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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

Here are those four lines in Hugo’s handwriting (from the manuscript digitized by the French Bibliothèque Nationale):

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

I have this meme hanging in my office, courtesy of a student:

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

For today, one last note: the May 1968 protesters in Paris picked up a line from Bahorel in this chapter for a poster:

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

It decided on its own whether it included the names and other text (which is largely nonsense text). But where names are absent, I bet you can figure out who's who!

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Bonus post on Part III, Book 4, Chapter 1, “Un groupe qui a failli devenir historique”: I asked Gemini AI to make cartoon images based on the descriptions in this chapter. The results are... something....

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

And now, he’s also another sort of villain as well (because he can be both!) Remember all that cathartic crying you do in the second act of the show? You know who pulls the trigger to cause a LOT of those d*aths? THE NATIONAL GUARD.* 5/

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

We said a few days ago that the gamin was a well-known character type who appeared in art and literature at this time – famously in Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People.” I've added a green arrow pointing to the gamin here.

Eugène Delacroix's painting "Liberty Leading the People," with a green arrow pointing to the figure who is closely associated with the gamin.

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

The main building forms much of two sides of a trapezoid – and he describes it as a gallows, presumably resembling this one, in one of Hugo’s drawings.

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

And – I have one!! I’m not a coin collector, but a colleague gave this to me, and I was unreasonably excited, thanks to its role in this book.

The reverse of a coin in a plastic case; it reads EMPIRE FRANCAIS, 5 FRANCS, and 1809.

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

Hugo is more or less right about the “A” here:

A map of the Battle of Waterloo
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Waterloo_map.png

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Happy Birthday to Victor Hugo! As a gift (?!) I asked Gemini AI to create some birthday images for him, with some truly unhinged results.

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

And after this, it picks up lyrically where the main version left off 7/

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
[Somewhere*] Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?

*(This word appears in the Finale, not the main version.)

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

In the Finale version, this is then followed by more new lyrics, which we also hear in the Army Choir video 6/

They will live again in freedom
In the garden of the Lord.
We will walk behind the ploughshare
We will put away the sword.
The chain will be broken
And all men will have their reward!

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

In the key part that we hear in the video, they sing 5/

[Do you hear the people sing
Lost in the valley of the night?
It is the music of a people
Who are climbing to the light.
For the wretched of the earth,]
*There is a flame that never dies.
Even the darkest night will end
And the sun will rise.

*(The video circulating starts here.)

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

What we hear most often is the main song, at the start of the uprising. There, the lyrics are 4/

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!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

"Don't assess people's value in financial terms" is a super important message of Les Misérables as well

"'Thou shalt not kill' also means 'thou shalt not let profit margins decide who lives and dies.'" -@godpod.bsky.social

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The Les Misérables Reading Companion @readlesmispod.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

This has been hanging on my office door since shortly after the Notre Dame fire: "Victor Hugo thanks all the generous donors willing to save Notre Dame de Paris and proposes they do the same thing with Les Misérables." (What may get lost in translation explained ⤵️) 1/

Tweet by ollivier pourriol from 16 Apr 2019: "Victor Hugo remercie tous les généreux donateurs prêts à sauver Notre-Dame de Paris et leur propose de faire la même chose avec Les Misérables."

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