Three people asked me for Courfeyrac, and man I’m not complaining.
Here’s one: fanon Courfeyrac is terrible. He is all glitter and colorful sunglasses and frivolity. People tend to forget that he is practical (Out of him, Enjolras, and Combeferre, I tend to think of him as the most practical, tbh) and generous. He does tease and makes up sometimes mean nicknames for people and taunts cannons and throws charters into fires, but he is also grounded and generous. He lends Marius money, no questions asked, he gives Marius his old green coat, he scolds him for staying out too late, he talks Marius through what he is going to do after he can no longer pay rent, he tells Grantaire to shut his face when he’s yelling out the window and groping Matelote.
Also despite his fandom reputation for sleeping around, as well as his canonical “collection” comment, I tend to think he’s pretty respectful. He’s like Tholomyes, but HONORABLE. He’s not going to seduce or trick his way into anyone’s bed, and I think women know not to take a fling with him too seriously, and he doesn’t hide his intentions behind lies or lead people on. I also tend to think, based on his personality, charming and romancing people is just as appealing, if not more so, as sleeping with them for him.
It’s definitely canon that Joly and Bossuet have both been involved with Musichetta, and that Joly and Bossuet live together more often than not, and are in general Partners. From Preliminary Gayeties (4.12.2, Hapgood Edition):
Laigle de Meaux, as the reader knows, lived more with Joly than elsewhere. He had a lodging, as a bird has one on a branch. The two friends lived together, ate together, slept together. They had everything in common, even Musichetta, to some extent. They were, what the subordinate monks who accompany monks are called, bini.
And of course it’s established way back in 3.4.4 that Joly and Musichetta are An Item! Hugo never specifies their relationship beyond that; you can headcanon a full-on poly trio, Musichetta being on-again-off-again with both of them, Musichetta having dated one or the other of them first, both of them having dated her at some point before realizing that actually they’re just gay together, whatever. Current LM Fandom (and I very much include myself in this) has generally settled on the obvious poly reading.
If you were to pin me down and ask me under duress what I think Hugo Really Intended in full cultural context…? Honestly, I’d hazard that he intends them to be an established Relationship Triad. And probably one with minimal drama about it! Like, really-really, that would be my honest cultural-context-based, broader-reading supported interpretation. But I do think Hugo was probably thinking of the three of them according to a specific formulation that would have been recognized as a pretty Standard Trope by his readers.
Victor Hugo, although constantly pulling references out of nowhere, rarely makes an allusion to something without having implicit intentions behind it. His constant comparison of Enjolras to famous Greek and Roman pretty boys and his relationship with Grantaire to legendary male relationships can be taken as a veiled but intentional way to write him as queer.
In the context of Enjolras as an educated character living during the 1830s in Paris it can be assumed that he was aware of Antinous as a historical figure and would most likely be at least somewhat influenced by Greco-Roman ethos. Today we have the full context of the development of Antinous’s cultural influence as well as knowing what happens next for France historically after the June Rebellion, as did Hugo when he wrote Les Miserables in 1862. It is a whole new level of foreshadowing when you read the brick knowing what happens to Antinous and how he is more beloved and worshiped after his tragic death.
The parallels of Antinous and Enjolras are striking when we look at how they were both viewed and remembered by others. Enjolras wanted nothing more than to rally the people for change, to have his movement be loved and listened to by the public and to be immortalized in this veneration. And this kind of worship is exactly what befell Antinous, inspiring a city and later a cult and religion that can still be found today. Both die tragic and young with their male counterparts at their side, inspiring many postmortem.
Because of the obviously intended parallels between Enjolras and Antinous it seems safe to say that there are more similarities that are a little more implied. In the Wilbour translation Enjolras is written as being not interested in women at all, which contrasts the amount of Amis who are constantly talking about women and how to acquire their attention (Joly, Legle, Grantaire, Marius, etc.)
“His twenty-two years of age appeared seventeen; he was serious, he did not seem to know that there was on the earth a being called woman.” (Hugo, Part 4, Chapter 1)
This could be taken a number of different ways but overall each interpretation places Enjolras under some part of the queer umbrella. His disinterest in women is further described as,
“Had any grisette…seeing this college boy’s face, this form of a page, those long fair lashes, those blue eyes, that hair flying in the wind, those rosy cheeks, those pure lips, those exquisite teeth, felt a desire to taste all this dawn, and tried her beauty upon Enjolras, a surprising and terrible look would have suddenly shown her the great gulf…” (Hugo, Part 4, Chapter 1)
Woooooh boy! Okay so not only is he not interested in women he is also, as if not already otherwise stated before in grave detail, VERY PRETTY. Antinous was also known for his severe beauty and as Caroline Vout writes in Power and Imperialism in Imperial Rome, “his adoption as a gay icon.” So the similarity between the two can also be found in that they were both, at least assumed on Enjolras’ side, very pretty and very gay. And these connections are all being made without even touching on the subject of Antinous’ relationship with Hadrian and Enjolras’ relationship with Grantaire! The intensity his disinterest in women is written could also be read as his dedication to the revolution (and only the revolution) and could very well be understood as Enjolras being asexual or aromantic.
It is pretty easy to read Enjolras as queer even without looking into his written and performed relationships with others. Whether Enjolras be seen as gay or asexual or just simply a powerful force representing the people of the revolution*, many of his identities are queer.
So I guess what im really saying is that having the background info on Antinous, as well as other literary and historical characters Enjolras (and Grantaire) are compared to, gives queer readers some hard facts to work with when understanding subtext. Even when reading the brick without that knowledge you can still pretty easily find queer themes throughout it. So it’s like “you think this is gay now? Check this shit out!”
*I’m also addressing that Enjolras is described as being rich in the book even though he is leading a revolution for workers and the people. He is hardly marginalized the way queer activists are today but I feel that comparison can still be made.
“Grantaire added to the eccentric accentuation of words and ideas, a peculiarity of gesture; he rested his left fist on his knee with dignity, his arm forming a right angle, and, with cravat untied, seated astride a stool, his full glass in his right hand, he hurled solemn words.”
Going off old letters and journal entries of the time, it seems to have been pretty common, yeah! Even friends who were on tu terms would often use last names to refer to each other. While some people almost always got called by one or the other–or by a nickname– If there was any particular pattern to it at super close levels of familiarity that applied across the board, I haven’t been able to pick it up!
Guys who were less close– casual acquaintances, or school friends but not close school friends, or coworkers, etc– seem to have used last names the vast majority of the time; it would probably be weirder to have men calling a casual acquaintance by his first name, unless the person in question was very young– adults talking to a teenager or child.
(My main sources for all this are of course letters and journals, mostly from Romantics– but since that was Hugo’s primary social scene, that’s close enough to being a realistic Social Norm for him.)
So the Amis using last names for each other a lot isn’t unusual or any particular sign of distance. My own advice to people looking to have them not calling each other by the last name all the time would be to just substitute out with nicknames or terms of affection, which were also very common.
Because otherwise sorting out all those Jeans is gonna get exhausting XD
He doesn’t care at all about stars in the Brick, it’s purely musical
invention. He has no interests except for the rare pinch of snuff and
some reading, which he forces himself to do although he hates it.
In his leisure moments, which were far from frequent, he read, although he
hated books; this caused him to be not wholly illiterate. This could be
recognized by some emphasis in his speech.
As we have said, he had no vices. When he was pleased with himself, he
permitted himself a pinch of snuff. Therein lay his connection with
humanity.
The reader will have no difficulty in understanding that Javert was the
terror of that whole class which the annual statistics of the Ministry of
Justice designates under the rubric, Vagrants. The name of Javert routed
them by its mere utterance; the face of Javert petrified them at sight.
(Les Misérables 1.5.5)
Here’s a passage that does connect Javert with stars in a way that probably inspired the song Stars, in that it is using the stars to symbolize “order and light.” It’s from 1.8.3, when Javert bursts in on Valjean at Fantine’s bedside, after Valjean revealed his true identity at court.
I’m going to have to confess that I haven’t yet read the Brick!
Could anyone else help us out here? Does Javert’s love for the stars come from the Brick or the musical?
Javert was in heaven at that moment. Without putting the thing clearly to himself, but with a confused intuition of the necessity of his presence and of his success, he, Javert, personified justice, light, and truth in their celestial function of crushing out evil. Behind him and around him, at an infinite distance, he had authority, reason, the case judged, the legal conscience, the public prosecution, all the stars; he was protecting order, he was causing the law to yield up its thunders, he was avenging society, he was lending a helping hand to the absolute, he was standing erect in the midst of a glory. There existed in his victory a remnant of defiance and of combat. Erect, haughty, brilliant, he flaunted abroad in open day the superhuman bestiality of a ferocious archangel. The terrible shadow of the action which he was accomplishing caused the vague flash of the social sword to be visible in his clenched fist; happy and indignant, he held his heel upon crime, vice, rebellion, perdition, hell; he was radiant, he exterminated, he smiled, and there was an incontestable grandeur in this monstrous Saint Michael.
Hugo also makes a point of saying that there were no stars visible in the sky the night Javert commits suicide; just as Valjean notes there are no visible stars the night before he gives himself up at Arras
Oh, hey, so guess what it says the night Valjean dies:
“The night was starless and extremely dark.
No doubt, in the gloom, some
immense angel stood erect with wings outspread, awaiting that soul.“
OMG okay first off, let me unironically Slow Clap for this Babet= Tholomyes Concept– it’s one of the most delightfully argued crack theories I’ve seen in a long time, I love it. This bit especially has me grinning:
Tholomyes is described as toothless, whereas Babet is not. However, Babet runs a shady dentistry where he’d have a more than generous supply of teeth… just a thought.
BRAVO omg omg, I love it. I wish I’d see more headcanons with this level of detail and argument, it’s a joy.
ALSO let me say that in a metaphorical/symbolic sense , I think you are spot on! Babet can be read as an underworld version of Tholomyes in many ways, as Montparnasse is an underworld reflection of Bamatabois (in addition to being Lacenaire). I really like this!
What I offer now in contradiction is only because I was called on for such and not out of argumentation; please feel free to ignore it all and carry on!
The biggest nail in the Tholomyes-equals-Babet coffin is probably just that Hugo tells us exactly what became of Tholomyes:
(Please forgive the late response, I wanted to make sure I understood what I was talking about as much as I thought I did!)
~
I’m glad you asked.
I have no clue how it crossed my mind in the first place, quite honestly, but the more I think about it, the more it could make sense in canon. Do I think it’s what Hugo was trying to imply? Absolutely not, for we’ve seen several times just how subtle he is when hiding a character’s identity (100% sarcasm- Hugo describes ValJean in excruciating detail, all but his name, and thinks he’s so clever. We already knew, Hugo.)
Here are some traits and details about each character; I’ll leave it up to you to make connections between the two.
(Absolutely necessary disclaimer: I might accidentally make a statement that’s incorrect, please feel free to correct me!)
~
•Babet was a criminal, and like Claquesous, would have more than enough reason to take on one or more false names and identities.
•He seemed to make lighthearted jokes when he was with his wife, at least once at her expense.
•Later, when he leaves her, there is a very heavy implication that he never contacts her again.
•Babet is described as follows: “He was a man of purpose, a fine talker, who underlined his smiles and accentuated his gestures.” (Implies that he had a way with words, as did Tholomyes, though they might have been differently talented- this one is a bit of a stretch, but there’s hardly any information provided for Babet, so one has to make do)
•Babet worked in the medical field as a dentist.
•Repeatedly described as being transparent in appearance, not a very healthy physique
•In the final chapter centered on Patron Minette, there is a strong implication that Babet is not his actual name, but rather a facade he is (over the span of time covered in the chapters) living under
~
•Tholomyes does not, to the best of the reader’s knowledge, have a strained relationship with the law. Yet seemingly out of the blue, towards the end of his ramblings, he exclaims, “It is true that my name is Felix Tholomyes; I speak well.” (Which seems, as far as I’m able to tell, completely unprompted).
•Yet later, he addresses Fantine, saying, “O Fantine, know this: I, Tholomyes, I am all illusion; but she does not even hear me.” Perhaps these words were just some products of his seemingly aimless rambling, but there’s no reason provided for doubting them, aside from Tholomyes’ overall characterization.
•Here is yet another quote from him, interpret it as you will: “It has been said, error is human; I say, error is love.” (I concur: This isn’t included so much to support the argument as it is because I find it interesting!)
•Over the duration of one of Tholomyes’ ramblings, he seems to convince himself quite thoroughly that women serve to cause more issues and distract one from one’s goals- that it is better to leave women in order to achieve one’s goals.
•His appearance isn’t an extremely healthy one, though it doesn’t seem to affect him poorly
•Has a tendency to make lighthearted jokes, occasionally at Fantine’s expense
•When describing Tholomyes and similar types of people, Hugo likened him to someone who would have a different name every time you saw him
•Has a notably large amount of wealth that’s never given much context
•Never contacts Fantine after leaving her
•Tholomyes worked (perhaps just aspired to, I couldn’t tell) in the medical field as a doctor
~
Additional note:
•Tholomyes is described as toothless, whereas Babet is not. However, Babet runs a shady dentistry where he’d have a more than generous supply of teeth… just a thought.
~
@pilferingapples I hope you don’t mind me tagging you in this, but I trust your vast knowledge of canon material, and I’m curious to see what you’d have to say on this topic.
We shall have no further occasion to speak of M. Felix Tholomyes. Let us confine ourselves to saying, that, twenty years later, under King Louis Philippe, he was a great provincial lawyer, wealthy and influential, a wise elector, and a very severe juryman; and always a man of pleasure.
Which is to say he returned to his position and gets to pass judgement on the Fantines and Valjeans and Champmathieus of the world, because this is a super cheerful story:/ (And again, note that he’s specifically a lawyer and associated with legal work–not a doctor.)
Oh, Hugo also tells us where Tholomyes comes from: Toulouse!
The thing that is most annoying about R’s misogyny though is how tacked on it is. He’s friends with women and evidently cares about them in his own weird Grantaire way(he certainly hangs out with women more than any other Amis except maybe Courfeyrac), but he constantly sabotages himself as part of his ridiculous ‘lol drunken lush’ routine. We know from the Brick that he apparently speaks kindly to women and looks fondly/gently towarfs them, but most of his anti-woman bile comes spewing forth when he’s drunk, so what’s the deal?
Personally, it just strikes me as a big bluff of ‘look at how heterosexual I am, please don’t acknowledge that I’m also attracted to men.’ He’s subconsciously internalised this idea that there’s something ‘womanly’ about himself (his unacknowledged romantic interest in men), which is bad by social standards, so that must be hidden at all costs.
This is a guy who’s described as being gentle towards women, someone who reacts to rejection from women by pretending he didn’t WANT to sleep with them anyway and evidently hangs out with women enough to actually have female friends (Irma, Floréal, even the ladies at the pub.)
No other Ami is described as distinctly having female friends, not even Courfeyrac who is a bit of a ladies’ man, so what’s the deal?
I feel there’s more to R’s attitude towards women than simple lechery, misogyny and entitlement. He’s shown that his behaviour is layered and seemingly contradictory before. He’s still misogynistic, don’t get me wrong, but he isn’t an open and shut case of brodudeism.
I think it’s not exactly outrageous to suggest that a lot of R’s negative behaviour towards women is more complicated in its genesis than it appears.
bossuet is canonically from the south meaning that if any of you write aus where les amis are in the united states you are now LEGALLY required to give bossuet a louisiana accent
Bossuet is NOT canonically from the South though? he’s from Meaux, he’s the only one who ISN’T from the South. “
These young men formed a sort of family, through the bond of friendship. All, with the exception of Laigle, were from the South.
Which is all to say that the Real Truth is Bossuet going “ how are you making that noise” as Joly and Grantaire talk about what y’all’d’ve’f’y’could’ve
Maybe this is over-simplifying the first “part” of Les Mis, but the tragedy of Javert, Valjean and Fantine is the impossiblity of returning to society after something “wrong” they did (being born as a child of criminals, stealing for desperation, having a child without being married) and it unfolds as each of them deals with it in their personal way.
Fantine works hard but the ongly thing she gets is being ostracized more and more, and this eventually makes her bitter and angry as she starts the good in people.
Javert arrests her, having chosen the supposed “right” way of being a pariah (aka being a policeman: outside of society, but protecting it) and being unable to understand why others can’t make his own choice.
Valjean is forced to assume a false identiti, and identifies with her, because he too had become bitter and angry, but is unable to help her in the end because another poor old man is risking to pay for the crimes he committed years ago (and still, society cannot forgive Valjean; had he not intervened, Champmathieu would have risked death penalty).
So, yeah, they all break my heart.
They’re ostracized from society and it takes away their identity and their humanity (I love the line from the musical “they gave me a number and murdered Valjean”). They’re all reduced to these roles and stereotypes, not seen as real people anymore.
Jean Vajean slowly regains his humanity and remakes himself through religion and loving Cosette, finding his path to redemption. Javert, when finally faced with his own humanity, has a moment of clarity he can’t deal with and kills himself. Fantine, while dehumanized, always maintained her role as self-sacrificing mother, and in her final days she at last is respected as a person again and allowed to rest and have peace.
I love how they all deal with their outsider status in different ways. Society is the true villain of Les Mis, and Victor Hugo shows so many ways it impacts these characters.
¯_( ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ 