1.2.1-Kingedmundsroyalmurder

ClubNinetyThree 1.2.1: maybe eventually I’ll learn to spell ninety without having to stop and think
So despite the fact that we have completed the book entitled ‘At Sea’ and moved on to the next one, it is only now that we actually set sail. Or, rather, prepare to set sail. (And yes, I’m aware that the title of the last book is metaphorical. But it still amuses me, because Hugo has this habit of saying, ‘now I’m going to talk to you about this!’ and then wandering off to talk about something else instead and only later coming back and linking it to the original thing. See: Marius Pontmercy’s introduction.)

Anyway, yes, in this chapter we meet a ship and a man. The ship is named and the man is not and neither are what they appear to be at first glance. Starting with the ship: right away we are told that it’s an English ship crewed by Frenchmen that serves as a warship while looking like a merchant’s vessel. Already a study in contradictions and in paradoxes, perhaps even a reference to the idea that in wartime one finds oneself with the unlikeliest of allies and that nothing is as it seems. The ship is built to deceive: “Elle avait été construite à deux fins, ruse et force: tromper, s’il est possible, combattre, s’il est nécessaire.” (“She was built with two goals, ruse and force: to deceive, if possible, to fight, if necessary.”).

Furthermore the men who crew her are Frenchmen whose allegiance is not to France. My very sketchy knowledge of the politics at the time suggests that perhaps being loyal to the English navy was a way of being loyal to royalist France, but they’re still categorized as emigres and deserters, which are not really words one uses to talk about loyal citizens. And these men aren’t just royalists, they’re fanatics. We’ve already seen Hugo talk about fanaticism back in Les Mis, when he uses the term to characterize Javert and Marius (and Enjolras? I can’t remember). (Also yes, I will keep referencing Les Mis. What you call obsession I call intertextuality, shhh.) [I was going to put a thing here about one of them later turning out to be a spy, but rereading proves that he’s not a crewmember after all. So never mind.]

So then we move on to our other primary character, the mysterious peasant man. Unlike the Claymore's officers, this man is not named, though he is thoroughly described. I am not gifted with the ability to visualize anything at all, but the description of this man's clothing seems quite comprehensive enough to let people who do have the skill actually see pretty well what the man looks like. Like the ship, he is immediately set up as a series of contrasts: a man who is both young and old, who has the strength of youth and the wisdom of age, who dresses like a peasant and has an aristocrat's hands, who offers has no name but commands respect, who wears clothing that is at once rough and fine and whose hat is simultaneously military and not. Hugo's got a theme for this chapter, basically.

And this is all leading up to the final contradiction of this chapter, namely a man who is set up as an ally of the royalists turning around and being revealed as a republican spy (or perhaps he’s just on his own side; I don’t know enough about him to say). Nothing about any of this chapter is what it seems, and for the most part everyone involved knows this. Presumably they don’t know that they’ve been sold out, but they know that the merchant ship is not a merchant ship and that the peasant is not a peasant and that the English vessel is not crewed by Englishmen. And, of course, in keeping with this, Hugo opened on a fog that is good for escaping because it is bad for navigating, thereby stating his thesis statement outright couched as living scenery. Victor Hugo has many faults but his ability to Words is not one of them.

Commentary
Principessar16 Ahaha what you call I obsession I call intertextuality I am going to use this line irl from now on