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The Official Tumblr for Les Mis Letters

@lesmisletters

Les Miserables has 365 chapters. This email subscription sends you one chapter a day for a year. Subscribe at our Substack https://lesmisletters.substack.com/ and view additional resources in our pinned post.
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Les Mis Letters 2025 Informational Masterpost

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There are 365 chapters in Les Misérables. Les Mis Letters is an email subscription that sends you one chapter of Les Mis a day for a year. We begin with chapter 1 on January 1st and end with chapter 365 on December 31st.

This Dracula-Daily inspired email subscription is a great way to make it through the Brick, and chat with other readers!

  • Subscribe to Les Mis letters at our Substack here.
  • Join our “book club” discord server here! We’re super chill, super active, and always love new members
  • The email schedule for 2025 can be found here.
  • The full text of Les Mis online is here.

Finally, we’re very active on Tumblr! Here are some optional Les Mis Letters Tumblr Tips, based on what worked well last year:

  • Read what you can and post what you can! You don't need to be completely "caught up" to add your thoughts to the tag. Catch up posts are welcome.
  • Tag your posts with #Les Mis and #Les Mis Letters.
  • Tag specific chapters with “lm” and then the volume number, book number, and chapter number. For example, Les Mis Volume 1 Book 2 Chapter 1 is “#lm 1.2.1.” Les Mis Volume 5 Book 4 Chapter 1 is "#lm 5.4.1." This makes it easy for people to find your posts about specific chapters!
  • Feel free to reply to older meta posts with new thoughts.
  • @ this blog if you see a great post related to the current chapters that we’ve overlooked!

Any other questions? Check out our FAQ or send us an ask here.

Les Mis Letters was created by Rachel but has now been passed on to Mellow. You can talk Mellow on this blog, at @secretmellowblog on Tumblr, or in the Les Mis Letters discord server.

Thank you for following along!

-mod Mellow

#les mis#les mis letters#les mis letters 2024#les miserables#dracula daily
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It’s pretty perfect that the chapter of @lesmisletters where Boulatruelle sees “the devil” came on April Fool’s day this year. Tricking him into thinking he saw that devil is a classic April Fool’s prank

#lm 2.2.2
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LM 2.2.2

  • "Before we go any further" don't worry hugo i didn't expect you to get round to the plot
  • boulatrouelle exemplifies what hugo says right at the beginning of the novel, that what people say about a man has as much place in his life as what he does. they believe they know he was in the bagne, so even his respectfulness is suspicious. because they're suspicious of him, he can't get a job that pays properly, so despite his efforts, when we see him next he has resorted to being a criminal. of course, if he hadn't been respectful, he could only have been treated worse for 'confirming' their suspicions, so there's no way for him to win and to escape the situation
  • i'm not fluent in french, but it comes across to me that he was put under police supervison because people thought he had been in the bagne, rather than the other way around. but surely he would have had to show his papers and therefore reveal any criminal record, so why would there be any doubt? specifying that the townspeople believed they knew is obviously to highlight that it doesn't matter whether it's true or not, but it sort of sacrifices some of the realisticness that hugo normally goes for
#lm 2.2.2
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The contrast between the two newspaper articles in this chapter is pretty funny. Both definitely have a royalist bent, but (based on a quick search – I could be wrong) the Journal de Paris focused more on pop culture than politics, and that’s evident from the details given in each article. The Drapeau Blanc is fairly objective in its style, mentioning only the immediate particulars of the case and recognizing the unknowns (such as where Valjean’s money is). The name of the paper alludes to its royalist sympathies, but they’re not glaringly obvious from the article itself.

The second article, on the other hand, is much more dramatic. Valjean is not simply a convict, but a “wretch” and a “scoundrel” with “Herculean strength” (the last one being dramatic enough that it’s probably how Hugo would describe him in his narration). The support for the present order is more evident through the use of additions like “indefatigable zeal” while describing the prosecutor and notes on the king’s “clemency” in “only” giving him life in prison. There’s also the addition of gossip about his relationship with Fantine, and while we know for sure that it’s false, it’s notable as well that the other publication avoids this, indicating that it really was seen as gossip that, believed or not, wasn’t considered acceptable to repeat in all papers. This work is more literary, too, quoting a patriarch. Overall, the combined purpose of this newspaper as information and entertainment is really clear from the style, which Hugo captured well. It gives a good sense of the feeling of reading papers in the time, and it’s a fun way to learn about what happened to Valjean.

I also like that Hugo circles back to the issue of tax collection here to illustrate M. sur M.’s decline after the loss of Madeleine. I’m a fan of his use of “documents” in general, as it lends the novel the sense of a historical investigation, but taxation in particular is a good way of showing how the central government is present in all towns even as local politics are more impactful. Taxation is how the government notices changes in a town’s prosperity, but ultimately, that prosperity depends on local government. Unfortunately, Valjean as Madeleine suffered from the same issue as the bishop, making himself the center of charity without changing the mindsets of the townspeople. Consequently, as soon as he’s gone, the town ceases to flourish. It’s heart-breaking, but seeing this confirmed by tax reports (rather than, say, the experiences of the people we know in the town) further emphasizes a) the historical aspect of the book and b) that the change was monetary rather than cultural. It it were cultural, perhaps it wouldn’t have happened in the first place, but people would also narrate it differently. Since it was more a change in the town’s finances because Valjean’s ideas didn’t reach the people, it’s fitting that we end with finances as well.

#lm 2.2.1
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Hugo’s bold back-and-forth time-travelling makes me feel seasick. It’s 1823 again. After nineteen chapters about Waterloo, now “The reader will be grateful to us if we pass rapidly over the sad details.” It makes sense, for the reader has already read about one trial and can imagine that the trial of Jean Valjean was no less traumatic.

Hugo returns to one of his favourite techniques—citing made-up articles from real newspapers. Valjean was on his way to Montfermeil to retrieve Cosette, but was caught while entering the coach. The newspaper confirmed that he earned his half a million by “perfectly legitimate means”—this detail is for Marius to remember. It appears that the fate of his money is the most significant intrigue, according to the newspapers.

The second article is quite appalling, mixing facts (if any) with gossip. But from it, we glean some absurd details of Valjean’s case. The legal system, as presented here, is indeed beyond repair. “Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty and was condemned to the death penalty in consequence.” He was somehow associated with a band of robbers. What? Knowing how flawed and almost non-existent the investigation procedure was, I am not surprised it came to this, but I am still outraged!

The last paragraph summarizes what happened in Montreuil-sur-Mer after Valjean’s “fall” (it’s full of parallels with the fall of Napoleon and the fate of France). In short, everything unfolded as Valjean envisioned in his agony before going to Arras.

One more little detail that caught my eye: Valjean refused to appeal his death sentence. It means that he was ready to die there and then, death was obviously a better option than a return to the galleys. Alas, he was pardoned by the king and had to spend the rest of his life on the galleys.

#lm 2.2.1
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oh, come now, Mr. Hugo. I just suffered through 40+ pages of French history that I don’t know enough about to understand what was happening, and you used a lot of big words and I kept having to stop and look things up. Please do us the mercy of telling us what happened to Beloved Old Man Number One (Javert is BOM Number 2 ofc)

edit I forgot to attach the relevant photo

#lm 2.2.1
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LM 2.2.1

  • i was so caught up in finishing waterloo that for like a minute i lived in a world where we were going to get some fucking plotline
  • also i was violently thrown several years into the past, doing source analysis in history lessons
  • m-sur-m as a metaphor for france, uncaring and greedy and self-destructing after the fall of the man in the centre. we are given the stories of a society that hinges on a man who is despotic, and a society that hinges on a man who is good, and both fail, with the conclusion being, of course, that society should not be centred on any one man at all, and that the system must support those within it rather than fostering enmity and crime – as hugo has been saying since literally the preface of the book
#lm 2.2.1
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Congratulations, Les Mis Letters readers, on surviving to the end of the Waterloo Digression! You made it through the battle!

AFFIRMATIONS: You did not die in the sunken road of Ohain! You did not die by English bullets! You are free! Today, we return to the funky little fictional characters!

GIF by dinakisss

(For those who aren't aware: Les Mis has 365 chapters, and Les Mis Letters is an email subscription readalong that sends you one chapter a day for a year. Learn more, subscribe, and join our Discord server in our pinned post!)

#les mis#les mis letters#lm 2.1.19
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The detestable maxim, Live on the enemy! produced this leprosy, which a strict discipline alone could heal. There are reputations which are deceptive; one does not always know why certain generals, great in other directions, have been so popular. Turenne was adored by his soldiers because he tolerated pillage; evil permitted constitutes part of goodness. Turenne was so good that he allowed the Palatinate to be delivered over to fire and blood. The marauders in the train of an army were more or less in number, according as the chief was more or less severe. Hoche and Marceau had no stragglers; Wellington had few, and we do him the justice to mention it. Nevertheless, on the night from the 18th to the 19th of June, the dead were robbed. Wellington was rigid; he gave orders that any one caught in the act should be shot; but rapine is tenacious. The marauders stole in one corner of the battlefield while others were being shot in another.- LM 2.1.19 , Hapgood translation

What's that, Hugo? You think the leader of an armed force is morally responsible for ensuring strict discipline? Even if it means summary battlefield executions for people who break the rules of combat? That it's not just necessary, even, but morally laudable to make such a judgement to ensure no one associated with their cause is , say, pillaging the dead, or maybe attacking civilians?

Cool, noted, surely this will never be relevant again.

#LM 2.1.19
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