters like Marius and Cosette. Of these works, the painting that stood out the most to me was one that depicted one of my favorite scenes from Les Misérables, the moment when Jean Valjean turns himself in and reveals his true identity in court. It was interesting to see moments like these from the novel depicted by skillful painters in this medium, as it gave a visual representation of significant scenes from the novels that was not held back by the limitations of a film or a stage show, they were depictions of moments from the novel exactly as the artists pictured them.

Jean Valjean revealing his identity to the court

The pieces of art that didn’t depict scenes from Hugo’s novels were generally pieces that Hugo had owned which were created by artists he enjoyed. This gave us a more personal glimpse into Hugo’s tastes and the artists that would have influenced him, as well as his psyche when writing his novels. There were some quite dark and disturbing paintings on some of these walls that showed some insight into Hugo’s interesting taste and where his mind could have been in different parts of his life. Still though, in contrast to Dickens’s house, these displays felt focused on a celebration and depiction of the art Hugo enjoyed that influenced his works.

All of these pieces of art centered around Hugo’s works made the museum feel less like an uncomfortable look into Hugo’s private life, and more like a celebration of the famous and influential works he created during his life. This is the main distinction between the Victor Hugo House and the Charles Dickens Museum, at least in my mind. The Hugo House feels like it was created with fans of Hugo’s work in mind, and it feels like a museum that Hugo would have approved of and wanted people to visit if he were alive. The focus was on his works, and most of the more personal parts of the museum were shown not to shine light on Hugo’s personal affairs, but to show how his life influenced the way he wrote. The Dickens House, on the other hand, felt like it focused in far too closely on the small, personal details of Dickens’s life, and it was filled with things Dickens probably would not have wanted displayed to the public. At least, if I were him I wouldn’t want them displayed.

There is one large elephant in the room as I write about how there is nothing too personal in the Victor Hugo Museum. That is, of course, the recreation of the bedroom that Victor Hugo died in. Hugo did not die in the home in which the museum lies, but there is a faithful recreation of the bedroom he died in, which is the last room in the museum. Somehow, although this is of course a deeply personal view into Hugo’s final moments, it felt very tastefully done, and it was quite touching to stand in that room. On the wall, there were some paintings of the room and of Hugo’s final moments, showing that shortly after he died these moments were shown to the public, which made it feel tasteful as the look of his room in his final moments was always on public display, it was not something that was uncovered for this museum. It felt like a very tastefully done, respectful end to the exhibit, an exhibit that showed how Hugo may have lived, celebrated his works, displayed his artistic influences, and handled the more personal aspects of Hugo’s life with respect and care.

Recreation of the bedroom Hugo died in

The Past and the Present in Conversation

While walking around and exploring London, one of the first things I noticed was the extreme juxtaposition between the historic, classic architecture that has been preserved for centuries and the modern, sleek, glass buildings that accompany them. Everywhere you look, there are pubs, towers, and chapels that are hundreds and hundreds of years old, yet on the same blocks there are highly contemporary and modern corporate skyscrapers.

This contrast is a great representation of London, at least to my understanding of it. London is an incredibly historic city, and it is a city that is proud of its history and that seeks to preserve it and honor it as much as possible. This can be seen through the architecture as mentioned before, but also through the preservation of customs and traditions. One of the streets we walked down was lined with countless gentleman’s clubs, membership only clubs in which a clientele of mostly older men gather to have a drink and read the paper. These clubs may seem like quite an archaic concept, but the tradition has prevailed and the clubs still have plenty of regularly attending members.

This is just one example of London and the greater UK’s attachment and loyalty to its past. The most significant of these is, of course, the monarchy. The British Monarchy no longer holds any political power, but it still stands as a symbol of the United Kingdom, and it holds an air of importance across the nation. Depending on your point of view, London could be a city that honors its historical legacy by preserving the old, or it could be a city that hangs onto an era that no longer exists.

On the other hand, the modern, glass skyscrapers that fill London’s skyline represent the other side of London: an incredibly modern, innovative, melting pot of a city. London is one of the leading cities in the world when it comes to art, culture, entertainment, industry, finance, and education. While it is a city that is steeped in thousands of years of history, it is also on the cutting edge of culture.

The skyline shown in this picture is a perfect example of exactly what I’m talking about. On display in the center of the image is the Tower of London. The White Tower, which lies in the center of the Tower of London, was built in 1078. This building has nearly a thousand years of history, serving as everything from an armory to a prison, and standing as a representation of the monarchy for many centuries. In this same image, on the right end of the more modern buildings, stands a contemporary piece of architecture colloquially known as The Gherkin, a cylindrical corporate skyscraper that gets its nickname from the fact that it kind of looks like a pickle. The Gherkin was built in 2004. Nearly a thousand years separates these two buildings, and they look absolutely nothing alike, yet they both decorate the skyline of London, and somehow it makes perfect sense.

It’s especially interesting to notice these differences while bookpacking A Tale of Two Cities. It is quite a unique experience to see the locations from the novel nearly exactly as they would have looked at the time it took place juxtaposed with the modern developments of today’s London. We went to have a meal at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a nearly five hundred year old pub that Charles Dickens frequented (which was also likely the inspiration for the pub that Stryver and Sydney Carton met at near the beginning of the book). When you enter the pub, it’s like entering a time machine. You can practically picture Dickens sitting in the corner of the pub working on his latest novel. The dim, moody lighting, the old wooden floors and creaky stairs, an old figurine resembling the parrot that used to hang out behind the bar. Then you take a step outside, and suddenly you’re in a bustling, modern, corporate city filled with finance workers on their lunch break.

This comparison and coexistence of old and new ties in perfectly with the texts we have been reading, both A Tale of Two Cities and Les Misérables. These are both historical novels whose plots very directly hinge on the history of the time in which they take place. A Tale of Two Cities is very explicitly a story of the French Revolution that took place in the late 18th century, the entire plot of the novel is contingent on it. Les Misérables takes place during the June Rebellion of 1832, which is massively important to the plot. These novels firmly take place in very specific moments in history for very specific reasons.

However, despite this grounding in history, the stories told and lessons learned from these novels can be interpreted through a very modern lens. A Tale of Two Cities is a story of social injustice and inequality, and the inevitable violence and destruction it leads to. While it is centered around the French Revolution, the story can absolutely be related to this present moment in history. Not to mention, the contrast between new and old quite directly relates to the iconic introduction to the novel (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”), in which Dickens uses juxtaposition to introduce the complicated nature of that moment in history.

The same can be said about Les Misérables, perhaps to an even greater extent. Although it is an old novel set nearly two hundred years ago, its morals can be applied to today. Jean Valjean’s story is one of redemption and rehabilitation, Javert’s represents the injustice and absoluteness of the law and the criminal justice system, Fantine represents the crushing weight of poverty. Just like walking through London and seeing ancient towers next to modern skyscrapers, reading these novels introduces you to historical events and their modern parallels.

Remembering the Dead

Outside Westminster Abbey

As the class was guided through Westminster Abbey in London, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of burials and memorials of historically significant figures we were presented with. From Isaac Newton, to Charles Dickens, to over a dozen English and Scottish monarchs, Westminster Abbey is the place to be buried if you were an important person. This was just one of the many places of burial for monarchs and historical figures that we’ve visited in the duration of this class. Visiting all of these memorials sparks plenty of thinking about how we should remember historical figures, and how memorials and burials can influence someone's public memory after they’re gone.

One of the most interesting details from our tour of Westminster Abbey was the explanation of the coffins of Elizabeth I and Mary I, commonly referred to as “Bloody Mary” due to the hundreds of executions she ordered during her reign as Queen. The sisters had a complicated relationship due to political and religious differences. When Elizabeth died, nearly 50 years after Mary, her coffin was placed on top of Mary’s, with a monument above the coffins that features a sculpture only of Elizabeth. Our tour guide told us how much Mary would have despised sharing a coffin with Elizabeth, being placed below her, and not being memorialized in the same way.

Fast forward to our time in Paris, when we visited the Chapelle Expiatoire, a chapel built by Louis XVIII to commemorate the memory of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. While walking through the modest but beautiful chapel and admired the quite well-done statues of the two figures, I couldn't help but feel a bit strange about the whole thing. A chapel built entirely to honor these two representations of the opulence and incompetence of the monarchy, built in a post-revolution France. On one hand, it’s important to recognize and honor history, but should these figures have been memorialized to this extent? There is a poster framed and on display in the chapel written by the Paris Commune demanding the destruction of the chapel. Of course, the chapel itself is now an important and interesting piece of history that should be preserved, but I think I probably would have agreed with the sentiments of the poster if I was around at that time.

Poster in protest of the Chapelle Expiatoire

My slight discomfort with this experience didn’t hold a candle to how I felt while walking through the Charles Dickens Museum in London. Five floors of carefully arranged recreations of what the house may have looked like when Dickens lived in it, filled with personal belongings and in-depth details about Dickens’s life. There were authentic letters about Dickens’s separation from his wife, theories about his possible secret relationship with his sister-in-law, and even a preserved lock of Dickens’s hair. This visit really got me thinking about how I would like to be remembered after I pass, and how I would feel to be in Dickens’s position. If I was a famous novelist, I would want to be remembered by the public for the work I produced, and that alone. Even though he lived two centuries ago, what right do we have to be digging through his personal belongings and reading letters he wrote about his failing relationship? I’m interested in Dickens as an author, and I’m interested in how his personal life could have influenced his writing, but it didn’t feel quite right to view all of his personal belongings and letters on display in his home. Maybe I just don’t understand the appeal.

This whole idea of how we remember people after death relates quite directly to the texts we’ve been reading. How would Charles Darnay have been remembered? Would he have been known as a traitor to the revolution, a representation of the evil acts of the Evrémonde family? Would he have heard these things as he was in hiding after narrowly avoiding death? How would Sydney Carton have been remembered? After a life of not living up to the potential he knew he had, he heroically sacrificed his life for Darnay’s. Would he have been remembered by his missed potential, would he be remembered at all? Carton’s heroic actions were worthy of a spot in Westminster Abbey, but he was likely forgotten after death by anyone other than the select few who were aware of his sacrifice.

There’s one question I keep coming back to as I write this: Does it really matter how we’re honored after death? We will be dead, after all. We won’t know any better. Those who knew us will remember us for who we were, and maybe that’s enough. As we were waiting to enter the beautiful and extravagant tomb of Napoleon, my classmates and I spoke about what we’d like to have done with our remains when we die. It was a fun and oddly touching conversation that touched on this recurring theme of remembrance.

Outside Napoleon’s Tomb