Summary: Book One: An Upright Man
The novel begins with a brief biography of M. Myriel,
the bishop of Digne, a diocese in France. Born in 1740 to
a wealthy aristocratic family, Myriel is forced to flee to Italy
during the French Revolution of 1789. Years
later, he returns to his homeland as a priest. A chance encounter
with Emperor Napoléon in 1806 leads to Myriel’s appointment
as bishop of Digne. When he moves to Digne, he discovers that the
church has provided him and his small entourage with a well-appointed
eighteenth-century palace, while the patients at the hospital next
door live in cramped and dangerous conditions. Myriel insists on
switching houses with the hospital and gives the majority of his
church salary to the city’s poorest citizens and to charities in
Paris and abroad.
Myriel and his family live a simple life, but out of consideration for
his housekeeper, he holds on to two little luxuries: a set of silverware
and two silver candlesticks. Myriel’s compassion earns him the love
of his parishioners, and he becomes a clergyman of wide renown.
He defends the needs of the poor and argues that most petty criminals
steal to survive, not because they are inherently malicious. He
becomes a vocal critic of the prejudices of French society and an
advocate for universal education. Among the needy, Myriel’s actions
earn him the nickname “Bienvenu,” which means “welcome.”
Summary: Book Two: The Fall
[Valjean’s] knees suddenly bent under
him. . . . [H]e fell exhausted . . . and cried out, “I’m such a
miserable man!”
See Important Quotations Explained
In October 1815, a mysterious wanderer
enters Digne. The man has been walking all day and is desperately
hungry. His first stop is at the mayor’s office, where the law requires
him to show a yellow passport indicating that he is an ex-convict.
The man is tired and hungry, but the town’s innkeepers refuse to
serve him. He tries the town prison, the houses of local villagers,
and even a dog kennel, but his reputation has preceded him and the
townspeople are afraid. When the stranger stops at Myriel’s house,
however, the bishop immediately invites him in for dinner.
The stranger’s name is Jean Valjean, a tree-trimmer from
the south of France who has spent the last nineteen years in prison.
The first five years of Valjean’s prison term were for stealing
a loaf of bread to feed his impoverished family, and the next fourteen
were imposed for his frequent escape attempts. He is used to rough
treatment and is surprised by the respect Myriel shows him. Valjean
does not initially realize that Myriel is a member of the clergy
and is certainly not aware that he is a bishop. Myriel invites Valjean
to spend the night free of charge. He accepts the invitation but
then leaves in the night with Myriel’s silverware.
Early the next day, the police stop Valjean. They discover
the silverware in his knapsack and take him back to Myriel’s house.
To everyone’s surprise, Myriel claims that he gave the silverware
to Valjean and even chides Valjean for having forgotten to take
the silver candlesticks as well. Valjean is immediately released.
Myriel gives Valjean the candlesticks and tells him that in taking
the candlesticks, he has made a promise to become an honest man.
Humiliated and confused, Valjean leaves town furtively,
as if he were still on the run. In the countryside, he takes a silver
coin from a little boy named Petit Gervais. As the boy runs off
crying, Valjean is struck by the wickedness of his act. He tries
in vain to find the boy and return the coin. Valjean begins to cry
for the first time in nineteen years. Confronted by his own malice,
he vows to become an upstanding citizen. Later that night, he prays
on the doorstep of Myriel’s house.
Analysis: Books One–Two
Personal change figures prominently in the first few chapters
of Les Misérables, as Hugo uses Myriel and Valjean
to demonstrate that change is a vital part of human nature. On the
one hand, Hugo uses Myriel to show the positive effects of change.
Myriel leaves for Italy as a spoiled aristocrat but returns as a
clergyman who lives in simple piety. He is no longer preoccupied
with material pleasures, and his new interest in the welfare of
others makes him as happy as it makes those who receive his care.
With the character of Myriel, Hugo expresses his optimism in an
individual’s ability to improve, rejecting the fatalistic notion
that individuals are born with character traits that cannot be altered.
In contrast, Hugo uses Valjean to make the point that
preventing people from developing for the better can destroy them.
Valjean does not come into the town as a thief, but his yellow passport immediately
brands him as an undesirable character. Consequently, the townspeople
are openly hostile toward him and refuse to believe that he is capable
of anything other than theft. The townspeople have such an unyielding
and rigid view of Valjean that he comes to believe it himself. Valjean
does not need to steal Myriel’s silver, but he does so largely because
the town expects such criminality of him.
Hugo makes the contrast between Myriel and Valjean clear through
visual imagery, referring to the men in terms of light and dark.
Myriel, who trusts in and hopes for other people, operates in light,
whereas the mistrustful Valjean operates in darkness. The tension
between light and dark reaches a peak when Valjean stops to look
at Myriel before stealing his silver. As Valjean plans his theft, the
clouds darken the sky; he then sees Myriel’s face in a beam of moonlight.
Finally, we see Valjean standing in the shadows while he breaks
into the cabinet of silver. In this description, Hugo uses a literary
device called pathetic fallacy, a technique in which a nonhuman
entity—in this case, nature—takes on human attitudes or traits to
accentuate the tension between good and bad. As Valjean contemplates
stealing the silver, the sky is dark, as if it were frowning upon
the crime he is about to commit. Once Valjean approaches Myriel,
however, everything becomes light, as if Myriel were radiating purity
and goodness. By using this technique of pathetic fallacy, Hugo
is able to pass judgment on his characters and their actions without
ever breaking the narrative voice.
Hugo’s dissatisfaction with certain social institutions
becomes apparent in these early chapters when he uses Valjean’s
imprisonment to show the inadequacy and ineptitude of France’s prison
systems. Valjean is arrested simply for stealing a loaf of bread
to feed his starving family, only to emerge from prison nineteen
years later tougher and more ruthless than he was when he entered.
We cannot blame this failure on Valjean’s nature, since we see that
just a single night at Myriel’s house is enough to change him. Therefore,
the fault lies with the prison system. Indeed, Hugo’s brief descriptions
of the prison in which he stayed are so brutal that we sympathize
with Valjean’s frequent attempts to escape. Hugo advocates compassion rather
than this harsh prison treatment. Myriel’s kindness does not have
immediate results, but it activates Valjean’s conscience, causing
him to cry over the evil that has overtaken his soul and to make his
first steps to atone for his deeds.
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