by Victor Hugo
gm This paragraph encapsulates Hugo’s vision of spiritual progress for all humanity.
gn On April 15,1834, government agents mistakenly murdered an innocent working man and his family in a poor neighborhood of Paris, on suspicion of subversive activities. Honoré Daumier protested with a famous lithograph.
go Another allusion to Dante’s Inferno, with the implication that Jean Valjean’s horrible struggles will ultimately prove redemptive.
gp “The City” includes l‘Île de la Cite and l’Île Saint-Louis in the Seine.
gq A rhetorical term for a pithy concluding exclamation, here used whimsically to create a mock-heroic style.
gr Not only is Marius’ body heavy to carry, but Marius also represents a figurative cross to bear because he makes Jean Valjean suffer jealousy, rage, and the fear of losing Cosette.
gs A universal symbol of evil and entrapment, often used by Hugo.
gt Refers to the figurative chalice of suffering that Christ, foreseeing his crucifixion, had to accept at Gethsemane and drain to the bottom.
gu Thénardier puns by using the French idiom for “liberty”—la clé des champs (“the key to the fields”).
gv Thénardier uses the idiomatic expression ça me botte—“that puts boots on my feet” (in a day when many had to go barefoot).
gw The French term used is le recel, which refers to the felonies of receiving stolen goods or hiding persons wanted by the police.
gx Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) was a prominent painter of maudlin, moralizing subjects, and cloyingly cute children and girls.
gy “To pull the Devil by the tail” is a French idiom for “to have trouble making ends meet.”
gz French lawyers often served as investment managers for individuals and were notorious for absconding with their clients’ funds. See Flaubert’s “Un coeur simple.”
ha The French faire la noce is a pun also meaning “have an orgy.” Thénardier, dis guised as a Spaniard in the Mardi Gras procession, makes the same pun when he sees Cosette and Marius’ wedding carriage pass: “We’re the real ‘noce.”’
hb The hydra was a huge legendary serpent with seven heads; when you cut off one, several grew back. The image refers to Jean Valjean’s temptation by angry, selfish thoughts.
hc For the remainder of this paragraph and the next, and intermittently throughout the rest of the chapter, Hugo renders Marius’ inner questioning with free indirect discourse, to make him more vividly, intimately present to us.
hd The métaphore maxima conveys the supernatural mysteries that underlie Jean Valjean’s extraordinary behavior.
he Marius is at the beginning of his moral progress, and Jean Valjean at the end of his.
hf “Begone, Satan”—Christ’s final reply to the Devil’s three temptations in the Bible, Matthew 4:10.