enjolra-s:

I’m glad you like my blog! And I’ve been learning French since I was 13, but I’m not fluent in it (yet) haha. 

I can’t say that enjoltaire was real, because the only person who could really say that was Victor Hugo haha. I do ship them together but all I can tell you is which parts of Les Miserables show that there could have been something.

Actually I already talked about it a while ago in THIS ASK. But I’ll give you some more details!!!

Just, about the gay rights in the 19th century France – after 1791 gay sex was no more a capital crime in France. It still wouldn’t really let two gay men to be out and be in a relationship, but it’s important to remember that it was completely normal for two men/two women to live together, “just as friends” back then. It was normal for them to cuddle and sleep in the same bed. LGBT history is more complex than most people think it is! 

But now back to Les Mis – when describing Enjolras, Hugo compares him to many maaaaany well known gay characters/people. 

“He was a savage Antinous.” – Antinous was a lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian. He died when he was in his early twenties and in the 19th century he replaced Ganymede as a western gay icon. Oscar Wilde often talked about him. 

“the bare throat of Evadne would have moved him no more than it would have moved Aristogeiton; he, like Harmodius, thought flowers good for nothing except to conceal the sword” – both Aristogeiton and Harmodius were lovers who killed the tyrant of Athens.

And while talking about Grantaire and Enjolras’ relationship he mentions not only gay people but gay people who were in relationships. 

“They are Pollux, Patrocles, Nisus, Eudamidas, Ephestion, Pechmeja.”

Patroclus – a character from Homer’s Iliad. He was a close friend and probably a lover of Achilles.

Nisus – Nisus and  Euryalus were lovers from Virgil’s Aeneid.

Ephestion, Hephaestion – was a very close friend of Alexander the Great. They both compared themselves to Achilles and Patroclus and many believe that they were lovers.

Pechmeja – Pechmeja was a writer in the 18th century. He was a friend of

Dubrueil, a doctor. When the writer got sick, his friend stayed with him until he was healthy again, but even then he didn’t move out and soon both men started living together. A few years later it was

Dubrueil

who fell sick and this time the illness was both contagious and terminal, but his friend refused to leave him alone.

Dubrueil

died in April 1785 and Pechmeja died a month later. 

“In the series O and P are inseparable. You can, at will, pronounce O and P or Orestes and Pylades.” – Orestes and Pylades avenged Orestes’ father, Agamemnon after the man had been killed by his wife. Their relationship is sometimes interpreted as romantic. 

I hope it helps just a bit with understanding their relationship and I totally encourage everyone to study all comparisons etc Hugo made because they are very interesting!

enjolra-s:

So at the beginning I’d like to say that even though I’ve read the book multiple times, those are just my personal thoughts! And I’d also like to mention that I see Enjolras as a heavily gay coded character (in a way that Victor Hugo would still be able to publish the book in 1860s, of course) (and Grantaire as a bi character but I have less sources for that than for Enjolras being gay). 

So.. I believe that there was no secret relationship between Grantaire and Enjolras. As much as I think they’d be able to keep their relationship secret in the 19th century Paris, I don’t think anything in the book indicates that there could be something. 

But! I do believe that there could have been something. We are only given a few chapters in which we see them interacting but even from the description of Grantaire Hugo is trying to tell us something? “Grantaire admired, loved and venerated Enjolras’’, “He had a need of Enjolras. That chaste, healthy, firm, upright, hard, candid nature charmed him, without his being clearly aware of it, and without the idea of explaining it to himself having occurded to him.’’. Then Hugo compares Grantaire and his relationship with Enjolras to, for example, Hephaestion (close friend and probably a lover of Alexander the Great), Patroclus (again.. close friend and probably a lover of Achilles from  Homer’s Iliad), Pechmeja and Pylades (I spoke about them in THIS post which is very old and I’m gonna redo it one day because I haven’t mentioned of some things in it). 

So yes, I think that both had some feelings for the other one, but due to the times they lived in, their own rather stubborn, sometimes clashing personalities and the lack of time, they never learnt about them and their relationship forever stayed in the ‘maybe’ phase. 

And I think that Hugo knew what he was doing (for all those who think that I’m lying – Victor Hugo knew about gay people and he even mentioned the possibility of a man being attracted to another man in Les Miserables! It’s not like they made us all in 1980s.)  

I’d be more than happy to discuss everything about enjoltaire and all chapters and comparisons but as you mentioned – you haven’t read the book and I don’t want to make you see some spoilers!