Archive for Musicals.Net Musicals.Net |
| Fantine |
Based on reality?I looked up june 6 1832 on Google and it directed me to a wikipedia page.June 5 - France: anti-monarchist riot briefly breaks out in Paris. June 6 - The Barricades fall and the Student Uprisings of 1832 end. So this actually took place? Call me stupid but in all this time of being into Les Mis I never knew that it was based on an actual "revolution." |
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| LesMisForever |
Shame on you 
Well, this wasn't really a revolution. It was probably the smallest uprising during the 19th Century France. France really had a turbulant times since the BIG July Revolution. There were other "mini-revolutions" and uprisings throughout the 19th Century. One of the bloodiest was "The Paris Commune" in 1871, where the government forces killed around 50 000 people when finally got the upper hand. Hugo wrote an essay in "Les Miserables" about the differences between The Revolution and Insurgency, and the historic context of the 1832 uprising. |
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| Fantine |
Yeah I did know that there were several smaller uprisings, but I did not know that there was in fact one on June 6th, I thought Hugo had made that bit up. | ||||
| eponine5 |
There is also a bit about it on General Lamarque's page on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Lamarque | ||||
| Orestes Fasting |
Yep, it really happened. After the revolution of 1830, there were a huge number of smaller insurrections that were ruthlessly put down--the riots of February 1831, the revolt of June 1832, another one in 1834, etc. None of them actually got anywhere until 1848.
Hugo even based his barricade, in part, on the very real barricade of June 1832 in the cloister of Saint-Merry. It was headed by a man named Charles Jeanne, who held his insurgents to a strict code of honor and who was probably (at least in part) the inspiration for Enjolras. Hugo makes multiple references to the real barricade at Saint-Merry while he's talking about the fictional barricade in the rue de la Chanvrerie. wikipedia.fr has a more in-depth article on the revolt itself: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_r%C3%A9publicaine_%C3%A0_Paris_en_juin_1832 It might never have attained the status of a revolution, but I think calling it a mere riot doesn't do it justice. It certainly wasn't the smallest of the uprisings in the 1830s. |
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| LesMisForever |
I agree with you. What i meant is that compared to the 1848, or 1871 it is smaller. |
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| The Pirate King |
I hate it when people talk about how Les Mis is set during The French Revolution. | ||||
| Sweeney Hyde |
Well, even the greatest historians disagree as to when the French Revolution ended. One could very easy say it did not end until well after 1871 when a stable government would have been established. Up until that point of the final republic going into place, none of the governments since the fall of Louis XVI had lasted very long. |
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| Orestes Fasting |
Yes, but the common understanding is that the French Revolution ended with Napol�on's coup d'�tat, and I think that's the revolution those people are referring to. (Not that they generally know enough history to be able to say when the Revolution ended, but I think the assumption is that French Revolution = end of 18th century.) |
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| Aimee |
Its all real I tell you, its real, Valjean, Javert, the lot!!! |
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| LesMisForever |
I am not sure if my question fits in this thread, but i am not too fond of opening new ones.
In the book, Grantaire, oversleeps the battle, because he was drunk. He wakes up only towards the end (Just in time to be killed with Enjolras  )
I have never, ever been drunk in my life (taste, and not religion is the reason), so those of you who are more alchol friendly , can this really happen?
When i discussed this with my brother, he said it is not impossible, but i kind of find it hard. What do you say? |
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| Eponine93 |
This is Grantaire we're talking about. Seriously, now... of course it's possible.
I thought the same exact thing as I read the book. How many people were killed at the June 5-6 uprising? I looked on the Wikipedia page, but it was all in French, so it really didn't help me... |
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| Orestes Fasting |
Is what possible? To sleep through a battle, or to wake up at such a convenient time?
I've never been as dead-drunk as Grantaire was purported to be, but even if I only have a few drinks, once I doze off I am out cold for however many hours it takes to sleep off the alcohol. According to Hugo, R had at least a bottle of wine plus unknown quantities of brandy, stout, and absinthe--perfectly believable that he'd be unconscious from sometime in the late afternoon of June 5 to around noon of the next day. Eponine93--according to one historian, "The total cost of the insurrection was high: for the National Guard, 18 dead, 104 wounded; for the regular army, 32 dead, 170 wounded; for the Municipal Guard, 20 dead, 52 wounded. There was no way to determine the total insurgent casualties, though contemporary estimates put the number at from 80 to 100 dead, with 200 to 300 wounded." Edit: If you don't speak enough French to read the wikipedia page, I just remembered that I have an overview of the June 5-6 insurrection put up on my web site. It's long, more detailed than the Wiki article, and from a book by Jill Harsin entitled Barricades: The War of the Streets in Revolutionary Paris, 1830-1848. It should be noted that the "montagnard" faction she focused on in the book was much more extremist than the students in Les Mis, so her analysis isn't entirely applicable. But it's still a good explanation of the causes, events, and aftermath of the real 1832 revolt. |
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| LesMisForever |
Ok, you can sleep very hard if you are drunk, fair enough, but if there is a battle going on, there must be big noise.
I am told though, that the noise just become part of the "background". *** Those numbers are interesting OF. The casualties are almost 1 to 1. Do you know anything after the fall of the Barricades. Normally, the government's repriasl after the event is just as bad. |
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| Orestes Fasting |
I'm normally a pretty light sleeper, but after a few drinks it would take a hurricane to wake me up.
After the suppression, the city was put into a state of siege and plenty of people unconnected with the events were arrested. But once things came to trial, less than ten death sentences were passed, and they were all commuted to deportation/imprisonment--the government wanted to avoid creating martyrs. 1832 isn't particularly well-known for the viciousness of the government reprisals, perhaps because it's been overshadowed by the rue Transnonain massacre of 1834, where soldiers burst into an apartment, accused the residents of sheltering the insurgents, and basically killed them all. That caused quite a big stink. |
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| LesMisForever |
If i am not mistaken "The Paris Commune", and its aftermath was the bloodiest in terms of casualties amongst the revolutionaries. | ||||
| Quique |
I love, love your posts, Orestes. I learn so much and I have much to learn about the history and details of the novel that I didn't bother looking up the 2 times I've read it. I've never gone as deep into it as you do and I just might start. All of this is facinating! 
As for the drunken thing...yes! It's possible to sleep through an earthquake while in such a state. Trust me, lol. 
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| Orestes Fasting |
Don't look things up as you go through the novel, it'll just give you a headache and a piecemeal knowledge of certain references. Barricades is a good read on the subject; a working knowledge of French history from the Revolution through the Restoration is helpful, but it's definitely accessible to non-academics. And if you get it used on Amazon, it's cheeeeeap.
http://www.amazon.com/Barricades-Streets-Revolutionary-Paris-1830-1848/dp/0312294794/ I'll repeat the caveat, though, that she is writing about a very bloodthirsty and radical offshoot of the republican movement, one that makes Hugo's Enjolras look like a peaceable and conciliatory moderate. So I would pay more attention to the sections on 1830, 1832, the Amis du Peuple, and the sedition trials of that time period than to the Soci�t� des Droits de l'Homme and the montagnard factions of the later 1830s. 1832, at least according to her depiction, was the last hurrah of the moderate democratic movement, and it would be wise to keep that in mind. Do read the later sections of the book, though; they're interesting, and upon rereading Les Mis you'll notice Hugo's sly references to figures who would become important later in the 1830s. (I believe the students got some of their supplies from "a grocer named P�pin," who would later go on to plot an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Louis-Philippe.) |
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| Quique |
Cool. Thanks. I'll do that. =) |
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| sabba |
Age of ValjeanMaybe straying off the point again but Valjean's age confuses me from the book.Just after he rescues Cosette from the Thenardiers and goes to Paris he is described as 55 years old (and Cosette is 8 years old). Just before his death about a decade or so later he is described as 80 years old. Help. I'm confused. |
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| Aimee |
He's not actually 80, its as if he was 80 because his broken heart had broken him physicaly too.  So sad.
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| Orestes Fasting |
Valjean was born in 1769--the same year as Napoleon--and thus would've died at the age of 64 in 1833. And yes, the calamitous events in his life make him seem older than he actually is: his hair turns white overnight when he reveals himself as Jean Valjean in the courtroom, and after he withdraws from Cosette's life and loses the will to live, he seems like a very old man. | ||||
| sabba |
Thanks. My translation has obviously taken the sentence about being 80 over-literally. | ||||
| LesMisForever |
Have you seen his birth certificate?
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| Fantine |
What, are you saying you haven't? |
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| Orestes Fasting |
Yeah dude, eight hours in the Louvre and you didn't even make a stop at the special exhibit on the life of Jean Valjean? For shame! | ||||
| LesMisForever |
8 and HALF hours. I am scratching my head now, how did i miss that. |
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| Eponine93 |
They have an exhibit there? Seriously?? OMG, I should start scheduling a trip to France for next summer... |
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| Orestes Fasting |
Nah, I was just ribbing LesMisForever.
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| Eponine93 |
Oops... I'm gullible...
I once believed one of my friends was allergic to the smell of meatballs cooking. |
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| Fantine |
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| LesMisForever |
hahahaha I suspected that she was doing that. I mean i had the catalogue, and went through almost 90% of it, and there was no mention about it. But, that girl knows so much stuff i was afraid to challenge her. The last time i did, she quoted half of the Greek mythology
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| Quique |
Same here, as much as a fanatic that I am, she's miles ahead of me in terms of detailed, obscure Les Mis knowledge. I wasn't even sure of the Valjean birth thing myself, so I kept my mouth shut, lol.
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| What Is This Feeling? |
This fact just now made my day. | ||||
| dcrowley |
Well, I am sure everyone knows that parts of the novel were taken from Victor Hugo's own experiences... For example: the scene where Fantine gets attacked and then arrested, was taken from an actual event that Hugo witnessed. |