Les Miserables read-a-long 2026 | Première Partie (1)

[AgualusasL0ver]

Welcome to the first thread of the Les Miserables Read-a-long.

I'll be using the Christine Donougher translation for posting in the main, but it doesn't matter which translation you have, they seem to follow the same breakdown. I have not seen the film, the musical, and have very little knowledge about the book, but suspect I will be doing all of these Christmas 2026.

The only rules
The plan is to read ONE chapter a day and contribute/follow the thread as you see fit. There are c. 365 chapters, so we plan to take the year to read slowly and really get under the skin. Sometimes we have clustered chapters in past read-a-longs, and people do sometimes read ahead. All fine - but No spoilers until the relevant day.

Notes from previous read-a-longs

• How you manage one a day is entirely up to you, some people prefer to store them and read all the chapters for the week at once, some read each day.
• Sometimes these books can go off on a tangent all their own (looking at Mr Tolstoy), stick with it :-)
• All formats and translations welcome. Sometimes the translation discussions are some of the most interesting conversations.
• You WILL get behind at some point, but don't worry, just catch up when you can.
• Tangents, things you discovered down a rabbit hole, articles, pod casts, clips of epic scenes when we get to them all very welcome on the thread.

Spoiler free summary , courtesy of Chat GPT below. Schmoop has book summaries so I will post those at the relevant points.

**

Les Misérables is a classic novel by Victor Hugo that explores justice, compassion, and the struggle for dignity in 19th-century France.
At its core, the book follows the lives of several interconnected characters from different social classes as they navigate poverty, law, love, and moral choice. Rather than focusing on a single hero or plotline, the novel paints a wide picture of society—showing how personal decisions are shaped by systems like the legal system, economic inequality, and social expectations.
Key themes include:

• Justice vs. mercy — how laws affect people differently, and whether strict punishment leads to fairness
• Redemption and moral growth — the possibility of change, even after hardship
• Poverty and inequality — the daily realities of people living on the margins
• Love and sacrifice — care for others as a powerful force for good
• Social responsibility — how individual actions impact the wider community

The novel is known for:

• Deep character development
• Emotional intensity
• Philosophical reflections on society and humanity
• Detailed descriptions of history and everyday life

Overall, Les Misérables is less about a single storyline and more about asking big questions:
What does it mean to be a good person? How should society treat its most vulnerable? And can compassion change lives?

Agreed, today's chapter is very different pacing from Book 1. I enjoyed getting to know the bishop and his household but today's chapter has left me looking forward to finding out what happens next (although I am guessing the bishop will take him in....).

As someone who has never seen the musical or film, I have no idea how the story unfolds!

Book 2 Chapter 2: Ha! What's that they say about the secret of comedy being timing? Great ending :)

We all know what happened in Book 1, but Schmoop just has a way with words.

Part 1, Fantine
An Upright Man

• So once upon a time there was this local Monseigneur (which is kind of like a high-ranking priest) who lived in a place called Digne. This guy was a partier and womanizer in his early years, but he eventually found God and became a really humble and virtuous guy. It's clear that the author likes him and wants us to like him, too.
• The dude now lives in Digne with his sister Mademoiselle Baptistine, who's basically his right-hand woman.
• Over time, the Monseigneur (named Myriel) develops such a welcoming and generous reputation that he gets nicknamed "Monseigneur Bienvenu." Bienvenu means "Welcome" in French, so you can probably guess that people aren't afraid to knock on this dude's door and ask for help.
• The Monseigneur is so generous that he decides to use a rundown village hospital as his house and arranges for his fancy palace to become the new hospital. He figures that the patients could use the extra room more than he can. He also lives on a strict budget and gives all of his extra money to the poor and needy.
• Monseigneur Bienvenu eventually becomes the Bishop of Digne and he uses every chance he can to preach to his churchgoers about the importance of giving to the poor and not being too greedy. It's easy for him to do this because he talks the talk and walks the walk. But he also causes a lot of his rich parishioners to grumble about him behind his back for making them all look like the cheap and greedy good-for-nothings that they are.
• One day, the bishop visits a guy who's been convicted of counterfeiting money and sentenced to death. Everyone treats the guy like garbage in his final moments, except for guess who? The bishop, who shows sympathy and comforts the man. He even walks beside the man on the street when he's taken to be executed.
• Despite his deep faith, the bishop is deeply shaken by seeing the man killed with a guillotine. For weeks afterward, he walks around feeling gloomy, wondering where all the kindness and compassion in the world has gone.
• The narrator gives a really long and detailed description of the bishop's house and bedroom. After all, folks didn't have TV back then, so the author had to be very specific if she/he wanted the readers to picture something in a certain way.
• Also, it gives the narrator a chance to emphasize that the bishop doesn't allow any door in his house to be locked, not even the front door.
• One year, a fearsome band of thieves takes over the woods separating the bishop's town from one of his other parishes. The bishop decides to visit this other town with nobody but a young boy to accompany him. People say he's ca-razy for riding without an escort, but he's like shrug. If people want to rob him, be his guest.
• Instead of robbing the bishop, the thieves actually send him a gift. It's a truck filled with all kinds of religious artifacts and jewels they've stolen over the years. See what you get when you trust people?
• When having dinner with a senator one night, Bishop Myriel listens to the senator's arguments about how God is a superstition for poor people who have nothing in their lives and need a little hope. The man believes that wealthy, educated people are too smart (and comfortable) to believe in God. The bishop is totally unfazed by this kind of talk.
• Living outside the bishop's village is a man who the villagers think of as some kind of monster. This dude was apparently a member of the "Revolutionary Convention," a group that executed all kinds of French people on made-up charges back in the 1793 Reign of Terror. Word eventually reaches the village that this guy is on his deathbed, and everyone is mostly relieved. The bishop, though, decides to visit this guy and comfort him in his final moments.
• As the man dies, he and the bishop get philosophical about whether compassion alone can move the world forward, or whether extreme violence is sometimes necessary. You can probably guess who believes what.
• The dying man agrees that the French Revolution killed innocent people, but he also thinks that thousands, even millions of innocent people have escaped death because of it.
• By the end of the conversation, the dying man admits that he believes in some form of God. The bishop gets on his knees and, as a show of humility, asks for the man's blessing. But when the bishop looks up, he sees that the man has died.
• From that point on, the bishop is twice as generous and sympathetic as he was before, so basically he's a walking puddle.
• Predictably, no young priestlings want to work with him. They want to live lavish lifestyles and know they'll never do it with Bishop Myriel.
• So the bishop goes about his lonely life, being kind to people and quietly thinking about the power of God and the afterlife, which are things so big he knows he'll never understand them.

« A walking puddle » 🤣

I wonder who writes that stuff? Do you think they are really super serious academics who write papers and go to conferences and do introductions for books, and then get a side gig writing for Schmoop and think, Get in, now I can say what I really think and have some fun!

Ha ha...and 'dude' always makes me smile. One time Schoop got something wrong, in 'Anna Karenina' I think, and we we were like noooo dude, that's not right!

Tomorrow's chapter would warm the very cockles of your heart. Nice!

Nice set-up in today’s chapter, and I like getting to know a bit more about Baptistine and Mme Magloire. Looking forward to tomorrow’s chapter!

Thanks @AgualusasL0ver for the Schmoop. I do have a tendency with wordy books like this (I'm reading the Hapgood translation) to let a couple of pages wash over me and come to the end of it realising that I am not really sure what the meaning is of what I've just read. A snappy summary like this is perfect to reassure me that I've got the main points, and not missed anything important.

Annoyingly they don’t have chapter by chapter and I’m not on top of it enough to check each day, but they read funnier in full anyway.

@AgualusasL0ver Thank you for the Schmoop summary! Very entertaining 😍 In fact thank you for this whole thread!

I just fell down a rabbit hole googling hairstyles « a l’enfant » 🤣 as worn by Baptistine.

Apparently hairstyles for women got very high (One to one and a half ‘face lengths’) but the aristocrats abandoned that look when it got too popular. Instead they took to copying Marie-Antoinette who had trouble with thinning hair after childbirth and had adopted a short, frizzy round the face vibe 🤣

Pinterest link https://pin.it/7nr7F6Ksf

Apparently the style had been spotted a couple of years earlier but the Queen made it popular. And why grey hair or grey wigs? Grey hair was harder to come by and rarer than other colours - therefore more desirable. So real hair grey wigs or lots and lots of powder or both together were the most fashionable looks.

Baptistine’s hair and dress are very out of date indeed!

I enjoyed Hugo’s description in this chapter of the two women of the Bishop’s house. You can actually imagine them.

The end of the chapter needs a comedy sound effect I think 🤣

Haïr à l’enfant (child’s haircut)

collections.chateauversailles.fr/#/query/435bbf8f-ad0b-41cb-ab28-f3e69b6f4967

I enjoyed the description too! Interesting that it’s said Baptistine « meme quand elle était jeune, elle n’était pas jolie. » - Even since she was young she was never pretty. Aw… maybe that’s why she never married? Or rather Hugo’s remembered to think of a reason why she might not have married.

Ha ha! 🤣. @MotherOfCatBoy you might have a point there!

Really enjoyed the last 3 chapters - there are strong Biblical echoes of no-one opening their doors to the strangers - except for the righteous Bishop.

My favourite bit was when Valjean tried to sleep in the dog’s kennel & managed to escape but “non sans élargir les déchirures des ses haillons.”

[not without enlarging the holes in his ragged clothes]

and

« obligé, pour tenir le dogue en respect, d’avoir recours à cette manœuvre du bâton que les maîtres en ce genre d’escrime appellent la rose couverte. »

[obliged, out of respect for the dog, to resort to that move of the cane, which the masters of that type of fencing call “la rose couverte”]

I’m not sure that another writer would have prolonged Valjean’s search for lodgings as much, but it does drive home how desperate his situation is.

I’ve only seen bits of the musical so I only know what this chapter tells us about his past. In his favour, he has been in prison since 1796, which was at the beginning of the Directory, which - although it wasn’t the Reign of Terror - was an unstable time. That said, as pointed out earlier, Valjean has lied to the Marquise.

I do love the songs of the musical, so will be watching the film once the readalong is finished.

Yes, same. I'm also quite clueless about the story and I haven't seen any version of it on screen or on stage.

Raft of the Medusa is an amazing painting, it’s enormous too. Like entire wall big. I hadn’t realised Liberty Leading the People was about the 1830 uprising (thematic similarities and Delacroix was probably inspired by Gericault).
https://www.louvre.fr/en/explore/visitor-trails/the-louvre-s-masterpieces/romanticism-topicality-sensuality

The Méduse was a real ship and the painting is based on real events (Wiki has more) in 1816. I first learned about it from a Julian Barnes book I read years ago (can’t remember which one but a series of essays). Apparently the French Navy were at fault for the wreck.

The reference continues an interesting relationship with time - 1816 is still in the future for Jean Valjean and the Bishop, but it’s in the past, in public memory, for the narrator and the reader. If we assume the period when the book was written, the narrative « voice » is speaking from roughly 1850 - 1860, which was the Second Empire (Napoleon III seized power in 1851, which only ended in 1870 with the failure of his war against Prussia and precipitated the Paris Commune and the Third Republic). The Empire was characterised by capitalist and bourgeois business success and a lot of corruption, so Hugo is using an example of a scandal back in the day which would resonate with a contemporary audience.

I loved today's chapter. All 15 chapters about the bishop leading us to this moment. Valjean just couldn't comprehend his kindness.

@Pashazade Thank you for the link to Raft of the Medusa, I enjoyed learning about that and Liberty leading the People.🙏

I don’t like passive obedience but I’m glad Hugo points out the heroism of Baptistine and Mme Magloire facing Jean Valjean in their home.

I really felt for Jean Valjean when he talks about thinking of sleeping outdoors under the stars but even God/the Universe has abandoned him and ´Il n’y avait pas d’étoiles’ (There were no stars).

I think without the fourteen chapters of learning about the Bishop’s philosophy we would have thought « so what? » when a man of the church gave Jean shelter and food. Now we see what a truly rare and compassionate act this was.

So glad that Jean found a little haven of peace after the meanness of the other villagers. Not sure any of the good Bishops teachings have stuck, particularly with the innkeepers.

Nice to hear more about the ladies of the Biahops household too... its definitely perking up a little!

I’ve quite enjoyed the last chapter, the pace is picking up a bit. The bishop is so good and I’m intrigued by his past. The women are really interesting too.

The writing period is so interesting. Apparently he wrote it over quite a long period with a gap and I think started writing in 1845!

I am behind, but next week's reading:

• Monday: Part 1, Fantine; Book 2, The Fall, Chapter 5 - Tranquility
• Tuesday: " ", Chapter 6 - Jean Valjean (woo hoo)
• Wednesday: " ", Chapter 7 - Inside Despair
• Thursday: " ", Chapter 8 - The Deep and the Dark
• Friday: " ", Chapter 9 - New Woes
• Saturday: " ", Chapter 10 - The Man Awakened
• Sunday: " ", Chapter 11 - What He Does

I completely missed the Medusa reference 😳but loved the Comte cheese talk. One of our favourite cheeses.

I'm loving how we had two chapters of actual plot, then straight into a diversion about cheese factories 😂