Was the law really 20+ years imprisonment for stealing bread so you don't starve to death? Also, the way women are treated in this story, can somebody with an idea of relevant history clarify that does the story reflect 19th century french society and law accurately? If it does, man has certainly evolved more in last 100 years then in previous 1000.
shareexaggerated. there was a system of appeals as well.
share
Was the law really 20+ years imprisonment for stealing bread so you don't starve to death?
Also, the way women are treated in this story, can somebody with an idea of relevant history clarify that does the story reflect 19th century french society and law accurately? If it does, man has certainly evolved more in last 100 years then in previous 1000.
I should start by saying that I've not read the book and am only just watching the film for the first time, but according to the lyrics from the musical (and it was only 19 years in that), it was 5 years for breaking, entering and burglary and the rest was for evading the police
Valjean
I stole a loaf of bread!
Javert
You robbed a house!
Valjean
I broke a window pane!
My sister's child was close to death
And we were starving!
Javert
And you will starve again
Unless you learn the meaning of the law.
Valjean
I know the meaning of these 19 years
A slave of the law
Javert
Five years for what you did
The rest because you tried to run
Yes 24601
Valjean
My name is Jean Valjean
In the book, he actually tried to break out of jail and got a lot more years for that.
shareIn this movie he confesses to Cosette that he did a number of terrible things whilst in prison. Which implied to me that perhaps there was far more to his back story than even the viewer was aware of... making the 20 years for stealing seem less outrageous by implication.
shareValjean spent 19 years in prison because he tried to break out of jail while serving time for breaking into a house to steal food to feed his family.
shareActually, sentences were often trumped up in those days. The government was looking for men to work the galleys (exploration and claiming of land being worth a lot to the government) and often trumped up sentences so they'd have a choice to cheap labour. The five years was for the theft (which, considering the mitigating factors, we would consider excessive), and the rest were for various escape attempts from jail. Before he reinvents himself, he steals money from a small boy. He tries to find the boy, and repents of his crime, but as it's reported he knows that as a repeat offender he will likely be jailed for ever, so he spends his life making amends by his deeds (he becomes a successful factory owner and mayor) and eventually draws the attention of the police inspector Javert, when JVJ lifts a heavy cart off a man. Javert knew JVJ was an escaped criminal, which is why he pursues him. His obsession stems from the event in the book where JVJ (in his guise as M. Madeleine, the Mayor of M-sur-M), orders Javert in front of his men to release Fantine. Javert's humiliation at being so dismissed leads to his obsession with his pursuit. So no, not a sentence of 20+ years for a loaf of bread.
As for the treatment of women, it was reasonably honest. Women who did not come from "means" or whose parents or husbands had died, often had little choice, other than either a convent or the street. Unfortunate, but true. Anne Frank's diary also mentions prostitution in this way, that it was the last lot of desperate women and many would sooner die than sink so low.
Source: I'm an English teacher, currently doing a version of Les Miz with my class.
Hello,
I just thought I'd ask and get your opinion please.
I was wondering why do you think they stayed in Paris after the Convent?
It seems like he was able to go to England since he and his daughter where going to leave after she met her boyfriend.
Yeah, the story would have been over, but what other reasonable reason could there have been to stay?
Maybe he didn't realize that the Inspector was still in Paris, but I'm sure he should have known. That's why he continued to keep a low profile.
Anyway, I'd like to hear what you think.
Thanks for your time.
TC
"Actually, sentences were often trumped up in those days. The government was looking for men to work the galleys (exploration and claiming of land being worth a lot to the government) and often trumped up sentences so they'd have a choice to cheap labour."
There's even more to the story than that.
I find a lot of significance in the dating: Valjean is imprisoned in 1796, released in 1815. I'm not certain of the exact dates within those years, but the years themselves are significant.
--1796: Robespierre, the Jacobins, and the Reign of Terror are somewhat a thing of the past, but now the counter-revolutionary forces have every reason to believe they can take advantage of the political instability of France in the years of rule by the more moderate Directory, now purged of its most radical elements. In late 1795, they tried to mount a royalist coup, and were stopped by the expertise of a general named Napoleon Bonaparte. By the end of 1796, he will have negotiated a peace with Austria, and will be well on the way to becoming "First Consul," then an Emperor.
During all these years, lawmen have plenty of reasons to arrest lots of little guys like Jean Valjean, on almost any pretext, "trumped up" if need be. They're not only potentially useful on ships and in the colonies, they can in many cases be used as foot soldiers, either in the ongoing civil wars, or in the "wars of the Revolution" such as the unending war with Britain. "Here you go, Jean, Henri, Jacques, Martin: You want to get out of prison? Sure, we'll let you go. All you have to do is agree to put on a uniform, strap on a gun, and go fight for us in (Italy, Egypt, Spain...)"
But Valjean has just as much reason to be suspicious of the goodwill of the authorities of the First French Republic, as they themselves would have been justified in being suspicious of the intentions of one Napoleon Bonaparte.
1815: Napoleon's "first French empire" failed the year before, and Napoleon was sent into a fairly comfortable imprisonment at Elba. Like Jean Valjean has done more than once, he escapes rather easily in February 1815, resumes his title as Emperor for "the Hundred Days," loses badly at Waterloo, and is then imprisoned far less comfortably on the island of St. Helena, from which he will never escape. During all or most of Jean Valjean's first year of parole, France is ruled once again by a king of the Bourbon dynasty, the next-younger brother of the old king who was beheaded only about 3 years before Valjean stole that loaf of bread. It is almost as if the French Revolution never happened, as if the First Republic never existed.
So: Jean Valjean is behind bars either for the entire time in which Napoleon was a force to be reckoned with, or for almost all that time. At the beginning of his saga, he was a figure whose humanity was overlooked even by the First Republic, treated more as an inanimate object, with whom one can do whatever one wants, than as a fellow creature, let alone an equal. And then later, after the monarchy is restored, he is somehow even less.
Geez, one of these days, sooner than later, I'm going to have to sit down and actually read the novel. From exposure to the musical, I'm just starting to get an inkling of what an important work of literature it is.
"I don't deduce, I observe."
Yeah, pretty much what he said.
At the time, France was in the middle of a period of revolution and war. When Valjean is released is around the same time Napoleon's wars were ending. Also, Valjean was only imprisoned for 5 years, the rest of his sentence was because he kept trying to escape.
I should also note that in the novel, Valjean mistakenly refers to Napoleon as "The Emperor", which is the reason why the judge orders his arrest after his confession even after his heroics as mayor.
(To clarify, Napoleon *was* the Emperor of France for a time - but the House of Bourbon refused to ever recognize him as such, and once restored to the throne, they considered it treasonous to refer to him in that way, even in the past tense after he had been overthrown.)
In the book, Valjean is sentenced to 5 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread, but he makes a few escape attempts that compound the years and he ends up with 19 years because of those attempts at escaping.
shareThat makes sense. I should have read the book, I guess. Though they should have made that clear in the movie too.
"The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor."
- Voltaire
He was sentenced five years for robbing a house (breaking a window to steal a loaf of bread).
He was given fourteen more years for (I think) four escape attempts.
Afterwards, he broke his parole - an offense worthy of life imprisonment in France at that time.
Valjean's sister had seven children, and they were without bread and so Valjean, broke a window and stole a loaf of bread. He was chased by the baker and caught, without the bread but with a bloody arm from the window. He was sentenced to about four years, but he kept escaping and every time he escaped they would add either three or five years. Until his total sentence was 19 years.
And yes this is an accurate portrait of the way that the world worked back then, I know in a world where women are proud to be referred to as "baby mamas" there is a little confusion to the concept of the morality judgments placed on Fantine for having a child out of wedlock. It simply wasn't done. And in all honesty it wasn't until recently, the last thirty years or so that the concept of an unwed mother isn't extremely taboo.
The initial sentence was 5 years but he tried to evade 4 times so he ended up in prison for 19 years due to that
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