Victor Hugo’s death on May 22nd, 1885 was mourned by nearly all of France. Two million people joined his elaborate funeral procession. This was in part due to his fame and popularity as a novelist, but also because of his political and social activism and his contribution to the French Third Republic. To the French, especially at the time of his death, Hugo wasn’t just a national treasure as an artist, but a national icon. The main reason for this, as evidenced best in his epic novel Les Miserables, was Hugo’s commitment to a moral order that superseded that of law. Hugo, as many French democrats, believed that governmental law, as well as religious law, was subservient to a greater, eternal and universal moral law. The conflict between these orders forms the basis of his greatest novel.
Les Miserables opens with a portrait of Bishop Myriel, a compassionate and pious man who operates on his own innate sense of morality. Myriel is the moral foundation of the entire book. His example underlies the moral viewpoint throughout the novel, as well as Jean Valjean’s beliefs, whose life Myriel saves early on in the novel. Myriel’s morality is simple. Charity, compassion, courage: these are Myriel’s tenets and rather than preach about them, he exemplifies them in his actions. He lives an extremely Spartan lifestyle and, as his run-in with Valjean shows, would rather give away his valuables for a good cause than keep them for himself.
However, Myriel is not a typical bishop, or even a typical Christian. He is not meant to represent the average Christian, because Hugo does not believe it is Christianity per se that provides morality. Myriel is drawn in such a way as to show that true morality is above and separate from any specific religion. This mirrors Hugo’s own views on the matter. He is known for having said, “Religions pass away, but God remains.” Thus, in the prologue, Hugo establishes a separation between morality and religion.
The majority of the novel proper focuses on the rift between secular law and moral order. This is understandable, as France faced this dilemma head-on in Hugo’s lifetime, after its revolutionary period during which the divine right of kings was questioned and ultimately denounced in order to form a republic that would serve the moral good of all its citizens. But the corruption of even such a well-intended legal system was demonstrated as soon thereafter followed the purging and terror of Robespierre and his eventual overthrow and execution. France was sliding between monarchy, democracy, and anarchy and the people were looking for a form of government based on ethics and humanity.
The dilemma of Jean Valjean, the protagonist of Les Miserables, resorting to theft in order to feed one’s family, is a classic ethics problem. Is one right in feeding one’s family at any cost, or is the act of thievery wrong under any circumstances? In Hugo’s novel, as in reality, it depends on who one asks. If one were to ask Police Inspector Javert, the novel’s avatar for legality and secular judgment, one would be told that clearly theft is morally reprehensible under any circumstances. If one were to consult Bishop Myriel; however, it is likely that the good of keeping people from starving would outweigh the trespass of theft.
If Javert represents Law and Myriel represents Morality, Jean Valjean, and to some extent Fantine, is the everyman, caught between the two. Valjean’s life, from a criminal, to a prisoner, back to a criminal, and finally to a good man, is governed externally by the law and internally by morality. After his encounter with Bishop Myriel, Valjean undergoes a dark night of the soul, sitting awake in the middle of the night, knowing that robbing Myriel is wrong, but that he will do it anyway. This is the beginning of his internal morality. From this point forward, though he tries to continue his life as a criminal, he is moved instead to ‘the good.’
However, the law does not recognize a sea change in one’s soul as grounds to dismiss existing charges. As such, Valjean becomes a new person, a successful and kind person, following in Bishop Myriel’s example as much as he can. But Inspector Javert cannot abide transgression of the law, regardless of its guise or circumstance. He pursues Valjean, well into his new life, and chases him throughout the novel, out of principle. He sees justice as secular justice, moral order as legal order, and that a man must pay the price for his crimes, according to the law, regardless of any mitigating factors.
Hugo paints Javert in a slightly sinister light, to draw empathy away from him and towards the characters he persecutes. However, Hugo does this in order to demonstrate the fallibility of the law. Javert, like the law itself, lacks humanity. He cannot empathize with another’s situation or feel pity for another man until late in the novel, when his epiphany of humanity shatters his worldview and leaves him distraught and ultimately suicidal. Only man can be humane and a man who puts the law above his own humanity denies himself his greatest gift.
Valjean, when confronted with the possibility of an innocent man being hanged in his stead, gives up everything in order to save this stranger’s life. This scene, much like Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, is indicative of guilt being an internal phenomenon, not a function of the judicial system. This internal guilt is yet another manifestation of humanity’s inborn morality.
The Myriel-Javert-Valjean story forms a significant portion of the book. The other characters represent various aspects of this struggle as well. The Thernardiers are morally bankrupt, criminal, and outcast from society. Yet even from this terrible family comes Eponine, who in the end is able to perform an act of self-sacrifice, proving that morality, for Hugo, is inborn, not learned. Marius and Cosette are the future. Marius, taking up the fight against government on the side of morality and Cosette, taking the side of love against hatred. A detailed analysis could show how each part of the story fits into this ethical dilemma. However, the Myriel-Valjean vs. Javert conflict reflects the content of the whole.
Hugo’s sweeping novel encompasses many characters as well as many facets of the problem of morality vs. secular law. Even passages as supposedly mundane as the description of the Paris sewers can be read metaphorically in this context. His famous description of the battle of Waterloo, blaming Napoleon’s defeat on a simple trench in the Earth, shows how even the most successful secular leader (one self-titled Emperor at that) can be overthrown by the simplest forces.
One can read Les Miserables as one might read The Three Musketeers, an entertaining story filled with romance, action, and mystery. But Hugo’s writing and thought run deeper than that; Les Miserables is every bit as much a philosophical and moral text as it is a novel and the skill with which the two facets are conflated is why Les Miserables continues to capture the minds of readers and why Hugo is still as celebrated today as he was in his own time, one hundred and twenty-five years past.
Mark Brendle is a writer living in Oregon. His short fiction is available on the web at http://brendlewords.blogspot.com
