Paris by Mornin’... Up From Barcelon?

London Train Station in the morning fog!

As it would happen, it was another Sunday. This Sunday, however, was different. It was 08:00 on a rainy monstrosity of a morning, and tensions were high as the members of our small class struggled to haul bags around and locate each other in the chaos of the bustling London train station. Eventually, and rather quickly, we gained our bearings and rendezvoused just in time to catch our morning train to Paris, our final destination. It felt like something out of the opening chapters of our Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities. The same damp uneasiness of travel and thick fog of uncertainty hung in the air as we soon too would be the travelers in that dark Dover mail coach.

The entire class was antsy but excited for our main destination. Rightfully so. Not only is Paris a city of literary and historical significance (i.e. both of our books!), but it’s also the city of love and light, of dreams and midnight kisses, of cafés and conversation, of painters, poets, philosophy, style, secrets – and of course, revolution!

Although I’d been to Paris before during my post-service ex-patriate era (2023), I was just as eager to get back to her as everyone else was to discover her. After all, Paris is unequivocally my favorite city in the world. She’s like New York in the sense that every time you arrive you may as well arriving for the very first time. But this time was more special than most – I was excited to explore the dark corners of the city that Dickens so vividly described in the novel. From the site of the horrifying Bastille, to the intersection where the Defarges’ wine shop once stood (Rue de Sévigné & Rue de Rivoli), to the infamous Rue Saint-Honoré that once led straight to the guillotine.

Indeed for these reasons I was shocked to be stopped at the French customs and border patrol checkpoint still within the London train station. As I watched my classmates pass through without issue the officers decided it was worth it to hold me, of all people, at the border for some reason unbeknownst to me. As it would come out, they decided my passport was invalid as it was too close to its expiration date. French bureaucracy doing what it does best: wasting its goddamn time.

My emergency passport that would help me along the road

I was afforded the liberty to call my professor up, hoping he could use whatever French he had along with pure persuasion and pull some strings as a Dr. Manette sort of character. He returned from the train’s platform to meet me at the place they so rudely had me detained but, unfortunately, as they explained the issue to us both and I realized he would not have the same pull as the doctor did in the book. I shook his hand and sent him on his way back to the class with the departing words “I guess I’ll be seeing you in Paris tomorrow” The professor gave me a hopeful nod of agreement before the French officer took it upon himself to elaborate “No, you will not be entering France anytime soon!” After which we locked eyes again and he gave me an even more thorough nod, one that conveyed his exact thoughts: “Good luck, I know I can't stop you from trying.”

Fast forward eight hours and, with my emergency passport in hand (courtesy of the American Consulate in London), I was landing in Barcelona officially and in the EU. My new passport worked for most of the Schengen area, just not France. The objective was clear: enter mainland Europe legally and proceed to smuggle myself into France, legally. Should be easy enough, I’m half Mexican afterall… plus this was a border, and borders are meant to be crossed, right?

American Embassy in London

By 22:00 I was climbing aboard a red-eye bus headed to Paris. A fifteen-hour clandestine operation straight through a sleeping continent under the cover of night. If all went well I'd be enjoying a croque madame with my class by lunch. If the plan failed, It’d mean another unnecessary detention followed by a deportation straight back to the states. There was no margin for error. The Scheguen area is known for free trade and lax borders, but a quick search online showed that due to heightened tensions, notably Russias invasion of Ukaraine and Israels genocide in Gaza (Free Palestine!), France had indeed begun implementing 100% routine border checks.

Depiction of Darnay being questioned by revolutionaries

The bus was sleepy but I was not – every turn, every slowdown, every toll booth felt like they would be a border checkpoint and the end of the line for my impromptu adventure. One wrong turn and I would be left alone on the side of that dark road staring at the French border. One checkpoint and I would vanish from my class just as Dr. Monette had, swallowed by an indifferent system that offered no warning.

Somewhere between midnight and the Pyrenees and I recalled my trusty ally Darnay. When Darnay returns to France during the height of the French revolution (1792) he does so using his real name, hopeful that the authenticity of his purpose and the weight of his last name will protect him. Come to find out it doesn't, which scares me even more, since I only had half of such a compelling argument.

“Every town gate and village taxing-house had its band of citizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state of readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross questioned them, inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own, turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death.”

I was in, and in deep. Once I was in Barcelona it certainly felt like there was no going back. If that wasn't the case, however, it was certainly true once I boarded the bus. Just as Darney, I could see those metaphoric iron doors closing behind me as I progressed on my unconventional journey towards Paris.

““Whatever might befall now, he must go on to his journey’s end. Not a mean village closed upon him, not a common barrier dropped across the road behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door in the series that was barred between him and England. The universal watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in a net, or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not have felt his freedom more completely gone.”
”

— Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

A street sign I encountered in Orléans

Thankfully, I was much more lucky than my old friend Darnay. While he was arrested, and subsequently imprisoned, I had the luxury of dozing off on my bumpy ride before waking up near Orléans, just outside of Paris. A 15 hour bus ride is enough to drive any man mad, but I was lucky to get some sleep and not wake up in jail.

“They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night, and then they rode forward again when all the town was asleep… Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris”

By noon I was checking into my student lodging, and had just enough time to grab a quick bite before meeting my friends for the afternoon portion of our class – meaning that through the entire ordeal of (i)llegally sneaking into France I had only missed a single 2 hour lecture. Not bad at all. That afternoon we walked past the old site of La Forge, the very prison which Darnay is condemned to after his unsuccessful attempt of doing the exact same thing I did. As we left the site of the archaic institution I lit up a cigarette, and thought back to the French bureaucracy, and bureaucracy at large. How it wasted its time, since I still got in, and how most of them generally do the same. How such lifeless devotion to arbitrary rules and blind devotion to black and white systems rarely actually do what they're supposed to. I recalled the mindless guards in the book and, notably, Madame Defarge. Maybe sometimes rules are meant to be broken, I thought.

My own photo of the Tour Eiffel after a long but successful journey, shot on 35mm, Portra 400

The Weight of an Emperor

Napoleon Bonaparte is a shadow that never quite lifts from French history. For better or worse—and depending on the decade, both were argued—his presence looms not only over the story of Les Misérables, but over the very streets and monuments of modern Paris. And so today, book in hand and Hugo on my mind, I set out to see how the man who crowned himself emperor is remembered—in marble, in memory, and in myth.

I will start in the most recent part of my journey, on the Champs-Élysées, arguably the most imperial street in France. Once called the “Triumphal Way,” it is where Napoleon’s Grande Armée marched, and where the Arc de Triomphe stands—the massive structure commissioned by Napoleon to honor his soldiers and victories.

In a previous blog, I explored how English monuments often preserve a feudal illusion, celebrating monarchs without acknowledging the labor and lives beneath them. Napoleon’s monument is a direct contrast to the idea that a single person should be remembered for national triumphs. In fact, there is only 1 place where his name is found, and 1 statue of him (located in a group). More importantly, the monument is covered in remembrances for those who fought alongside him in battles across Europe and Africa. And there have been additions that follow suit, with the Flame of the Unknown Soldier and multiple remembrances not for those who ruled at the time, but for those who fought in the wars that claimed the lives of so many. It doesn’t feel like a monument of Napoleon; it feels like a monument of France.

And I found even more interesting than what the statue represents, standing under the Arc, was how popular it was. I was watching tourists from all over the globe snap selfies in front of a monument that once symbolized imperial domination, making it clear that Napoleon is still deeply present. His name is carved into the stone; his victories etched like ancient scripture. If history is a story told by those with the loudest echoes, Napoleon’s echo is deafening.

But then, there’s the strange contradiction: the people walking the Champs-Élysées today don’t seem to notice him. Luxury stores, cafés, designer boutiques—the empire now is of commerce, not conquest. That’s the paradox Hugo hinted at: how someone so immense in history could become so faint in the public memory. In Les Misérables, he refers it more towards the attempt to forget Napoleon by the subsequent monarchies, but there is a parallel line running through today: we aren’t trying to forget him, but why should we care when we are surrounded by so much wealth today? How can we appreciate this history when it is enclosed by distractions? Walking along the street, it felt like people were there to shop at Louis Vuitton and Hermes rather than to see a historic monument highlighting the glory of France.

Two days earlier, I visited Versailles—originally to see the Ancien Régime and the magnificent estate, but more apparent than the gilded columns was the strange relationship between Napoleon and Louis Phillipe. During Louis-Philippe’s reign in the 1830s and 1840s, he made a concentrated effort to incorporate Napoleon into the fabric of France’s royal history.

Inside Versailles, beyond the Hall of Mirrors and gold-dripped ceilings, are entire rooms devoted to Napoleon—portraits, busts, and war scenes celebrating him not as a usurper, but as a rightful part of the French narrative. It was Louis-Philippe who added many of these depictions, in an effort to unite royalist and Bonapartist factions under one national story. Versailles, which once symbolized the monarchy, now tries to make room for the emperor who dismantled it and then rebranded it.

Hugo, of course, was no stranger to reverence for Napoleon. In Les Misérables, he often speaks of the emperor in near-mythic terms—as a man of extraordinary vision, intellect, and will. He admired Napoleon’s ability to transform France, to command destiny itself, even if Hugo did not spare him from criticizing the heavy cost of that ambition. For him, Napoleon embodied a kind of greatness. Not just political or military. But poetic greatness. And yet, Les Misérables does not shy away from the human toll of such greatness. Hugo may have admired the emperor, but he loved the country. He may have commended the general, but he mourned the soldiers. He could marvel at the man while still questioning the machinery of war. In Hugo’s vision of France, it is possible to respect the dreamer and still grieve the dream’s casualties.

The final leg of the journey was to Les Invalides, Napoleon’s final resting place. It is one of the most solemn and strangely grand sites in Paris—a golden dome rising above the sunken tomb of a man who once ruled over half of Europe. Around the tomb are carved victories, praises, and emblems of power. It’s a space designed for reverence. Literally. He has his tomb below the ground level, so all who look at it are bowing to him. I couldn’t help but contrast it with Hugo’s words. In Les Misérables, he tells us about another tomb—that of Jean Valjean. Not grand, not engraved, not visited. A simple grave for a simple man who lived a life of sacrifice and love. That, for Hugo, is the kind of life worth memorializing.

Les Invalides is thought-provoking. It forces you to reckon with the duality of Napoleon: the strategist and the arrogant, the visionary and the oppressor. The man who has little to mention of himself in the Arc de Triomphe, but also makes those who see his tomb bow to his grave. The man who many viewed as the people’s man, but also the man who crowned himself and his family as royalty. There’s no denying his impact. Nor his flaws. And in many ways, that’s history: it doesn’t offer easy answers. It doesn’t tell us whether to worship or reject, only to remember, and to remember critically. Hugo’s novel does this masterfully, and I think it is one of its greatest aspects. Hugo might be writing an autobiography in parts of the novel, but notice the critical thinking with Marius in his journey from royalist to overly zealous Bonapartist:

“Evidently, like all new converts to a religion, he was elated by his conversion, threw himself into it, and went too far… In seeking truth, there is a way of being misled… he neglected attenuating circumstances.”

— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Hugo encourages us to appreciate history, to get involved, to fall in love with it. But eventually, we need to reel ourselves back. Continuing unchecked can lead you to the same place on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Walking back into the daylight, I thought about the contrast between Valjean and Napoleon, between the man forgotten by the state and the man glorified by it. One changed a single life at a time. The other, the course of nations. But Hugo suggests that in the long run, it is the former who carries the true weight of greatness.

Napoleon’s France may be cast in stone across the city, but Hugo’s France—the one of humility, redemption, and strength—still lives in the hearts of those who choose to see it.

“There is nothing like a dream to create the future”

— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

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

A Toutes Les Gloires De La France

How history chooses to remember its victors is on par with how the collective conscience of France chose to remember Napoleon Bonaparte. I grapple with this Caesar-esque figure because I see in him the warped image of divine life and wretched death. He was a warlord in his conquests and a champion of civil freedom and education in his legislation. That’s the difficulty of perspective though, some bow in horror and others in honor.

Of all the corridors to marvel at in Versailles, I marveled at the Gallery of Battles. This is a portion of Versailles that Louis Philipe created as the last king of France. He reopened Versailles to the public as a way for the people (*cough* *cough*, the bourgeois) to reclaim Versailles as their collective history. In doing so, Louis Philipe installed the Gallery of Battles to shape the spectacular narrative of militant France. On my left, Clovis leads the Franks in the Battle of Tolbiac and Joan of Arc liberates Orléans. On my right are Napoleon's victorious campaigns at the battles of Wagram, Friedland, and Jena. He always holds a steady gaze. The awe for Bonaparte is palpable in this hall.

“All history is nothing but endless repetition. One century is the plagiarist of the other. The battle of Marengo is a copy of the battle of Pydna. Clovis’s Tolbiac and Napoleon’s Austerlitz are as like to each other as two drops of blood.”

— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

It’s a funny thing, stumbling into Napoleon's image around Versailles. Louis XIV created Versailles as the royal court of France whereby he should rule the country without stepping foot into the Parisian streets. It was the nobility’s gated community. The gilding and grandeur of the palace and grounds is undeniable. The hall of mirrors, Neptune’s fountain, Marie Antoinette’s Petit Trianon–it’s all marvelous. It was also what the peasantry and working class undeniably lacked.

Versailles stood for everything that the Revolution hated and sought to bring down. To a critical degree, Versailles represented a system that Napoleon fought to dismantle as well. Louis Philippe tackled a tricky transformation of Versailles. Tricky, because the Emperor is celebrated in the halls where kings once idled. Tricky, because an erasure of the Hundred Days was Charles X’s due process during the Restoration.

“Whether one said ‘regicides’ or ‘voters’, ‘enemies’ or ‘allies’, ‘Napoleon’ or ‘Buonaparte’ - this could divide two men more than any abyss.”

— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Louis Phillipe elegantly manipulated the narrative of Napoleon Bonaparte in French history. He asked revolutionaries to forget about the coup d’etat of 1799. He asked royalists to forget about the Emperor usurper. He asked republicans to forget about tyrannical control. Above all else, Louis Philipe asked the people to remember Napoleon for the glory of France. On the chateau of Versailles is the text: “A toutes les gloires de la France.” To all the glories of France! A celebration! A hailing! Against the world, France has been victorious in ways that Louis Philipe believed history should preserve.

Whether this was entirely the social doing of Louis Philipe or many I do not know. The city inspires a deep reverence for Napoleon though: on the stone reliefs of the Arc de Triomphe and his monumental tomb in Les Invalides. These are the ways France remembers Napoleon.

Not just angry men...

"Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men? It is the music of the people who will not be slaves again!" I hum the lyrics as we walk through the Conciergerie. We read Les Misérables by Victor Hugo before the trip, and saw the musical last week. Claude-Michel Schönberg, the songwriter who wrote these incredible lyrics, is so intelligent, so masterful that I want to immerse myself in his music.

As I pass a sign titled "Femmes en Révolution," I am still softly singing. 

"Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men-" 

Wait. Just angry men?

Right in front of me are memorials for women who lost their lives in the revolution. Just yesterday, we learned about the Women's March on Versailles, where a crowd of Parisian women, concerned about the high price and scarcity of bread, marched to Versailles. They demanded reforms to the king and brought him back to Paris. It was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. Yet, the song seemed to sideline the role of women in these revolutions. 

Schönberg wrote the lyrics about the June Rebellion (1832), but the tune has come to represent the revolutionary spirit more broadly. So, where are women in that spirit? 

In the courtyard of the women's prison, I'm stunned by the beauty: stone walls, open sky, even a fountain to wash clothes. If I didn't know its history, I would think it was a town! But this place held women awaiting execution. These political prisoners have stories that deserve to be heard.

I first read about Charlotte Corday. She believed the French Revolution was getting out of hand and becoming too bloody. She entered Jean-Paul Marat's home, an extreme leader of the Jacobins, and killed him in his bathtub, hoping to stop the violence. I don't condone murder, and I can't fully judge her; none of us can, but I understand her desperation. She was angry. And she put matters into her own hands.

Then there's Olympe de Gouges, a French playwright and political activist. She wrote vehemently, attacking the Revolutionary government during the Reign of Terror. She wrote The Declaration of the Rights of Women in 1791, in response to the Declaration of the Rights of Man written in 1781. She demanded equality in marriage, education, and political life. She was angry and refused to stay quiet. She published works accusing Robespierre of establishing a dictatorship. For that, she was executed.

The next day, we visited the Chapelle Expiatoire, a controversial place where King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were buried after being guillotined. Yet, I find myself coming back to Olympe de Gouges when I see her quote in the building: 

““The most extravagant assure that my works do not belong to me, that there is too much energy and knowledge of the laws in my writings for them to be the work of a woman.” ”

— Olympe de Gouges

Even in her death, she had to fight for authorship of her own mind. The prejudice to discredit her abilities is appalling to me. Did men not think a woman could be intelligent? Insightful? Creative? I would be mad too. 

Of course, one cannot talk about angry women in the revolution and forget Madame Defarge from A Tale of Two Cities. After the aristocratic Evrémonde brothers destroy her family, she becomes consumed by vengeance. She even cuts the governor's head off with a knife. Talk about bloodshed and anger. 

We see her anger when she knits names into her death list. Yet, the same outrage brings her to her downfall. She dies trying to kill Lucie, who is barely associated with the aristocrats at all. Dickens shows readers that responding to evil with evil can have devastating consequences. 

Women, whether supporting the revolution or not, whether fictional or not, played a vital role in the revolutions of their time. They sing the song of angry women. We must've forgotten that in the chorus somewhere. 

One may argue that "angry men" is a stand-in for all people. But history shows us that not only are women underrepresented in their importance, but also when they are not named, they are often erased. 

And the erasure didn't end with the 18th century. French women couldn't vote until 1944. Switzerland was in 1971. Private members' clubs in London, including Brooks's Club, a Whig-affiliated club founded in 1778, still do not admit women. It's easy to think we've come a long way. And we have. But the reminders of inequality are everywhere.

Guerrilla Girls art at the Tate Modern London

Yes, I'm grateful I can vote. But then Roe v. Wade gets overturned.

I'm so grateful I can open a credit card. But I'll still earn 85 cents to the dollar a man makes, for the same work. 

I'm so lucky to have the privilege of access to higher education. So how are doctors still less likely to recognize heart attacks in women? 

Material mortality rates are horrible, including the fact that black women have a three times higher maternal mortality rate than white women. Trans women of color are disproportionately victims of violence, and missing Indigenous women go uncounted and unsearched for. The systems that are supposed to protect us? They fail us. 

Don't get me wrong. I love my country. But because I love it, I will criticize it. I will demand it live up to its promises of justice and liberty for all. 

So yes, I hear the men singing. 

But I'm learning to hear the women, past and present, who refused to stay silent. 

Because we are singing. Louder and louder. And one day, they won't just hear it. They'll have to listen.

You've been lied to....

Sometimes I wish I had a super memory, so that I could ace all my biology exams and never forget a single thing. Photographic memory, however, isn’t something I currently possess. Our brains have a limited capacity. We tend to remember what’s useful, what we associate meaning with. Then there are flashbulb memories, moments tied to a specific emotion. Like the time I got into USC. I’ll never forget that feeling, like I had just won a million bucks.

Episodic memory is our ability to recall personal experiences, events from our lives. These, along with flashbulb memories, seem easier to recall. It’s our life, after all, right? Then there’s semantic memory, facts and general knowledge. That’s like knowing to look both ways when crossing the street or recalling names of presidents and moments in history. So when I say I wish I had a super memory, I don’t mean photographic memory. I mean I wish I could supercharge my semantic memory.

I’m convinced Victor Hugo had exactly that. He writes about the year 1812 like he had lived and breathed every second of it. His narration is so vivid it feels like we’re right there with him. When I walk through Paris, I notice the boulangeries, pâtisseries, and boucheries. But if you asked me what was in a particular boulangerie’s display, I probably couldn’t tell you. Victor Hugo probably could.

““Under the third arch of the Pont d’Iéna you could still distinguish by its whiteness the new stone used to fill the hole for explosives that Blücher had made two years earlier to blow up the bridge.””

— The Year 1812, Les Misérables, Victor Hugo

Hugo includes rich, specific details that endear the reader to the world he’s building. It makes me wonder: do I just move through life, museums, class, through time, without truly noticing the little details? I don’t want to be a passenger in my life. I want to be the driver.

So when I visited the Napoleon museum, where Napoleon Bonaparte is buried, I paid attention to those small details. Rather than rushing through everything, I slowed down and absorbed as much as I could, just as I imagine Victor Hugo might have. I noticed that as I went downstairs, the sculptures felt like they were leaping toward me. In one sculpture, a man on the ground looked up at his companions with fear. I found myself wondering: What was he feeling? Why was he feeling that way?

Instead of turning to the description or googling the scene, I trusted my imagination. Maybe he was scared of aristocrats. Maybe he had stolen from them, and they were about to punish him. Sure, I might be far from the truth, but using my imagination with art is like people-watching, crafting little stories about others, pretending I’m walking in their shoes.

I started to wonder what life would be like if I were Napoleon. Would I be greedy? Would I want to conquer the entire world? Or would I care deeply about my people, enough to let an ordinary man rise to become a general? Napoleon is portrayed both as a villain and a hero. Victor Hugo paints him in a glowing light, and it’s clear France admires him too, we’re literally standing in a vast museum dedicated to him.

In Les Misérables, even Marius changes his political stance after discovering his father fought under Napoleon. He rejects his grandfather’s royalist views and chooses homelessness to connect with his father’s legacy. That alone shows how deeply Hugo admired Napoleon.

As I wandered through the army museum, I saw the horses, swords, and uniforms. I could imagine Napoleon getting ready for the day, “strolling” on his horse. I pictured him enjoying an extravagant breakfast in bed before meeting with his tailor to get dressed for military training. A three-course meal followed: hors d’œuvres for l’entrée, Bœuf Wellington for the plat principal, and tarte au chocolat for dessert. After a long sieste, he’d meet with his generals to go over strategy for conquering more lands.

French military uniforms from the Napoleonic era

Of course, this was all made up, based on the limited facts I could recall.

Here’s what actually happened in a day in Napoleon’s life:
He woke up before 5 a.m. to read military reports. He rarely ate breakfast, as his mornings were filled with foreign affairs. After that, he’d take a walk in the Tuileries. Lunch was quick and simple, roast chicken and eggs. The afternoon was spent attending meetings or writing letters. In the evening, rather than relaxing, he continued working. Dinner was modest, and he worked until midnight, writing orders and handling tasks. He only slept three to five hours a night.

““Six hours of sleep for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool.””

— Napoleon Bonoparte

No, thank you. I’ll be getting my eight hours. But that’s beside the point.

Memory is fallible. We can invent things that aren’t necessarily true. I crafted my version of Napoleon’s life from vague knowledge. I imagined him as a king living in luxury. In truth, he was a tireless worker, devoting his time to his country.

A Trail of Two Tales

Today, I embarked on a journey through the heart of Paris, tracing a path made famous by Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. My mission: to follow the spirited Gavroche and the two orphans on their way to the Elephant of the Bastille, a monument that once stood where the July Column now proudly rises. As I moved along this trail, this "bookpacking" adventure brought to life the lingering echoes of two tales.

The walk began near the Church of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais, a church named after an elm tree that was once a prominent landmark. In Les Misérables, Hugo describes Gavroche as "entranced in front of a wig maker's shop near Orme-St-Gervais," a vivid detail that anchors his journey in the particular geography of old Paris. From there, just as Gavroche would have done with the two gamins, I headed east, "up Rue St-Antoine in the direction of the Bastille."

A significant stop along this route was the magnificent Church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis. For those who read Victor Hugo’s novel, this church holds a layer of significance as the very place where Cosette and Marius eventually marry, a beacon of hope amidst the novel's tumultuous backdrop. A church so beautiful that the author insisted that they get married there. And he was not lying. The tall ceilings, beautiful architecture, and detailed statues made this church especially stunning. On a topic outside the novel, this grand edifice, with its imposing facade, held a subtle yet powerful testament to the French Revolution. Inside, on a pillar, I observed faint but discernible graffiti: "RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE OU LA MORT" ("French Republic or Death"). This stark declaration, likely scrawled during the fervor of the Revolution due to its frantic endings of each word’s spelling, was a chilling reminder of the radical choices and profound sacrifices made in the pursuit of liberty. The quiet reverence of the church now contrasts sharply with the violent passion once etched into its walls, not too dissimilar from Cosette and Marius. Cosette, the physically beautiful, innocent young lady, and Marius, the intellectually beautiful, with plenty of tumult along his journey. The graffiti was a reminder of the chaotic times in which this novel took place.

Another reminder of the time period of the novel is right across the street. Directly across the street from Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, a modern-day bakery stands. However, in the vivid imagination of a "bookpacker," this is precisely where the wine shop of Defarge and Madame Defarge, from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, would have stood. This proximity highlights the incredible interconnectedness of these two literary masterpieces in terms of their shared Parisian landscape. Something about this street was so crucial that both Dickens and Hugo wrote about it in their novels. It's as if the revolutionary spirit and the lives of their characters intertwine in these very streets.

Also interesting is the stark contrast between how the same location is used. On one side of the street, we have the pure church where two heavenly beings get married, and on the other side, the epicenter of brutality in the Revolution. On one side, we have all that is good and right with the world, and on the other side, we have all that was wrong with the Revolution. Inside the church, we have two opposing views, two different kinds of people coming together to form one union, where at the wine shop, we have a fragmented society, where even among cliques, there are cliques, where even among the Revolutionaries, if you were not revolutionary enough, you were killed.

Continuing along Rue St-Antoine, just as Hugo describes, we passed "the corner of that dismal Rue des Ballets, at the end of which you can see the low, hostile gate of La Force prison." This grim historical marker, the Prison de la Grande Force, was a place of immense suffering during the Revolution. A plaque on a building indicates its former entrance, chillingly recounting how, between 1782 and 1845, 161 detainees, including the Princesse de Lamballe, were put to death there on September 3, 4, and 5, 1792. For readers of A Tale of Two Cities, La Force is particularly poignant as the very prison where Charles Darnay was held captive, awaiting his fate during the Reign of Terror. The sheer number of lives lost at this very spot, in such a short span, underscored the immense human cost of the revolutionary zeal, making the suffering depicted in both novels feel incredibly immediate and real.

“...they were finishing their pieces of bread and cominig up to the corner of that dismal Rue des Ballets, at the end of which you can see the low, hostile gate of La Force prison...”

— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

We also took a small detour, where we got to see a bit of the actual wall remaining from La Force. Looking back at where the plaque that marked the entrance and the bit of wall from the back was, it was clear just how big this prison was and how none of it stands today. Instead, a street runs through the middle with numerous stores and shops for the people to enjoy.

Finally, just as Gavroche led the orphans, I arrived at the Place de la Bastille. Today, the majestic July Column stands proudly in the place of Napoleon's Elephant. In Les Misérables, the elephant was a powerful symbol of neglect and the unfulfilled promises of the revolution, a colossal, decaying structure that served as a makeshift home for Gavroche and the two boys. While the actual monument is gone, replaced by a different symbol of revolutionary triumph (the July Revolution of 1830), the location’s spirit remains deeply rooted in the struggles of the working class and the ideals of a new France. Imagining the boys finding refuge beneath the elephant, in the shadow of so much history, made the bustling square feel imbued with their presence.

This walk was more than just a historical tour; it was an immersion into the very fabric of Paris as depicted in Les Misérables and A Tale of Two Cities. The faint revolutionary graffiti, the stark reminder of the prison massacres, the proximity of iconic literary locations, and the imposing presence of the July Column all combined to create a visceral understanding of the historical context in which Gavroche, Jean Valjean, Charles Darnay, and countless others lived and struggled. The resilience of the human spirit, the enduring fight for liberty, and the indelible marks of history are truly etched into the heart of this city.

Day in the Life of Marius

Walking through the Saint-Germain, struggling to keep up with our small group of nine, I wanted to enjoy my time in Paris, but I felt rushed. It felt like we were zooming by each place, unable to fully absorb each landmark. Despite being in the land of slow living, we brought our hustle culture from the United States. In fear of being left behind and left out, I moved by short legs as fast as I could. Eventually, taking videos on my camera and getting stuck behind a signal light led me to being a block behind. I could feel the panic rising within me, but I decided not to catch up. I decided to take my time absorbing what was around me, going at my own pace. Maybe this was what being a Flâneur was all about. Getting a little lost and left behind, and losing your destination. 

When Marius left his grandfather to live at his own pace, he acquired characteristics of a Flâneur. Living day to day, watching society drift by him, with no real destination. He wanders around with no real purpose. He minimalizes his life, spending the bare minimum and selling his belongings in order to eat. Rejecting his grandfather's wealth and political convictions, he goes off the grid. He’s drifting, ideologically, kind of like how a Flâneur would never use a map. More importantly, he becomes an observer detached from society. This is especially true when he views Cosette in the Luxembourg gardens. He sees her from a distance and he doesn’t even speak to her. Marius observes her aura and the cadence of her walk and becomes entranced by Cosette. Despite this anonymity eventually turning into love, at the moment he was acting like a Flaneur, never acting on the emotional attachment. 

That day I decided to live a little like Marius. Starting off, I put myself on a budget of $20, which became 17 euros. I thought the budget was quite generous until I spent 30 minutes at the supermarket trying to come up with something suitable for me to consume with my remaining budget of 4 euros. Luckily I was able to stick within my budget, when I bought a baguette sandwich for 3,39 euros. I was proud of myself. 

Medici Fountain at the Luxembourg Gardens

More importantly, when we were at the Luxembourg gardens, instead of rushing to follow the group, I decided to hold back a little, and be left behind. It didn’t mean that was unsafe and forgotten like my brain was telling me. I could enjoy my own presence. I was surrounded by a million other people, but I was by myself. I read the ending of my romantasy book and journaled for a little while. I started studying the people around me. Tourists taking photos, students on their computers, and a woman scrolling through her phone. I felt like the main character, Marius, but I also felt like I was just a background actor of a million different people. 

This scene reminded me of where Cosette and Marius met. They were each other’s background actors until they were each other’s main characters. As I continued to read my romantasy book, I felt awed and struck by the grandiose statements of love similar to that of Marius. It was fast breakable love. The instalove that I wonder if it’s even longlasting. Is it just an obsession or an actual genuine companionship between the two? Regardless, Marius never really interacted with Cosette until much later. He viewed her with interest, but his lack of action proves his Flâneur-like behavior. Just wandering around without a map, looking at interesting people. 

After I finished reading my book at the Medici Fountain à Jardin du Luxembourg, I walked around aimlessly. I stopped to buy that baguette sandwich and then I found myself at the Seine River. For Marius the Seine river was a time of despair after losing Cosette. It reminded me again of how instalove can be toxic. Companionship love is steady and not filled with the ups and downs like Victor Hugo describes it. Despite the drama, I was just here to enjoy my baguette and people watch, like a Flâneur. I ate my baguette, watched the people beside me reading books, the other group of girls talking loudly. They were definitely from the same place I was…

Solo Date at the Seine River

As I sat there, I began to realize that being a Flâneur isn’t about passivity or laziness, it’s about redefining slowness. It’s about choosing to notice a world, instead of blazing past it. Maybe that’s why it felt so shocking to hear one should reclaim their time, instead of optimizing it. Being a Flâneur is not easy. It means resisting the pressure to finish like 20 things in one day, sit down and work for hours. It’s about living. It’s about breathing. It’s about looking. 

Marius didn’t find meaning in status and money. I mean he left his rich grandfather to marry Cosette. Instead, he rooted his years in observation, eventually leading to his discovery of love. 

I saw the tourist cruise, the snickers wrapper floating, the soft wave of the water. Noticing all the small details around me, I realized maybe being a Flâneur means to be present. Present in the little things around you. It makes me feel like the things I give too much responsibility in my head actually aren’t as important as I make them out to be. When you’re surrounded by a million people, but you’re just by yourself, you get the feeling you belong while maintaining your autonomy. I never understood this until I was sitting in front of the buzzing popular tourist destinations by myself. 

Fauna and Fiction: Reading Birds Through Dickens

Sitting along Regent's Canal on our day off, I was working through the day's reading assignment from A Tale of Two Cities. At this point in the novel, Charles Darnay has been imprisoned for one year and three months. Lucie, his wife, learns from her father that Darnay can sometimes get access to an upper prison window at three in the afternoon. Every day for two hours, Lucie waits outside that window, often with her daughter, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. She's even tormented by a wood-sawyer, who taunts her, pretending to cut people's heads off.

Just as I was engrossed in this moment, a loud group passed me, snapping me out of the plot (I've never been good at reading through noise). As I wait for them to walk by, I notice a raft of coots (birds similar to ducks), floating along the canal. There were two adults and six babies. Usually, waterfowl don't grab my attention since I often see them at home. But the water was so strikingly clear, and the birds were so close that I could see their webbed feet paddling furiously beneath the surface. Yet above the water? Completely serene. It was like the avian equivalent of running a marathon while keeping a calm composure. And right in front of my eyes, I saw Lucie Manette in these Coots.

If the characters from A Tale of Two Cities were birds, Lucie Manette would undoubtedly be a Coot. Throughout her life, she exudes calm, quiet strength. So much strength and a nurturing ambiance that three men want to marry her in the early chapters. But beneath that composed exterior, she carries immense emotional weight. She lost her son, spent most of her life believing her father was dead, only to find him in a broken state, and faces the imprisonment of her husband. Like the coot, she is constantly in motion beneath the surface, doing all she can to keep herself and those afloat. Occasionally, we get a glimpse through the clear water, and we can see how hard things are. When learning that her husband is imprisoned (for the first time), she had "fallen into a stupor on the floor". While we don't always have clear water, I know that she is the coot paddling hard, even when she seems calm. 

After finishing my chapter, I walked through Regent's Park. I saw a man with a striking Hyacinth Macaw wandering around the park. The Macaw would fly in a circle around the park, then perch on his arm. Looking back, he embodies Charles Darney. Macaws can fly freely, but they're also creatures of captivity. Sometimes they soar, and sometimes they are caged. At this point in the book, Darney has been released from prison, only to be re-arrested shortly after. His brief freedom feels like the Macaw's flight through the park. It was exhilarating and beautiful to be reunited with his wife, but the reunion was inevitably short-lived. The hyacinth macaw itself is a vulnerable species, but tragically, many other macaws, including the Spix Macaw (featured in Rio), are almost extinct. This is due to habitat loss, climate change, and exploitation through the exotic pet trade. Its uncertain future mirrors Darnay's, because at this part of the book, I was unsure if Darnay would live. While Darney's future is predetermined, I will do my best to prevent the macaws from going extinct in my lifetime.

Earlier in the week, I stumbled upon a lone swan in the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. Quick backstory on swans: There is a noble tale that a mother swan gave birth to a brood of young chicks. As they grew up, they became violent toward the mother and attempted to peck her eyes out. In anger, she retaliates, killing her young. After three days, she regrets her actions and lets her blood drip on the young. They revive, and she dies. I'm sure you can see the symbolism of Jesus here, but there is also symbolism with Sydney Carton. After finishing A Tale of Two Cities, I found out that Carton died in place of Darnay, choosing to do so because he loved Lucie, Darnay's wife. He sacrificed his life because of his love for Lucie. His death is a form of resurrection, the same as the swans was.

Birds have always been a part of my life. My parents and grandparents taught me to notice and appreciate the world around me, especially birds. This love led me to volunteer at the World Bird Sanctuary, a role I have held for the past three years. One of the birds that has touched me deeply is the American Crow, also known as Aesop. 

Aesop earned her name through being the "soppy crow". She had an obsession with baths, taking as many as seven a day. But she was more than her quirks. She was brilliant; she learned how to recycle, paint on canvases, and even accept donations. If there were a lull in donations, she would stick her head in the bin, remove a bill, make eye contact with me, redonate the bill, and demand a reward. Aesop passed away a couple of weeks ago, and I still feel the weight of her absence.

Now, Katie, what does any of this have to do with A Tale of Two Cities? I'm so glad you asked. Not only do I see birds in the characters of A Tale of Two Cities, but I also see the author. On a visit to Charles Dickens' home, I learned something rather funny. Not only was he the first person to install a shower in his house rather than a bath, but he also had a pet Raven named Grip. Although ravens are slightly different from crows, both are remarkably intelligent and known for their personalities. In many ways, Charles Dickens embodies Aesop the American Crow through being social, clever, and craving connections. Aesop craved connection. She loved back scratches from her favorite people. Dickens, considered a reformer of his time, often gave public readings of his work, seeking to engage directly with his audience. May they both rest peacefully, having brought such joy to those who knew them and their work.

As I think about the birds I've seen, I'm in awe of how seamlessly the birds can fly into the pages of Dickens's world and mine. Whether it was the coot's quiet endurance, the Macaw's fragile freedom, the swan's selfless sacrifice, or the crow's cleverness, each creature revealed something more human than expected. Literature and nature aren't all that different. They teach us to notice what moves beneath the surface, and to find meaning in every flutter, silence, and sacrifice.

In Sydney’s Shoes

Dawn breaks over the banks of the Seine.

Sunrise over the Seine.

I stand at the river’s edge as the sun slowly rises over the horizon. Its fragile rays gently light up Paris’ cobblestone streets, and the entire city turns to gold.

It's as if all of Paris takes a breath. From my spot on the Île de la Cité, I watch the sunlight gently touch windows and the river's rippled waters. As the clock strikes seven, the air slowly warms, enveloping the city in a soft embrace.

Standing here, I’m reminded of A Tale of Two Cities’ descriptions of dawn. The first occurs when Sydney Carton leaves Stryver’s lodgings, exhausted from combing through Stryver’s upcoming cases. As he slinks back home, a bleak day unfolds: the air is “cool and sad” and the “dull sky [is] overcast.” When Sydney gets home, he collapses onto a “neglected bed,” its pillow “wet with wasted tears.” It’s a dejected, desolate description, mirroring Carton’s own downcast spirit. He heads home lifeless and lonely, mourning his wasted potential and the life he let slip through his fingers. For Sydney, there is no beauty, only bitterness. The sunrise welcomes another wasted day.

Fortunately, there's another dawn that I want to draw our attention to - one that better matches the beauty that surrounds me as I stand on the bank of the Seine. This one occurs after Sydney decides to save Darnay. Though we haven’t yet discovered the details of his plan, we’ve just seen him strike a deal with John Barsad and purchase small packets from the chemist’s shop. Later, we learn that these arrangements allow Sydney to switch places with Darnay and go to the guillotine in his place. The Sydney we see here is a man transformed, filled with noble purpose and unshakeable resolve. Just look at how differently the dawn is described:

“The glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike… straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while the river sparkled under it.”

— Charles Dickens

How profoundly beautiful! How distinct from the dawn that came before! Here, Dickens uses the shift in scenery to highlight Sydney’s changed nature. Though he once returned home to a neglected bed and overcast sky, this new Sydney Carton stands before warm sunlight and sparkling waters. The “bridge of light” that seems to link him and the heavens illustrates the change in his life’s trajectory. Though he once condemned himself to the bottom dredges of society, telling Lucie that “I shall never be better than I am. I shall sink lower, and be worse,” his soul now soars upwards as he dedicates himself to a greater purpose. Just as I saw the bright sun chase away the last traces of darkness, Sydney’s new calling overcomes the pain of his past.

But what exactly is Carton condemning himself to? We step into his shoes as we walk through the Conciergerie, a massive and monstrous building whose formidable walls contain countless concrete cells. The smallest cells are sparse and scarcely five feet wide. Amid the dimness of the Conciergerie, lit only by flickering candle flames, Sydney probably breathes in the same damp, musty scent that hangs in the air during our visit.

Yet even as he takes in these dismal surroundings, Sydney accepts his fate with confidence. Indeed, it is with a “bright and remarkable” composure that he changes places with Darnay, swapping their clothes with a strength and swiftness that seem “quite supernatural” for this once-morose man. Just as we’ve seen with the two different descriptions of dawn, Sydney’s outlook totally changes at the Conciergerie. He becomes a man of solid conviction and profound purpose, and not even the darkest circumstances can dim his spirit.

Exploring the Conciergerie emphasizes just how much Sydney sacrifices for the sake of a family that will never be able to thank him. The Place de la Révolution, the site of the old guillotine, drives this message home: when we get there, I realize just how terrified the Terror’s victims would have felt. The entire plaza is flat, so the condemned would’ve walked up the raised scaffold in full view of the crowd. The plaza also stretches for hundreds of feet, meaning that prisoners were swiftly shuttled to the guillotine like parts in an assembly line. Amid this moment of dread and degradation, Sydney softly reassures a small seamstress. His gentle bravery inspires courage, and the seamstress faithfully fixes her eyes on his.

The guillotine's blade goes down.

A cell in the Conciergerie and the Place de la Révolution.

“They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man’s face ever beheld there. ”

— Charles Dickens

When we trace Sydney’s steps, we see the sheer horror of the future he’s condemned himself to. Yet despite the ghastliness of the guillotine, Sydney is the most calm and confident that he’s ever been. Out of his humility and loyal love, he chooses to make a profound sacrifice so that both Darnay and himself can be saved.

I wish Sydney had known his worth earlier. I wish he had always believed, as firmly as he did in his final breaths, that his life could be redeemed. We see how his perspective changes as soon as he finds his purpose, how he barely notices the horrors of the Conciergerie and Place de la Révolution. For the first time in his life, Sydney welcomes a new day.

Perhaps it’s a reminder for all of us that sometimes a shift in perspective is all it takes to turn things around. Sometimes in class, I’ve been scared to speak up because my contributions don’t seem as worthy or as sophisticated as others’ do. (Perhaps that’s what held Sydney back, too, for so many years.) Yet Sydney’s life didn’t just become meaningful when he decided to give it away. That value was always there - Sydney just didn’t see it! I’d like to remember the same for myself, and reader, whoever you are, the same applies to you.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

— Sydney Carton

Borders With the Appearance of Walls

It was a quaint and unsuspecting Sunday evening, the perfect time for an infiltration. Never in a million years did a halfbreed from across the world think he could find himself inside an institution built for London’s old money, a place that once ruled the world through night and day (after all, the sun never sets on the British empire). My father had grown up poor, and not just poor, but poor poor. The idea of his childhood home lacking running water and brandishing an outhouse out back felt worlds away from the silver and gold ornamented bathrooms of the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) – because it was.

Yet here I sat on a windy Sunday drinking an £8 pint in the terrace of a club where international deal-making regularly takes place. To say I “infiltrated” the RAC doesn't do it justice. It wasn't a break in, it was quiet, calculated. Hell, I even bought a brand new pair of leather shoes just to fit the part. But, rightfully so… Here, it would appear that even the pigeons remained on their best behavior in the presence of such nobility. Aggressive? No. Anxious? Yes. Restless? Surely. But just as this whole city works, they knew their place. Patiently they waited atop fresh trimmed bushes, never stepping out of line, never daring to interrupt. Silently, orderly they awaited their chance to pick at what scraps remained on the plates once the aristocrats had finished their lavish meals and retired back into the safety of the club. Once the chance presented itself they sprung like the wild animals they were conditioned to be, vigorously pecking at the crumbs; vigorously slurping the spilled wine up off of the cobblestone streets. Dickens exemplified this hierarchy in his novel A Tale of Two Cities, it was seemingly how this city, his society at large, functioned. 

“In the city they say you’re never more than 6 feet away from a rat – I argue this rings more true for pigeons, for I rarely see a pigeon that can’t scale a wall. After all, in London you’re never more than six feet from a pigeon, no matter how large your trust fund is. ”

In reality pigeons have no concern for walls, and that should make sense; for these are walls you can’t touch. They are non-existent. They are made of manners, accents, and designer shoes. Physical? No. Rigid? Yes. Enforced? Surely. They are simultaneously there and not there, simultaneously infiltratable and not. The RAC felt like a contemporary projection of Telson’s bank: archaic in its style of clinging to a long gone system and pre-established order. Indeed it did feel “very small, very dark, and very ugly,” morally at least. A place frozen in time, an echo of an outdated caste system that is more concerned about the familiarity of your last name, the color of your skin, and, of course, the amount of commas in your bank account. Sadly, as mentioned, this order wasn't established or even particularly exclusive to the RAC. No, it was expansive across the city, a city built of borders that appear as walls. This was the sick genius behind London’s ancient order, their ability to mask the hierarchy behind politeness. Courteous enough to not bar anyone from entering these places, but firm enough to ensure you know you will never get in. Borders are something that are meant to be crossed — walls are not. 

In his book Dickens highlights a pure-hearted French aristocrat as a protagonist. Darney – a man from exorbitant wealth that willingly and purposefully rejects this established order. He goes out of his way to shed anything that associated him with this system of privilege; his title, his family, even his last name. He chooses to infiltrate the working class looking for meaning in the pure and mundane. He wishes to earn what he has, and to be judged by his character, not his last name. I have this noble image of him in my head, taking one last stoic look back as he stands atop that strong wall, before finally throwing his rope down the other side and beginning his descent. 

Meanwhile, while he infiltrates the working class, I am still on my mission to see what's on the other side of that wall as well. I've spent my life scaling that wall that Darney so wilfully repels down. After all, I knew the RAC didn't have anything so important that it would change my life. Did I need entry? No. Did I want it? Yes. Was I going to get it? Surely. In reality I hate fancy cigars and old whiskey (cheap tequilla and barefoot on a beach is more than enough for me). I wasn't scaling this wall for the power, or the money, or the prestige. I was scaling it to prove that it could be done – to see how it would seemingly dissolve once I reached the top. It takes a lifetime to build a ladder strong enough to reach the top of that wall, but it only takes a simple rope to descend it, to descend back into the ordinary. So as it would happen, on my way up that wall I pass Darney. Him descending his rope, me scaling my ladder. We lock eyes, exchange a silent nod, and then proceed in our directions respectfully. The kind of nod that says everything while saying nothing, the kind that says “I have to do this for reasons only I understand.” The same kind of nod I gave the concierge at the RAC on my way in. The only kind of nod that can simultaneously and wholeheartedly tell the tale of two cities. 

As I gulped down the last swig of my pint I felt  metaphorically distant from the well behaved pigeons that surrounded me. I was no pigeon. I was a Bedford Place fox. Quiet, calculated, persistent. Foxes don't beg for scraps – they come in the dead of night, memorize the land, the cracks in the walls, and return on their own terms. Patiently they await their chance at their target – sometimes prey, sometimes not. Skillfully they acquire what they want, even if it means going places they are not supposed to be.

A Belford Street fox I encountered on the stroll home.

And, perhaps, the real rats were – are – the aristocrats. The ones dining on the lavish meals. I recall, from my days in the corps, an old military flash tattoo inscribed with the words “Rats get fat while brave men die.” Luckily, when the time of reckoning finally comes, just as it does in the novel, the fattest rats are the easiest for the foxes to catch. I think Madame Defage would certainly agree. 

Understanding the Democratization of London in its Urban Design

Perhaps there’s a British idealism of social order that will always reside in London. Or so the saying goes, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Charles Dickens explores this line of reasoning in his construction of London within A Tale of Two Cities. London’s social genetics are apparent in the way that the monarchy still exists in the 21st century; however, I don’t believe it to be so obviously evident in the urban design. Streets have a paradoxical quality to them when an absolutist king stares down the road to the site of his own beheading. I am of course describing the statue of King Charles I who faces southward towards his demise at the Banqueting House on Whitehall. A little ways down and the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth—Oliver Cromwell—is stationed outside of Westminster Palace. Safe to say, there is a blurring in British values as you pass statues of both an absolute monarch and absolute democrat within a ten-minute stroll.

So what does this say about London? Well… it’s complicated. London’s historical journey to democratization is inseparable from the city’s streets. There has been a maintenance of the traditional landscape amidst the growth of democratic principles. That’s the ingenuity of the city though, embracing heritage and novelty alike. Buildings bear meaning in ways that go beyond human intentionality. I found this especially relevant while bookpacking Dickensian London. Dickens positions Tellson’s Bank near Temple Bar, the western access point to the old, walled-off City of London. This 1780s mapping of Fleet Street must be independently visualized today as Temple Bar has been moved adjacent to St. Paul’s Cathedral and Tellson’s Bank is a space available for yuppie business gentrification. Poor Mr. Lorry is turning over in his grave as we speak. In its day, Tellson’s was a stale-aired establishment of the old British dogma. This is the dogma that upholds class above all else.

“It was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners in the House were proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness.”

— A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

Drawing by Phiz

Drawing by Phiz

In studying the foreclosed bank from which Dickens drew inspiration for Tellson’s, there’s little indication of what the above passage describes. The stone facade has been redone in an attractive romanesque manner that complements the neighborhood. This is a spot in which it’s hard to find the dogged ode to British traditionalism when it’s not right in front of you.

The skyline in the financial district provides a meditative alternative to Whitehall and Fleet Street. There you will see the Corinthian columns of the Mansion House wherein the Lord Mayor of London sleeps each night and skyscrapers of steel and glass towering behind. There you will look to the horizon on Lime Street and see the 16th century St. Andrew Undershaft church birthing the Gherkin out of its clock tower. There you will stand on the cobbled street corner admiring the Victorian Leadenhall Market on your left and the exoskeletal Lloyd’s building on your right. London combines the modern age of architectural design with the past. I illustrate this point to say that bookpacking A Tale of Two Cities means seeing streets through a timeline of change. I am seeing London’s Darwinian evolution. The inheritable traits of the city have adapted over time with external pressures of social disruption.

“In this respect the House was much on par with the Country; which did very often disinherit its sons for suggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly objectionable, but were only the more respectable.””

— A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

There was no capital-lettered English Revolution. I understand this conceptually thanks to the teachings of my ex-BBC professor and I understand this in the way London’s urban design is both static and dynamic just as the process of democratization was. The people of Britain reformed in a manner of small steps. Through the American and French Revolutions, Britain remained devout to the monarchical ideal. It’s bewildering to imagine how those that approved the beheading of King Charles I in 1649 would feel about King Charles III sauntering around Buckingham Palace. Yet, the king of then is no longer the king of now. The path to personal liberty was a sequence of adaptations. Britain’s genetics were not altered all at once.  

Suis-je un vagabond?

Staring out through the voilage of my balcony, I count down the days until I go home. Immediately, I feel guilty. Why am I feeling this way? I’m literally in Paris, the city I’ve dreamed of since I was 13, when I first started studying French. I imagined croissants, cobblestone streets, and charming conversations in cafés. But what started as excitement to practice my French has slowly transformed into discomfort and a deep yearning to return home.

I’ve never been someone who adjusts quickly. Transitioning between three places (home, London, and now Paris) in just two weeks has been hard. I’m someone who thrives on routine, stability, and quiet spaces to reflect. Without that, I feel off-balance. And when I’m off-balance, I feel unlike myself.

““You know my vagabond and restless habits. If I should prowl about the streets a long time, don’t be uneasy; I shall reappear in the morning.””

— Sydney Carton, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

I never expected to relate to Sydney Carton. Yet here I am, seeing myself in his quiet wandering. Sydney, drunk on sorrow and unrequited love, roams the streets of Paris retracing Lucie’s steps. He waits outside the prison where she visits Charles, silently admiring her devotion. There’s something deeply tragic in his stillness, in the way he gives everything without expecting anything in return.

Throughout the novel, Dickens paints Sydney as the man we fear becoming: unfulfilled, overlooked, aimless. But maybe that’s the point. Sydney is human. Raw. Relatable. We aspire to be Charles Darnay, noble, successful, and principled, but it’s Sydney who transforms. It’s Sydney who grows. From apathetic lawyer to hopeless romantic, to vagabond, to martyr, Sydney shows that even the most broken souls can rise again. His final act, a sacrifice, gives his life meaning. Even if that purpose is twisted by modern standards, maybe that was enough for him.

As we explored the Revolution more deeply, uncovering the true sparks behind its eruption, poverty, power, and pain, it became clear that history isn’t just facts; it’s people pushed to their limits. Centuries of inequality, layers of Enlightenment thinking, and a tax system that was rigged harder than Monopoly with my sister that triggered this revolution. Aristocrats paid nothing, the Church paid nothing, and guess who paid everything? Everyone else. And yes, they were mad.

Dickens paints the Revolution with an eerie beauty, juxtaposing celebration and destruction, joy and rage. “It was the best of times and the worst of times.” One of the most chilling moments we discussed was the Grindstone scene. You can practically hear the blood hiss from the blades. The revolutionaries aren’t fighting for a dream anymore, they’re sharpening tools for vengeance. That’s the terrifying part. Coming to Paris isn’t the problem. Coming back from Paris? Now that’s where the fear lives.

La Force: once a dreaded prison of the Revolution. Today, only a weathered stack of stones stands where thousands suffered.

Then we hit the streets, Rue Saint-Antoine, where fiction meets fact. We tracked down the Ste. Catherine Fountain, where the Marquis’ coach tramples a child, a chilling metaphor for the nobility’s indifference. And we stood near the crumbling remnants of La Force, where Darnay was imprisoned. Even more surreal? Estimating the spot where the Bastille once stood, now a bustling square. The ghosts of revolution were replaced by scooters and shopping bags.

And here's the twist I didn’t expect: Dickens wasn’t exactly breaking news with his storytelling. He borrowed heavily from Carlyle’s historical account of the French Revolution. That’s right, our beloved Dickens was basically doing 19th-century plagiarism. But that doesn’t discredit him, it just proves his role wasn’t a historian, but a storyteller. One who planted seeds early on for what would become a storm of guillotines, mobs, and martyrdom.

While walking through Le Marais, we traced the very steps where Charles Darnay was imprisoned, La Force. I thought not of him, but of his discomfort. His real, gut-wrenching fear. He wasn’t worried about routine. He wasn’t scrolling through social media or hunting for AC. He was focused on survival, on saving Gabelle, on holding onto Lucie’s hope. Lucie was focused on saving Charles. Dr. Manette on pulling political strings. Sydney on giving Lucie a life he could never be part of.

And here I am… irritated by the smell of cigarette butts in my apartment.

It put things into perspective. We’ve come so far. My complaints, about lack of WiFi, the heat, unfamiliar routines, they feel embarrassing now. If Dickens’ characters saw our lives, I think they’d be stunned: people glued to screens, navigating vast cities with a tap on a phone, riding underground trains beneath the very soil where revolutions unfolded. I’m living the life I once wished for. So why does it still feel heavy?

Maybe this is the real reason for travel: not just to explore new places, but to confront new parts of yourself. Travel has a way of unearthing all the small things you don’t realize you cling to until they’re gone. It forces you to expand your comfort zone, not by choice, but by necessity. To sit with discomfort. To be a little lost. A little unsure. A little Sydney Carton.

No, I wouldn’t want to live in the 18th century. No AI, no cybertrucks, no AC? Absolutely not. But I’m starting to see how losing your routine, your rhythm, your control, even just for a while, can give you something else: a mirror. Not always a flattering one, but a necessary one.

And maybe that’s what being a modern vagabonde is all about. Wandering, not just through cities, but through yourself, until you find something worth coming back to.

Layers of London: Exploring History, Culture, and Power

As someone who left America for the first time, exploring London has been both enriching and eye-opening. Throughout our journey across this bustling global city, I’ve discovered how deeply rooted art, history, and culture are—not only in the past, but also in the present. Towards the start of our bookpacking expedition, we visited two of the city’s most acclaimed landmarks, Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey. These structures, which encompass extensive royal and religious power are situated just across the street from one another. We were able to witness firsthand how the monarchy continues to maintain its influence on British society. The palace distinguishes itself from the general public with its soldiers guarding the secrets that linger behind those gates. It is interesting to me how British society has decided to conserve the monarchy and what that ultimately means for the lives of everyday citizens.

In the past, when I have dwelt upon institutions like the British monarchy, what often comes to mind is colonialism, especially as someone who is of African descent. I believe that while one can appreciate the grandiose view of Buckingham Palace, it is also important to recognize the harm that has occurred in the name of expansion and exploitation. While we were at the Tate Modern museum, a piece struck me that appeared to exude similar themes of occupation. This piece depicted a Black woman who was a circus performer assigned the role of appearing “exotic” to circus goers. The fetishization that Black people were subjected to during the 1800s led to the stripping of their humanity. Othering Black people in this manner contributed to the justification of colonizing African and Caribbean countries by the British Empire.

Before arriving in London, I was not familiar with Westminster Abbey. However, as I strolled through the halls, I realized how integral it is to London’s history. I didn't expect notable scientific figures like Issac Newton and Stephen Hawking to be buried in such a major religious institution, since science and religion are often not viewed as complementary to one another, especially in today's world. It was also evident to me that the operation of the monarchy was intertwined with Westminster Abbey. Seeing the coronation chair and high altar, which were dripping in gold, offered a glimpse into the ceremonial traditions that have upheld and reinforced the monarchy over time. The beauty of the architecture was striking and almost overwhelming in how much history it carried.

Later, walking along the row of gentlemen’s clubs gave me insight into the classism that still prevails, especially within wealthier circles. Classism is a recurrent theme in both A Tale of Two Cities and Les Misérables. For instance, in A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Darnay and Monsieur Marquis debate about the suffering that their high-status family have inflicted upon the poor. Marquis represents those who seek to uphold the status quo, while Darnay criticizes the oppression that is occurring. Today, these viewpoints are still expressed, especially within politics.

One of the aspects of London that initially caught my attention was its diversity. I honestly wasn’t expecting the city to be so multicultural. For instance, visiting Brick Lane allowed me to understand how Bangladeshi and Jewish immigrants have established their communities in the city over the years. I felt as if the city leans more towards embracing its diversity, rather than trying to reject its existence.

When we entered the Bank area of the city, I immediately noticed the contrast between the older architecture, such as Child’s Bank (referred to as Tellson’s Bank by Dickens), and modern skyscraper-like buildings. London’s ability to maintain consistent banking practices over centuries attests to the strength of its financial industry. While the exteriors of these banking institutions have evolved over the years, capitalism remains their core driving force. Seeing the site of Tellson’s Bank made Dickens’ critique of the financial world feel especially present. In A Tale of Two Cities, he depicts Tellson’s as a symbol of rigid tradition and moral judgement, where those in debt are met with little empathy. This attitude still lingers in our current capitalist society, where economic hardship is often blamed on individuals before considering the possible inequalities at play.

This week, we explored the relationship between legality and morality that Dickens discusses in A Tale of Two Cities. The Old Bailey court is a central piece to the plot, where convicts often are faced with possible death. I thought it was mindboggling how even the pettiest of crimes would result in an immediate trip to the guillotine. We can say for sure that such crimes would certainly not equate to immediate death in today's world. I also noticed that religion, particularly Christianity, was primarily used to determine what was lawful or moral. The lack of forgiveness echoed Jean Valjean’s struggles in Les Misérables, showing how redemption and acceptance were difficult to come by.

As we set off to Paris soon, I am excited to further explore how culture, history, and architecture shed light on what defines a city’s identity. I hope to gain a deeper understanding of how these iconic cities have changed over time, and what their streets and traditions reveal about the people who live there.

London Recalled to Life

“... it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness”

— Charles Dickens, ATOTC

Have you ever walked such a historically significant street or place that appears in the present day so… ordinary? That is how I felt walking along Fleet Street, one of those old London roads where the city seems to be torn into two: the old brick buildings where printing and publishing thrived and where the oldest tea company in the UK, Twinings, still stands, and the modern glass structures that envelope the relatively newly-introduced financial sector. As I was working my way through Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, I was also searching for the physical remnants of Dickens’ novel.

The Tale is as much about London as it is about Paris (hence the name). But while Paris in the novel is fiery and on the brink, Dickens’s London is shadowy and restrained — a place of quiet power and tightly held traditions. And that power, for Dickens, is often tied to institutions: law, finance, empire. So I went looking for one of them — Tellson’s Bank, the fictional financial institution that serves as a kind of anchor for the English chapters of the novel.

“It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners of Tellson’s Bank were proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness”

— Charles Dickens, ATOTC

Tellson’s is described as very small, very dark, very ugly, and very uncomfortable. It’s old-fashioned to a fault, but on purpose — the kind of place that prides itself on never having changed anything, even if that means working in the dark or hiring employees who are half-dead. However, Tellson’s isn’t a one-dimensional location; it is a symbol of English stubbornness, of power preserved through dust and tradition.

It’s fictional, but based on Child & Co., one of London’s oldest private banks, which used to sit at 1 Fleet Street, right where I was standing. The original building has since been refurbished, but still holds a similar structure to the old bank. Standing on that spot, I imagined Mr. Lorry emerging from the shadows of a gloomy night with a letter tucked inside his coat, bound for Dover, for danger, for revolution.

As you can see, not much has changed with Lincoln’s Inn Court (other than the cars)

Fleet Street today is much different. It’s modern, swarming with lawyers and financiers. But the bones are still there if you know what you’re looking for. But what was really fascinating was stepping into Lincoln’s Inn Court just a block away from Fleet Street, where time seemed to stand still, where the buildings look the same as they did in the 18th century, where the bustling of modern life is replaced with the songs of birds flying through its field.

Walking through Lincoln’s Inn Court, it was interesting to see that the directories posted at the front of each building, describing the content of each edifice, were handcrafted. It wasn’t printed or pasted in glass like today’s, but was instead painted by the hand of a real person. To me, something else was written. That no matter the passage of time, some traditions are worth keeping, for they add a richness and texture that shouldn’t disappear.

Just a few steps away from Tellson’s should have been Temple Bar. In Dickens’s novel, this is where Tellson’s kept its archives — “in a horrible little back room.” The symbolism is pretty clear: England’s secrets, stored behind gates, cataloged but inaccessible. Temple Bar marked the boundary between the City of London and Westminster — between finance and government, between commerce and rule.

The arch itself became a nuisance in such a busy street, and was dismantled. Years later, it miraculously reappeared after it was purchased by Valerie Susan and Sir Henry Meux, the fabulously wealthy heir to the Meux Brewery, which was based near Tottenham Court Road, who resurrected the building in their estate: Theobald’s House (image on left). It was then returned to the city of London and placed next to St. Paul’s Church, where I ended my stroll (image on right).

Earlier that day, I ate at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a 17th-century pub tucked away on Wine Office Court, just off Fleet Street. The walls are low, the air thick with centuries of smoke and conversation. It’s the kind of place that feels like it still talks of memories of years ago, giving you hints of it through the historic images and famous texts written by its numerous visitors, including Dickens and Winston Churchill, to name a few.

I sat in the booth where Dickens supposedly liked to sit. There’s a plaque, of course, because in England they love a good plaque. But that small brass sign had nothing on that feeling — that feeling of sitting where Dickens might have scribbled in the margins of his notes, watching the faces around him and storing them for later.

“They were even boastful of the inconvenience of Tellson’s, as if it were the only place left in the world where it was a virtue to be uncomfortable.”

— Charles Dickens, ATOTC

In that seat, with fish and chips in front of me and A Tale of Two Cities still fresh in my mind, I could clearly see where Dickens got his inspiration from. The grimy nature of the Cheshire Cheese was something he replicated in many of his novel’s locations, and also spoke to a real-life example of what we said about Tellson’s Bank. The short ceilings, dim lighting, thick air, and distinct smells of the antiquated restaurant were something that the English cherished. They prided themselves on the idea that modernizing or improving anything traditional is a moral weakness.

As I made my way out of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese and back into the daylight, I realized how profoundly Dickens was writing about the tension between tradition and transformation — not just in France, where revolution burned in the streets, but in England too, where the revolution was quieter, slower, more hidden under powdered wigs and cobbled lanes. It struck me that A Tale of Two Cities is not only a political novel — it’s a novel about inertia. About a country that clings to its institutions not because they work, but because they’re old. Because they’re familiar.

And yet, Dickens doesn’t totally dismiss this tradition. He sat in those same pubs, he walked those same streets. He was critical, yes, but also affectionate. He knew that the grime and discomfort were part of what gave London its soul. That contradiction — the beauty in the ugliness — is at the heart of the English chapters of the novel.

By tracing Dickens’s steps through the city, I wasn’t just visiting the settings of a story. I was witnessing how some novels are inseparable from place — how a city can shape a writer, and in turn how a writer can shape how we see a city. Standing on Fleet Street, ducking into hidden courts and aging pubs, watching the light fall on old stone, I wasn’t just reading A Tale of Two Cities — I was walking in it. And I wasn’t just traveling through the streets of London — I was experiencing Dickens’ London recalled to life.

A Separate Silence

Fleet Street is modern mayhem: cars honk, buses swerve, and businessmen push past us with their heads down and briefcases swinging. We have to nearly shout so that our voices can be heard, making exaggerated expressions and emphatic gestures as we hurry down this busy street. I slip between tour groups milling around taverns and tea shops, striding quickly to keep up with our USC group, and almost walk right past the little alleyway that leads to Middle Temple.

As soon as we turn onto this tiny path, the city’s steady rumble drops to a tranquil hush. Our voices, once barely audible amid Fleet Street's hustle and bustle, suddenly feel loud and out of place. It is like stepping back in time: old-fashioned lamps decorate street corners, barristers walk along cobblestone streets, and hand-painted signs adorn the entrance to each building. In the distance, we hear Gregorian chants softly streaming from Temple Church. 

A moment of silence in Middle Temple.

This is where Mr. Stryver lives in A Tale of Two Cities. When Stryver’s “great ally” Sydney Carton meets Stryver after a successful trial, he “turned into the Temple, and, having revived himself by twice pacing the pavements of King’s Bench-walk and Paper-buildings, turned into the Stryver chambers.” The “Temple” Dickens references here is the very same as the Middle Temple we're visiting. For the next few hours, Carton pores over piles of legal papers while Stryver reclines in front of the fire, occasionally picking up a "lighter document." It’s in this scene that we begin to glimpse the differences between each man’s nature. While Carton sheds sweat and tears, Stryver relaxes with brandy and rum in hand. Later, as dawn begins to break, Carton must retreat to his lonely lodgings, whereas Stryver immediately retires to bed.

In the portion of the book that we’ve read thus far, Stryver seems maddeningly entitled and out of touch: when he decides to ask for Lucie’s hand, Dickens teasingly writes that Stryver had “made up his mind to that magnanimous bestowal of good fortune on the Doctor’s daughter.” Artless and egotistical, this statement pokes fun at Stryver’s self-absorption and ignorance. It is clear that Mr. Stryver is a man unaccustomed to the denial of any pleasure, blissfully unaware of the miserable struggles of Carton and the common people around him.

Perhaps the cobblestone street Carton took to get home.

As our class marvels at Middle Temple’s manicured gardens, it becomes easier to understand Stryver’s obliviousness. Middle Temple is charmingly beautiful but profoundly insular: gardens are accessible by key card only, buildings are locked, and even prospective members of the Inn of Court must submit an £178 application fee. As we stand under a magnificent mulberry tree, there is no trace of the surrounding city’s chaos - it feels like a different world, one unconcerned with the strife of those outside its walls.

In class, we’ve been discussing the nature of societal change and revolution. History has shown us how people like Stryver perpetuate injustice by being focused solely on their own gain. Dickens characterizes Stryver as a sly and unscrupulous lawyer “already fast shouldering his way to a large and lucrative practice" - to Stryver, wealth supersedes others’ welfare. We see the same mindset in the Marquis, a large and loathsome man who runs over a child with his carriage. Stryver’s boorishness and the Marquis’ antagonism reveal the lack of concern that the upper class had for Europe’s common people, sowing the seeds of popular revolt. We’ve seen glimpses of this in the novel already. In France, Madame Defarge ominously knits a register of those “doomed to destruction,” including those connected to the Marquis. She vows vengeance and retribution, insistent on the triumph of the tyrannized peasantry. Middle Temple and the Marquis' château are achingly idyllic, but at a cost: to never venture beyond their walls is to join the aristocrats who crush others in their own climb to the top.

The next day, we walk past old debtors’ prisons and weave our way through packed streets, reminiscent of the urban crowds of centuries past. Though I miss the quiet serenity of Middle Temple, this moment is proof that London’s beauty lies not in its exquisite architecture nor in its amazing royal relics. Instead, I've learned that London’s great strength is its people. There's the family that sells my favorite hawker food at Borough Market, the incredible cast of Sondheim Theatre’s Les Misérables, the motley group of drummers who fill Soho Square with sound… Every corner of this city has so many stories. London has its tales of nobility and scandals and international intrigue, of course, but to truly know this city is to understand the long and intricate histories of the countless families who call this place their home.

I think Dickens would agree. When we toured the Dickens Museum, I met Annabel, one of the volunteer guides. She eagerly recounted details from his brilliant career - we heard about his daily routine (four hours of writing each morning), his hobbies (theater and countless walks), and apparent love affair (!). Yet what most stood out to me was this: “When Dickens had visitors,” Annabel said, a smile slowly spreading, “he never took them to the posh parts of London. They never went to Westminster or Mayfair." Instead, they went to the sites of the city’s poor, to crowded streets and dilapidated buildings. It was as if Dickens was saying, “This is truly London.”

Scenes from the city: Soho Square, a crowded subway, Borough Market, and the Chinatown Gate.

This is the beauty of venturing outside of Middle Temple. This is what the Marquis misses out on when he heartlessly casts away French countrymen. Though it’s a relief at first to be separated from the urban squalor, the silence of these privileged places separates us from the common people whose stories shape history. It's Carton, not Stryver, who is a "man of good abilities and good emotions," and Madame Defarge whose resolute determination underlies a revolution. When our idyllic ignorance causes us to neglect other people, our privilege becomes a threat. Even now, in the age of social media and online news articles, we can choose to ignore the plight of those around us. We can choose to create a secluded oasis of celebrity gossip and royal family feuds, purposefully scrolling past any mention of power or politics, but to do so is to refuse to take part in any real change. As Madame Defarge declares, this change will eventually take place - but we can take no credit.

Will we be a Stryver, comically ignorant of those around him, or a Marquis, detestable in his lack of care for commoners? Or will we instead choose to be Darnay, who vows to renounce his power and privilege for the sake of other people? May we keep our eyes and hearts open, choosing to listen to every person's story rather than being satisfied with our own silence.

“Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see the triumph. ”

— Madame Defarge

The Collective Voice of Nationalism in Song

In a theatre off of Shaftsbury Avenue, I’m immersed in the changing tides of the French government as the Friends of the ABC fight against the national guard. The epilogue is a swelling ensemble in the musical of Les Misérables. The students have died fighting against French bourgeois and King and in the finale of Jean Valjean’s death, the cast joins together in song. 

“Do you hear the people sing lost in the valley of the night? It is the music of the people who are climbing to the light.”

— Les Misérables Musical

The emotional storm inside me that has been raging for the past three hours of song and dance is subsiding. I finally exhale a sign of relief and find peace of mind in knowing that the killing is over and Jean Valjean rests peacefully.

I read Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables in preparation for this course. The behemoth text is a slow burn of Parisian mapping, historical dramatization, and ethical dilemmas. Les Misérables is a challenge in length and a page-turner in design. Hugo commands stylistic craftsmanship and sculps characters as breathing individuals. Musical productions strive to craft digestive entertainment for the average Broadway-goer. Cameron Mackintosh–the original producer of Les Misérables–tasked himself with turning more than a thousand pages of characters and conflict into orchestra, lyrics, and stage directions. Mackintosh told Les Misérables in the smallest nutshell he could. Momentary scenes capture years of transition and turmoil; Jean Valjean goes from convict to mayor in a matter of minutes whereas Victor Hugo dedicates hundreds of pages to the spiritual resurrection of the man fallen from grace. The musical may not be a carbon copy of the tale, but it has kept Victor Hugo’s work alive and accessible to people worldwide.

One notable difference in portrayal is the epilogue scene. In the novel, Jean Valjean dies in a quiet room with Fantine’s angelic ghost welcoming him to his afterlife. He dies and that is all. 

“He sleeps. Though fate dealt with him strangely, he lived. Bereft of his angel, he died. It came about simply, of itself, as night follows when the day is ended.”

— Victor Hugo in Les Misérables

In the quiet comfort of Jean Valjean’s death, there’s a certain sweetness.

The musical–by contrast–is an anthem of destiny. The belting ensemble of the living and the dead pump a fist at French transgressions and say, “No More.” It’s an uplifting and collective roar that counterbalances the other numbers.  I suppose both the novel and musical achieve a certain attitude of peace in the reader and audience member respectively. In both, you see Jean Valjean accepting death just as the good light accepts him. You see Fantine and the Bishop and Cossette and Marius love him one last time for the good man he was. This occurs in the musical as well, but with the addition of an ensemble.

As I watched the finale unfold, I recalled a clip my cousin (Samantha) sent me four months ago. At the White House Governors Ball, the United States Army Chorus performed the musical epilogue from Les Misérables for President Donald Trump. The choir entered the banquet hall in blocked formation as politicians wined and dined post inauguration. Sami messaged: “Trump’s got no idea what they’re singing.” He probably didn’t. I wonder about the choice of the U.S. Army to sing the epilogue number of Les Misérables. What was their intent? Was there a message? In the musical, this number is the peoples’ call for change from aristocratic oppression.

“We will walk behind the ploughshare;
we will put the sword away
The chain will be broken
And all men
Will have their reward
”

— Les Misérables Musical

Pardon the term, but I can’t help but think that these men and women were being a bit ballsy. I don’t believe that they were singing a song of praise, but rather of judgement. In so many words, they are saying that Americans will call for change from Trumpian ways. I could be wrong. I could be embracing a grey attitude about the new man in office. Whatever the case may be, strong reasoning was involved in the decision making process for this song. The Les Misérables epilogue is an impactful piece of music that traces back to an even more impactful piece of literature that traces back to an even more impactful past. This decision wasn’t left to chance. Nobody shuffled for a scrap of paper in a fishbowl. This was a purposeful decision; this was sending a message. I delight in their choice. I appreciate that this song captures the thematic timeline of history’s repetition and the collective voice of nationalism.   

A Tale of Two Perspectives

I had the privilege of visiting London for the first time three years ago today, and stepping into Westminster Abbey feels remarkably different now than it did then. Here, the lines between fiction and reality blur. This Monday, standing before Charles Dickens' final resting place brought an unexpected stillness and serenity. Serenity for a man who gave life to so many characters, so many corners of the human soul. 

To be buried in such hallowed ground, despite being someone who held no strong religious faith, alongside luminaries like Stephen Hawking, is in itself its own kind of testament - a secular sainthood. I believe that graves are meant to anchor memory, yet Dickens barely needs that - his stories endure. Still, standing there, I didn't think only of the legacy he left behind, but the stories we lost. The Mystery of Edwin Drood was left unfinished, mid-thought, at fifty-eight. Three years ago, I might've moved on quickly. Today? I find myself quietly grieving, not for the man but for the unwritten.

Charles Dickens Grave, Westminster Abbey

Stephen Hawking Grave, Westminster Abbey

As we left Westminster, we passed a protest led by military veterans. Curious, we asked what they were protesting for, and I learned about Soldier F. This British soldier shot and killed two people in Northern Ireland during Bloody Sunday, and attempted to kill five others. My first instinct was simple. Justice should be served. If those victims had been people I loved, I would want accountability. But one of the Veterans reminded us that Bloody Sunday happened half a century ago, and charges have already been dropped four times. Suddenly, my perspective shifted. What if it were someone I loved on trial, being pulled back into something from fifty-two years ago? The past is rarely settled, and perhaps not everything can be cleanly resolved. It was the first of many moments that week that reminded me that truth can have two opposing views.

On Tuesday, as I walked past the Old Bailey Courthouse, I felt a tangle of emotions. On one hand, this is where Charles Darnay was granted his freedom in A Tale of Two Cities. But it's not all sunshine. Real people once stood trial here for crimes as minor as theft and were sentenced to death. In this very courthouse, since 1674, one person might win their life back, while another could be crushed by the weight of this corrupt law. And that person might've been someone's child. Someone's entire world. I feel conflicted. Do I marvel at a literary scene made real, or mourn at the very real pain it mirrors?

“his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honor to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards.”

— Dickens, ATOTC

Old Bailey Courthouse

Wednesday, from Borough Market, we make our way to London Bridge, past the steps where Nancy was murdered in Oliver Twist, and soon we're standing next to the Golden Hinde. Albeit not a Dickensian landmark, we pause anyway. I learned it was an English ship that captured a vast silver shipment from the Spanish and evaded pursuit, taking three years to circle the globe. As Britain fought off the Spanish, it would eventually help England claim its stake in the New World, laying the groundwork for my existence. 

But next to me was a classmate whose parents immigrated from Spain. They might see this tale as something entirely different - a moment of loss, of conquest. And yet here we both are, looking at the outside of this replica ship, two perspectives shaped by the same history, yet standing on opposite sides.

Thursday, at the Dickens Museum, the house where he lived from 1837 to 1839, I find myself gravitating towards a volunteer named Mally. We talked for a while, and I learned that Dickens had ten children, and adored them in their infancy, but was a very neglectful father. He sent his sons to boarding schools and didn't bother to bring them back for Christmas. And yet here we are, curating his teaspoons, dinnerware, writing desk, and in my case, even his piano. 

He wasn't a saint. Not always kind. However, he wrote with a profound understanding of society and challenged the status quo. Funnily, maybe that's enough?

On Friday, we passed the site where Mary Ann Nichols, the first of Jack the Ripper's victims,  was murdered. As someone who is fascinated by mysteries, I've always been intrigued by the Ripper's unknown identity. However, in our seminar, I learned about the book "The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper" by Hallie Rubenhold. Rubenhold reframes the story by not hunting the killer, but by honoring the women whose lives were reduced to the manner of their deaths. Until that moment, I hadn't considered how much focus we place on the mystery, and how little on humanity. Her work reminded me that history, like fiction, can be told through many lenses. Who we choose to center in history matters. 

We also visited Dennis Severs' House, where I stepped into a world lit only by candlelight and layered with silence, scent, and suggestion. It was the closest I've felt to experiencing the 18th and 19th centuries from the inside out. I was able to see what a Dickens character might have seen and hear what they might have heard. It made me appreciate something as simple as electricity in a way I hadn't before. 

Hours later, I stood at Horizon 22, looking out over the entire city from above. London stretched endlessly in all directions. Lives were intersecting, stories unfolding, each window its own point of view. It struck me: every person I could see from that height carries their own lens. Their own story. Their own unfinished novel.

We can read the same books, walk the same streets, and stand before the identical gravestones, but we each carry our own lens. History doesn't change, but our perspective, and the perspective of the person telling it, does. That could be the gift of travel, of literature, of growing older. We have the chance to return to the same places and see something new. That's the gift of bookpacking.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

— Anaïs Nin

Historical London

Exploring the inside of Westminster Abbey, seeing Buckingham Palace, and even eating lunch at Charles Dickens' favorite table in his frequented restaurant was incredible. Growing up in Los Angeles, an extremely young city compared to London, truly historic buildings are a rarity. Therefore, it’s truly been astounding to experience the sheer amount of stunning historical sites which are commonplace in London. Everywhere you turn there’s some visual wonder, from towering gothic cathedrals and court houses, to intricately detailed storm drains and golden crowns atop street lamps

There has clearly been emphasis placed on both preserving and protecting every aspect of historical heritage and beauty of London, and the fierceness which tradition is defended is undeniable. This characteristic of Britain was recognized and discussed by Charles Dickens in his Tale of Two Cities, and his critical tone pushed me to observe this aspect of British culture more closely.

“(The British)…very often disinherit sons for suggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly objectionable, but were only the more respectable ”

— A Tale of Two Cities, Book 2, Chapter 1

There are both positive and negative aspects to protection of the old, and the culture, resources, and practices which London therefore cultivates.  

London’s emphasis on the preservation of tradition has resulted in a level of living history I had yet to experience prior to arrival. The fact that people casually walk past century old cathedrals on their way to work, have lived in the same apartment buildings for countless generations, and constantly are surrounded by historical wonders is mind blowing. It feels as if a past timeline has collided with our modern one, resulting in a medieval castle just outside of a hyper-modern skyscraper. But this was no accident, as there is clearly a distinct care and attention given to both the history and preservation of historical London. Despite Britain's rain, wind, and snow, I have yet to see a truly weathered or dilapidated building. Scaffolding is scattered around the city, filled with workers who ensure the upkeep and maintenance of these ancient structures. London not only protects the physical integrity of its city, but the cultural heritage as well. Blue circle signs and black plates are common across the city, each detailing the historical importance of whichever building or street they accompany. From a set of stairs where a character was killed in Oliver Twist, to detailing a historical figure who once lived in an apartment, London preserves it’s history and traditions through these educational resources.

The detail and artistry of London’s historical buildings demonstrate a clear emphasis on visual cohesion and beauty. While it might not be continued through its modern skyscrapers, London without a doubt still holds this cultural value, most evident through its emphasis on natural beauty and green spaces. There are flowers absolutely everywhere, from rose-filled baskets hanging from lamp posts, ivy and petunias spilling out of window stills, to pots and pots filled to the brim in front of shops and homes. Towering mature trees line the sidewalks, thoughtfully planted and cultivated so as to not uproot the sidewalks. There are so many public parks people flock to, which are kept so clean that it’s rare to spot anyone with a picnic blanket. In a purely modern utilitarian sense, these additions to the city are completely unnecessary, inferior in the face of pure efficient practicality. However, London persists in its striving towards beauty. Even if its modern buildings can lack the attention to visual detail as they had in the past, London's tradition of beauty and visual cohesion is without a doubt still present in its green spaces. 

Unfortunately, London’s emphasis on tradition has led to aspects in which, as depicted in the Tale of Two Cities, a lack of change and innovation which would result in improvement. While a definitive statement can’t be made, the degree to which historical and traditional sites are protected and prioritized is likely a contributing factor. There is an enormous lack of accessibility in London, particularly in regards to wheelchair and handicapped access. Handrails are scarce, elevators are rare, and I have yet to see any ramps. This is frequently an issue regarding historic buildings, with the argument for historical preservation or structural integrity often winning over accessibility. However, when the entire city is filled with hundreds upon hundreds of historical buildings, a large issue of accessibility presents itself. This isn’t an issue that just concerns specific museums or ancient cathedrals, but fundamental and basic necessities of daily life. The London Underground is the world's first underground railway and extremely historic, but is a nightmare in terms of accessibility. While they do have elevators, once you exit there are still several flights of stairs necessary to reach the train. Similarly, there are escalators sandwiched between several flights of stairs. While disability is in no way singular, the sheer amount of stairs which are still required makes the London Underground lack accessibility in key areas. This is just one example of a larger problem across London, which stems from a lack of improvement and change.

Furthermore, there is a general lack of A/C amongst the majority of buildings in London, especially in regards to historical ones. The reasoning behind this is likely similar to the lack of implementation of accessibility in historic buildings, to preserve and not damage historical buildings. However, the lack of A/C is concerning in several regards, specifically to the preservation of these cultural sites. While Britain is typically cold, overcast, and rainy throughout the year, our rapidly warming planet has resulted in brutal heat and humidity during the summer months. High temperatures and humidity is very problematic when it comes to the preservation of ancient art and buildings, as paint can crack, wood can warp or split, and the structural integrity of paintings can be damaged. While implementing A/C would require large amounts of construction to historical buildings, change must be made in order to preserve them as temperatures increase. 

Overall, the clear emphasis placed on maintaining history, culture, and tradition has both benefits and detriments. It has allowed for London to be an incredible hub for history and beauty, while also slowing it down in the adoption and implementation of typical modern necessities. In a city so fundamentally different from my own, it was amazing to see how differences in culture and values resulted in tangible, physical differences in the cityscape.

The Weight of a Leader

It was my third day in London, and I found myself on a stroll through Piccadilly, St. James, and Westminster, one of the many hearts of historic London. Having just finished Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, a certain quote echoed in my mind. As I walked through the grandeur of a city that was once, and still is, a metropolis, I was constantly reminded of Victor Hugo’s critique of England:

“But this great England will be angry at what we are saying here. She still cherishes, after her own 1688 and our 1789, the feudal illusion. She believes in heredity and hierarchy. This people, surpassed by none in power and glory, regards itself as a nation, and not as a people. And as a people, it willingly subordinates itself and takes a lord for its head. As a workman, it allows itself to be disdained; as a soldier, it allows itself to be flogged.”

— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Hugo makes this comment when recounting the Battle of Waterloo, one of the most important moments in European history. The battle ended the Napoleonic Wars, marked the end of Napoleon's ambitions to dominate Europe, and resulted in a significant shift in French public opinion, leading to his abdication and exile to Saint Helena. But Waterloo's impact reached far beyond the battlefield. It played a role in shaping the political landscape of Europe for the next century. It led to the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France and contributed to a period of relative peace in Europe, though Hugo points out that peace alone did not solve France’s problems, highlighting the enduring consequences of poverty and social injustice.

Hugo gives merits to Duke of Wellington on the victory, but says that he should not have a statue because it does not give credit to the equally important soldiers who fought this battle; a comment that he says the English people will not take to kindly, since they view themselves as subordinates to the Royal Family. They do not view England as the common man, but rather as the aristocracy and royalty. He argues that even after the Glorious Revolution, the French Revolution, and all the progress made since then, they would not erect a statue for the brave men who risked their lives in the victory, but instead make one for the Duke of Wellington.

Victor Hugo applies this mentality to the time period of the battle, but also inherently to the time of writing the novel, and I would argue it still lingers to this day. London still holds its roots in hierarchy and heredity. Walking through Piccadilly, I passed exclusive Gentlemen’s Clubs and statues of “heroic” kings and dukes, fantastic feats of architecture built to house the aristocracy, and, at the peak of it all, Buckingham Palace: a place where the Royal Family of England has occupied since 1837, the very definition of living in the past.

At Buckingham Palace, it was fascinating to see a regiment of current-serving British officers practicing instruments for a ceremony. These British Army regiments, called the Household Division, do this as part of their ceremonial duties and public engagements. They guard the royal residences, conduct events like the Changing of the Guard, and often play the music for these ceremonial occasions, contributing to the pageantry associated with the British monarchy (which, to be clear, is no longer the legitimate governing body of England).

Continuing the walk to Westminster Abbey, the church’s tour guide led us through the numerous tombs and shrines as if narrating a gilded book of English kings. Every alcove had a story, every stone a name I’d heard in some history class or BBC documentary. The walls were adorned with intricate engravings of Tudor roses and emblems of past kingdoms. And every now and then the tour guide would say, casual and confident: “We liked this king because he won this war.”

It was said with a smile, almost like a punchline. I don’t even remember which king it was — one of the Georges or Henrys, probably — but the line stuck. We liked this king because he won this war. As if the war had been a solo duel, the king the lone swordsman. There was no mention of the countless men who bled on muddy fields or the towns that starved to keep supply lines open. No mention of the mothers or the farmers or the craftsmen who backboned every soldier.

And that’s exactly what Hugo was pointing to: a nation that remembers its aristocrats like heroes and forgets the people who made their victories possible. The king did not win that war. The people did. The foot soldiers did. The cooks and quartermasters, the smiths and sailors. But when it comes to history — at least the version we most commonly see in touristy places like these — it is the noble, not the nameless, who are remembered. 

Westminster Abbey, magnificent as it is, felt more like a hall of royal rememberance than a church. It spoke in whispers of monarchy and martyrdom, of greatness made manifest in birthright. Standing beneath vaulted ceilings, I was among royal tombs and marble tributes, for many of whom did nothing other than subjugate the people so the wealthy could live lavish lives. A place that suggests a nation's soul can be found in the bloodlines of its rulers, rather than in the lives of its people.

Now, this is not an attack on England or its history. Many of today’s societies follow the same path, and many still praise prior kings and queens. History, after all, is told by the victors, and England’s victors were its aristocrats. So, of course they threw up statues for those who shaped the course of history. And there was the tomb of the unknown soldier, one of the most decorated tombs, sitting right at the entrance. So progress has definitely been made. It was just interesting how, even through so many revolutions, so much reform, so much progress towards the common man, the very thing that defines this country is the governmental figurehead of the past.