Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Les Miserables, Book Two: Cosette; and Maison Victor Hugo in Paris

The Battle of Waterloo by William Holmes Sullivan
Two volumes done, three to go! I'm making real progress with Les Miserables, one of the books that's on my TBR shelves the longest. I've read 500 pages so far and completed two volumes. 

The second volume of Les Miserables begins with an extended description of the Battle of Waterloo. Talk about back story -- this section goes on for nearly fifty pages and at the very end, in the last three pages, we finally discover how it relates to the rest of the book! The awful Thenardier, the innkeeper who takes custody of Cosette, arrives on the scene as a thief, scavenging from the bodies on the battlefield. Nice.

Then we jump back to what's happening with Jean Valjean, now serving a prison sentence on another galley ship -- but not for long! He manages to escape by faking his own death after saving a sailor's life. He then retrieves some money and makes his way back to the Thenardier's village so he can rescue little Cosette from those monsters who are treating her like a slave. The scene where they finally get away from Thenardier is one of the most satisfying I have read in a long time. 




Jean Valjean and Cosette make their way to Paris, where they live quietly in seclusion for awhile, until Jean suspects he's being watched. They escape in a very exciting sequence, and wind up in a secluded walled garden which turns out to belong to a convent with a girl's school conveniently attached. In one of those amazing coincidences so beloved by Victorian writers, the elderly gardener is Fauchelevent, the very man whose life was saved by Jean Valjean back in Vol. I, which aroused Javert's suspicion to his true identity. Fauchelevent swears he will help Valjean with anything, and they arrange to smuggle Cosette out of the garden in a basket, so they can bring her back to the school through the front door. 

However, the conundrum is how to sneak Valjean out of the garden and back inside semi-legitimately as Fauchelevent's brother and new assistant gardener. In another amazing coincidence, one of the nuns has just died and it is her dying wish to be buried (illegally) in the vault of the chapel. Conveniently, the convent now has an empty coffin which needs to be filled with something and buried to avoid suspicion. It was no surprise that the plan succeeds, with some suspenseful plot twists.

This volume had a lot of twists and turns, and great plot development. However, it also included with some very detailed and long asides about both the Battle of Waterloo and the convent where Cosette and Valjean end up. I ended up listening to much of this on audio so I didn't mind the history and asides, but I cheerfully admit that my mind wandered during the extended action scenes. I'm really enjoying this book, but boy, it could have used some editing.

And now for some photos of Paris! 


Fountain in the square of the Place des Vosges in Paris 
Back when I lived in Germany, we were very lucky to be close to the border of France -- less than an hour's drive for an easy day trip, but even better, there was an express train to Paris from the nearest town. From my village train station, I could make it to Paris in less than four hours. If I booked far enough in advance sometimes it was as little as $80 for a round-trip ticket. Needless to say, I made the trip quite a few times. 
Portrait of Hugo on display at the Maison
On my second trip I decided to visit the home of Victor Hugo which is now a free museum, Maisons Victor Hugo (there's a second museum in Guernsey). It's in the Place des Vosges, a beautiful square in the 3rd Arrondissement, not far from the Place de la Bastille. Hugo lived at #6 Place Royal (now Place des Vosges) from 1832 to 1848. I hadn't read any of his works when I visited but the  museum is quite interesting. It includes a lot of his possessions from his entire life, including his writing desk and the bed in which he died, plus portraits of Hugo and some of his own drawing -- I hadn't realized he was also an accomplished artist.

Hugo's writing desk. He wrote standing up. 
It's definitely worth seeing if you're in Paris and if you're curious about writer's homes, as I am. I've been to several, including Jane Austen, Dickens, Hemingway, Ann Frank, and Goethe. I'd also love to go to Yorkshire and see the Bronte parsonage and the home of Elizabeth Gaskell. And now that I live on the East Coast I'm hoping to go up to the Berkshires and visit Edith Wharton's home.

Bloggers, do you enjoy visiting writer's homes? Which ones should I visit in the U.S.? 

8 comments:

  1. Thank you for this peek into Hugo's home! I also love visiting writers' homes. I always wanted to go to Wharton's house when I lived in New England, but I didn't make it there. Now we've switched continents and I can look for places to visit in Europe. :)
    Some that I recommend in the US are:
    Orchard House in Concord, MA (Louisa May Alcott)
    The House of the Seven Gables in Salem, MA (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
    Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst, MA
    Sunnyside in Tarrytown, NY (Washington Irving)

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    1. Oh, those sound great! And I just realized Edgar Allan Poe's house and grave are in Baltimore, not very far away. I also want to visit Prince Edward Island someday because of Anne of Green Gables.

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    2. Another place I would love to go. I never made it there either.

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  2. Naturally, I'm going to tell you to visit Herman Melville's farm Arrowhead if in Berkshire - https://berkshirehistory.org/
    Australians have not been very good at preserving our famous writers residences, so it's a pasttime I haven't been able to develop :-(

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  3. I've never been to a famous writer's home but would totally visit any if I could. If I ever make it back to London, I would very much like to visit Dickens' home. I just finished Dombey and Son and found out that the Little Midshipman is on display there. It's bits and pieces like that that draw me. :D

    Let me add to your list, The Mark Twain House in Connecticut. I've heard it is well worth a visit.

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  4. I regret that I never visited Dante's home when I did my semester in Florence, Italy. It must have been about the only museum I missed!

    I second both Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables and Mark Twain's Hartford, Connecticut home. I convinced my parents to stop at both locations on a family New England trip when I was in highschool, and all family members enjoyed the history and architecture of both houses, even if they were less into author's homes than I was!

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  5. One of my favorite places growing up--James Fennimore Cooper's house in Cooperstown, NY

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  6. I hope you do manage to get to the Bronte parsonage sometime, it's great. William Wordsworth's Dove Cottage in Grasmere is worth a visit too.

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