Jean Valjean's Nightmare: Rehabilitation and Redemption in Les Miserables
![handle is hein.journals/mcglr43 and id is 175 raw text is: Articles
Jean Vaijean's Nightmare: Rehabilitation and Redemption
in Les Miserables
Michael H. Hoffheimer*
I. INTRODUCTION
The Champmathieu Affair' comes at a critical juncture in Victor Hugo's
Les Misirables. It occurs after Jean Vaijean appears to have achieved complete
rehabilitation. The ex-convict has not only renounced crime, he has taken the
name Monsieur Madeleine, settled in the northern town of Montreuil-sur-mer,
and invented a manufacturing process that brings prosperity to the region. As a
respected civic leader and elected mayor, he begins to intervene in the tragic life
of Fantine, ordering her release from Inspector Javert's custody2 and promising to
retrieve her daughter Cosette.3
* Professor of Law and Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association Distinguished Lecturer, University of
Mississippi School of Law. My thanks go to Luanne Buchanan, Martha Grace Duncan, and James Boyd White
for helpful responses to drafts of this article.
1. Les Misgrables comprises five semi-autonomous parts that are divided into books. The books are
subdivided into numbered, titled passages that this article refers to as chapters, though Hugo does not label
them as such. The Champmathieu Affair is the title of Part I, Book Seven. VICTOR HUGO, LES MISeRABLES
178-235 (Julie Rose trans., Random House 2008) (1862) [hereinafter LES MIStRABLES]. The narrator and Jean
Valjean himself later use the phrase to refer to the crisis Jean Valjean experiences in that book. Id. at 1134,
1141. See infra note 70 and accompanying text.
2. This provides one of the occasions where characters cite legal authority. When Javert is reluctant to
release Fantine, Jean Valjean cites article eighty-one of the law of December 13, 1799, on arbitrary detention.
LES MISERABLES, supra note 1, at 166. That article stated that [aill persons who, without lawful authority,
make, direct or execute the arrest of any person and all persons who, even when authorized by law, receive or
retain the person arrested in a place of detention that is not publicly and legally designated as such, and all the
wardens and jailers who violate the provisions of the three preceding articles are guilty of the crime of arbitrary
detention. 1799 CONST. 81 (translated by author). It is not clear which provision of the law Javert has violated,
as the cited law does not expressly resolve the conflicting authority of the arresting officer and the mayor.
Nevertheless, Javert releases Fantine. LES MtStRABLES, supra note 1, at 166.
Jean Valjean's citation of the Republican Constitution for the freedom from arbitrary arrest advances
Hugo's political agenda of defending the Revolution. He could have cited article 341 of the more recent Code
Pnal de 1810. See CODE PENAL [C. PEN.] (1810) art. 341, available at http:/ledroitcriminel.free.fr/
la.legislation criminelle/ancienstextes/code-penal_1810/code-penal_ 1810_3.htm (on file with the McGeorge
Law Review) (All persons shall be punished by a term of hard labor who, without order of lawful authority and
apart from cases where law authorizes detention, have arrested, detained or sequestered any person whatsoever.
Any person who provides a place for carrying out such detention or sequestration is subject to the same
penalty.) (translated by author).
3. Fantine's name provides the title for Part I, and Cosette's the title for Part II. Hugo's narrator recounts
Jean Valjean's statement to Fantine that he will either send someone to retrieve Cosette or will go himself. LES](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/mcglr43&div=13&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Jean Valjean's Nightmare: Rehabilitation and Redemption in Les Miserables
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