Tag: MariusPontmercy

Alias Undercover

It takes most of a year for Marius to learn Cosette’s name. Once while they’re stealing glances at each other in the park, Valjean drops his handkerchief by accident. It’s embroidered U.F. for Ultime Fauchelevent (his current alias). Marius finds it, believes it’s hers, and decides her name must be Ursula.  Later, when he learns that her father’s name starts with a U, he’s despondent, because the one thing he thought he knew about her has been taken away from him.

Since identity is the one thing that Hugo seems to keep limited to POV, for hundreds of pages they’re referred to by Courfeyrac’s nicknames for the duo: Monsieur Leblanc (because of his hair) and Mademoisele Lanoire (because she usually wears black, or did when she was younger).

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I did not see you there…

While the musical takes liberties in condensing a year of Marius and Cosette’s courtship into two days, there is precedent in the novel for love at first sight…or at least, love at first glance.

Marius notices Jean Valjean and Cosette frequenting the same park as him for over a year, but pays them no mind until he stops going for a while, then comes back and she’s hit puberty. Even then, he doesn’t really notice until one day Marius’ and Cosette’s eyes meet. *ZAP!*

Suddenly he’s very self-conscious. The next day, he starts wearing his best clothes when going to the park, making sure he gets seen by her, and then starts thinking, huh, maybe the gentleman might think I’m acting a little odd.

One day they walk by his bench, and she glances at him. He’s overcome…but also worried because his boots are dusty and he’s sure she must have noticed.

They steal glances at each other, flirting from a distance. Marius starts hiding behind trees and statues so that he and Cosette can see each other but Valjean can’t see him.

About this time Valjean starts getting suspicious and starts changing their routine to see if Marius will follow. Marius, being an idiot, does. Not long after, Valjean stops bringing Cosette to the park.

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Marius the convert

Marius is one of those people who throws himself whole-heartedly into his beliefs, especially when they reverse.

He grows up in a Restoration-friendly household that hates Napoleon, the Republic, and the Empire, but when he discovers they’ve lied about his father, who was a decorated soldier under Napoleon, he completely throws himself into supporting the Republic, to the extent that he embarrasses himself in front of his friends who, while they support the ideals of the Republic, aren’t too fond of Napoleon.

Later on he ties all his well-being to his hoped-for life with Cosette, going from the heights of happiness when they’re together to the depths of complete and utter despair when he fears he’ll never see her again.

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Thénardier at Waterloo

The one scene in the entire 45-page section on Waterloo that figures into any character’s story occurs at the very end, when Thénardier accidentally saves Marius’ father’s life.  He was in a pile of dead bodies, and Thénardier pulled him out to better get at his stuff. The “body” wakes up. “You saved my life!” “Um, yes, I did!”

Years later, the dying Col. Pontmercy impresses upon his son that he must find and repay the great man who saved his life, leading to some difficult choices when Marius finds out just what kind of person Thénardier is.

This is also why you need to be careful when abridging. Yes, you can pick up the basics from Pontmercy’s letter…but he doesn’t know what Thénardier was really doing before he regained consciousness.

The year I read the book the first time, I was in high school, and one of my teachers was using an abridged version of Les Misérables in another of his classes. I caught a glimpse of a student’s character study of Thénardier. Because their edition left out Waterloo entirely, the later misrepresentation of his actions here was taken at face value. It significantly altered the character by giving him a noble past that he never actually had.

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