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?

I enjoyed the aside about the bagpipes.

I missed the bagpipes.

I've read to the end of the section on Waterloo, chapter 19. I'm going to circle back and try and find a sense of appreciation read it in French this time.

DH hates bagpipes so I read him that bit!

In all seriousness it does get across how truly terrifyingly awful such battles were. The cavalry charge into the hidden gully was just horrific. It makes me wonder how on earth they got men to do such things at all, yet many of these battles were fought - Borodino was even bloodier as all W&P readers know! It boggles the mind. Politically it shows why representative democracy became so popular - flawed as it is - why would you be pressed into fighting like this for a few aristocrats (the English and their allies certainly)?

Yes, right up to modern times I assume they run on pure adrenalin.

Apparently the German soldiers in WWI were terrified of bagpipes when they heard them across the battlefield and thought they were wailing ghosts.

I’ve been thinking about the Great Man theory. Hugo paints Napoleon as out of control a lot of the time - he draws on destiny, God, etc to explain this. Perhaps that is actually quite similar to Tolstoy’s analysis, which instead of God posits that multiple unknowable small events lead to large outcomes? Neither attribute decisive outcomes to the individuals concerned - both look for outside forces, smal, large or cumulative, that produce the events. In fact Hugo mentions such small things as the rain, the location of a ditch, the timing of Blucher’s arrival, etc - all essentially chance, which he then ascribes to God, and Tolstoy ascribes to the culmination of myriad smaller things. I think they were both grappling with the enormity of events which influenced so many lives.
Tolstoy published W&P after Les Mis didn’t he, have I got that right? I wonder if he read it?

I think the reason this is so heavy going is it presumes a basic understanding of the battle that I just don't have. Given the amount of time which has passed, the names of the generals and so on are very alien to me.

It's made me want to do a bit of reading around it though. As you've said @MotherOfCatBoy, Hugo's excellent at pointing out the small things which has really pulled me in - why did Napolean who, by most accounts, should have been the victor, fail so magnificently? And why did the loss of this one battle mean utter defeat for ole Boney? I know Hugo makes it seem like a catalogue of errors but I need to know more... 😁

Oh gosh, I feel like this is a bit of comeuppance for anyone like me who thought this was going to be easier going than War and Peace!

I agree @SanFranBear , it seems that Hugo is assuming that his readers will know a lot of context around this battle which I don't have at all, and that's making it hard work. I'm honestly just skimming over at the moment.

Some highlights though

1 At the end of a long, long, long sentence full of names and events, listed one after another in a deliberate stream that feels at times like it will never end, this:

"..il ne s’en alarmait point, lui qui se croyait maître et possesseur de la fin ; il savait attendre, se supposant hors de question, et il traitait le destin d’égal à égal. Il paraissait dire au sort: tu n’oserais pas."

("..he was not alarmed if the beginnings did go astray, since he thought himself the master and the possessor at the end; he knew how to wait, supposing himself to be out of the question, and he treated destiny as his equal: he seemed to say to fate, Thou wilt not dare.")

The cadence of this, coming as it does the end of this huge long sentence, is just beautiful. I haven't been reading along in French but I had to pop over to the French edition to see how it reads in the original. Bravo to the (quite old-fashioned) translation here which poises this phrase perfectly.

2 "They listened to the rise of this flood of men. They heard the swelling noise of three thousand horses, the alternate and symmetrical tramp of their hoofs at full trot, the jingling of the cuirasses, the clang of the sabres and a sort of grand and savage breathing. There ensued a most terrible silence; then, all at once, a long file of uplifted arms, brandishing sabres, appeared above the crest, and casques, trumpets, and standards, and three thousand heads with gray mustaches, shouting, "Vive l'Empèreur!" All this cavalry debouched on the plateau, and it was like the appearance of an earthquake."

I'm not enjoying these war chapters but this is great stuff -so atmospheric! Also "debouched", cool word ("deboucher" in French, which apparently is most commonly used for uncorking a bottle or unclogging a drain).

3 I will admit I am only half-reading some of this but am I right that Hugo seems to be suggesting that the outcome of all of this is Fate? Whereas Tolstoy in W&P was more on the side of "it happened because it happened, there was no guiding hand"?

I am struggling with these chapters as well but I just read that Hugo’s father was a general in the Napoleonic army, serving under Napoleon’s brother.

The young Hugo had a child’s pride his military father and army battles were in his background.

Napoleon was already in power when Hugo was born in 1802. Waterloo took place when Hugo was 13. He would have seen it all through the eyes of a child and adolescent. Apparently he had differing opinions of Napoleon through his teens and twenties - some better than others!

I feel like Hugo is working through something very personal to him in these chapters.

He is analysing all the factors that contributed to the French defeat and reaching personal conclusions to explain the political landscape of his life? Also the politics and history that created the world that all the characters in Les Miserables are trying to survive in.

Also Hugo concludes that God/fate allowed this defeat because it’s one battle. But progress to greater freedoms and liberty was achieved through the defeat. The defeat at Waterloo caused the Restoration and then the Second Empire. The chaos is necessary for a chain of events leading for change.

The big events are made of lots of little stories and occurrences. And all this upheaval will lead to progress for the downtrodden.

Next week friends. I continue to be behind but from Friday have some annual leave so hope to be back up to date by Sunday next week.

• Monday 23 March 2026; Part 2 – Cosette; Book 1 – Waterloo; Ch. 12 – The Guard
• Tuesday 24 March 2026; Ch. 13 – The Catastrophe
• Wednesday 25 March 2026; Ch. 14 – The Last Square
• Thursday 26 March 2026; Ch. 15 – Cambronne
• Friday 27 March 2026; Ch. 16 – Quot Libras in Duce?
• Saturday 28 March 2026; Ch. 17 – Should One Think Waterloo a Good Thing?
• Sunday 29 March 2026; Ch. 18 – Divine Right Re-enters Paris

Weirdly, I am looking forward to some Napoleon, but I rather enjoyed his presence in TCOMC and War & Peace.

@AgualusasL0ver Thank you for posting the reading schedule 🙏 I’m sure you will catch up soon. Sometimes life just gets in the way 😁

I can’t work out how Hugo thinks more liberty followed Waterloo - in fact the Restoration was quite regressive (although I admit I may be seeing that through my own personal political opinions).

Largely I think by that point though, Europe had had enough of war and of Napoleon. They thought they had defeated him until the Cent Jours, when (as we saw in TCOMC), he escaped from Elba and led troops spectacularly to Paris. Wellington only just got an army together in time to face him at Waterloo. But some historians say if it hadn’t been Waterloo, if he had won, it would have been another battle, again, later, with anti imperialist alliance against him.

The Restoration rolled back a lot of freedoms for ordinary people, there was a reactionary government (particularly under Charles X after 1824 which led to another revolution/ coup in 1830 which put his cousin Louis Phillipe d’Orleans on the throne).

Hugo was a royalist in his youth, so as you say might be recalling Waterloo through that lens. But during the writing of the novel his views changed and he was a critic of the Second Empire (hence his exile) and became quite republican as he aged.

@MotherOfCatBoy I think Hugo is thinking very broadly about the spirit of the Revolution and the nature of how change comes about in a society.

You need conflict to have hope. A stagnant state offers no hope. Like hundreds of years of monarchy. Even if things are going wrong for a while - like Napoleon III in power - there is still hope. JVJ became M. Madeleine - you might think something is set in stone, and then it’s not!

Progress is always first and foremost about making the people free of Monarchy. Napoleon had not developed his power in that spirit. He had to go.

Progress is found in the chaos of change. This is what will ultimately bring people freedoms in Hugo’s view. Even if it’s a two steps back and one step forward way of things happening. If you keep some movement/upheaval going you avoid the stagnant state of no hope. The stagnant state of repeating generations of absolutist monarchy.

You might lose battles, but ultimately it’s about the war. The direction of travel.

Hugo really felt the Revolution was seismic in its reach. THE tipping point in history.

That makes sense @Neitherherenorthere and I agree it’s the tipping point of history. Napoleon certainly turned into a dictator and his regime certainly couldn’t last. It was the Restoration I was pointing at as being the opposite of the larger freedom Hugo alludes to; but I like your two steps forward, one step back theory - the return to monarchy couldn’t last very long after the Revolution had happened once before.

@MotherOfCatBoy That’s a great summary of what I was clumsily trying to say 🤣

Of course I meant two steps forward, one step back in my post!! 🙄 Thank you @MotherOfCatBoy 🙏

I enjoyed reading about « le mot de Cambronne «
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Cambronne

Thank you @MotherOfCatBoy that was interesting!

My French isn’t great but I particularly enjoyed the bit about Le Mot de Cambronne being referenced by the Smurfs who substituted the word itself for « Schtroumpf! »

(Smurf in French is Schtroumpf 😊)

I'd say "Merde" really does sum it all up.. it sounds awful!

Not wanting to get all political but wow, this resonates after an awful couple of weeks for the world:

"Les peuples civilisés, surtout au temps où nous sommes, ne se haussent ni ne s’abaissent par la bonne ou mauvaise fortune d’un capitaine. Leur poids spécifique dans le genre humain résulte de quelque chose de plus qu’un combat. Leur honneur, Dieu merci, leur dignité, leur lumière, leur génie, ne sont pas des numéros que les héros et les conquérants, ces joueurs, peuvent mettre à la loterie des batailles. Souvent bataille perdue, progrès conquis. Moins de gloire, plus de liberté. Le tambour se tait, la raison prend la parole. C’est le jeu à qui perd gagne."

("It is only barbarous peoples who undergo rapid growth after a victory. That is the temporary vanity of torrents swelled by a storm. Civilized people, especially in our day, are neither elevated nor abased by the good or bad fortune of a captain. Their specific gravity in the human species results from something more than a combat. Their honor, thank God! their dignity, their intelligence, their genius, are not numbers which those gamblers, heroes and conquerors, can put in the lottery of battles. Often a battle is lost and progress is conquered. There is less glory and more liberty. The drum holds its peace; reason takes the word. It is a game in which he who loses wins.")

Interesting context here about Hugo and Waterloo (I haven't read the whole article yet but sharing now without comment - will be back to discuss): https://www.waterlooassociation.org.uk/2019/02/22/victor-hugos-account-of-the-battle-of-waterloo/

This is interesting, a comparison with Ginsberg: https://www.reddit.com/r/Napoleon/s/2hvNBjyqQM . I can see what they're saying. Those long, long, drawn-out sentences full of awful lists and images. An effective literary device for expressing pain.

Hugo's poem about Waterloo (well, partly and famously about Waterloo) is cracking too:

https://www.poetica.fr/poeme-7187/victor-hugo-expiation/

(This came into my mind as I remember my dad used to quote it, in a mournful French tone,if we had to get a bus to Waterloo).

Thank you @VikingNorthUtsire!
That made me laugh about your Dad 😄

Crikey, that poem is nearly as long as the book! I'll have to come back and read it later.

I'm getting on better with the Waterloo chapters second time round. I appreciate the insights from posters. 🙏

Well that was an excellent rabbit -hole @VikingNorthUtsire , thank you!

Ironically the book I started this morning begins with this epigraph:

….Everyday life—the practical life of each individual, with its home questions of health and sickness, of toil and rest, with its intellectual aspirations and tastes for science, poetry, music, and what not, with its passions, loves and friendships—ran its regular course, without troubling itself to any serious extent about an alliance or breach with Napoleon….

Doubly ironically, the quote is from W&P 😁

I am still struggling with the focus on Waterloo but like the fact that Hugo rates culture as being more important than military victories or defeats. He had a pretty poor opinion of Wellington too which was quite amusing. Hoping the relevance of the Waterloo diversion will be revealed soon!