So today I finally sat down to figure out why everyone keeps linking Les Mis to the French Revolution. Always heard about it, right? But honestly, I thought it was mostly just singing poor people and a guy chasing another guy for years. Where were the facts?
Digging into the Mess First
Started simple. Pulled up a basic timeline of the French Revolution on my laptop – 1789 stuff. Taxes sucking, King Louis XVI losing his head, all that chaos. Then I hauled out my old, dusty copy of Les Mis. Flip flip flip. Wait… the barricades scene where Gavroche gets shot? Set in freaking 1832! That's like, decades after the main revolution everybody thinks of. Head-scratcher moment right there. Totally thought Hugo just mashed everything together.
My actual process went like this:
- Grabbed notebook. Doodled a quick timeline: big rev 1789-1799 way over here.
- Opened Les Mis. Scanned for dates. Found June 1832 references near the barricade fights.
- Scribbled “WTF? 1832?!” in big letters. Seriously confused.
- Dove deeper online into French history after Napoleon. Turns out, France kept having little revolts like a firecracker trying to go off again.
Connecting the Dots - Bread, Cholera, and Screaming Students
This is where it got messy. The 1832 revolt in Paris? It wasn't the main event, but Hugo used it. Why? Kept digging. Found out life then for most people still totally sucked. Rich folks chilling, poor folks starving. Sound familiar? Exactly like the causes of 1789! Plus, a nasty cholera outbreak wiped out loads of poor people in Paris just before the 1832 rebellion kicked off. Hugo saw that horror firsthand, probably thinking "Here we go again." Explains all that grim death stuff he wrote about.
My lightbulb moment:
- Looked up old records online about Paris in the 1830s. Bad harvests? Check. Sky-high bread prices? Check again (surprise!).
- Read accounts about that cholera epidemic. Grim. Bodies piled up. No wonder Hugo described Paris the way he did.
- Realized the students Enjolras leads? They weren't just dreamers. They were screaming mad about the king not doing jack and trying to grab back power after the main revolution. History echoing loud.
Why Any of This Matters
Here's the kicker I figured out while pacing my kitchen. Hugo wrote Les Mis decades later, looking back. He wasn't just writing about 1832; he was using that failed rebellion to talk about the never-finished fight that started in 1789. You know – Liberty, Equality, Fraternity? That stuff takes more than one go. The barricade heroes dying felt like shouting: "Hey! The rich screwing over the poor never really stopped! We gotta keep fighting!" Heavy, right? Before this, I just thought Javert was stubborn and Cosette had big eyes. Now? Totally different layer. Still mad about Enjolras, tho.
