1.1.1-Shirley-keeldar

ClubNinetyThree: 1.1.1: Le Bois de la Saudraie
I AM SO EXCITED TO BE HERE AND BE DOING THIS and it is so scary doing it going into a book I know nothing about but also invigorating to know there are other people also doing it, hello, everyone! Hi!! Let’s dive right in.

It is May 1793, and we are in the Vendée, which means roughly that everyone is either very unhappy or very dead. And here we find ourselves with a batallion being led by General Santerre into the Bois de la Saudraie, in Astillé, which we may as well, owing to its recent history, start refering to as the Murder Forest. The really pretty, really densely-wooded Murder Forest full of flowers and symbolic birds symbolically chirping over the symbolic and pointy bayonets of Santerre’s sadly reduced force.

It is sadly reduced because Civil War, scare-caps very necessary, has been ravaging the Vendée for months, and Parisian troops, among others, have been dropping by the barrel-load. At the end of April, Paris sent twelve thousand volunteer troops out here, and now eight thousand of them are dead. And we’re not even talking about the civlian death tolls here.

War: it fucking sucks. (This is our theme for the chapter, pretty much, with a side of human decency struggling — successfuly, in this case! — to triumph over politics.)

Anyway, we were with the troops. Specifically, we’re with the grenadiers walking on ahead to spy out the land, accompanied by their viviandère. I had to look this up: a viviandère is a woman who travels with the soldiers and supplies them with food. The batallion of the Bonnet-Rouge’s viviandère is called Houzarde. (She’s not referred to this way in narration; no one is referred to by name in narration. Hold this thought.)

According to Victor “Interesting Ideas About Women” Hugo, Houzarde is accompanying them because “curiosity is one of the forms of feminine courage.”

Moving right along. I’m not actually that interested in critiqueing Hugo’s approach to women, because however he manages to arrive at it, he does have interesting, complete female characters. So.

The Murder Forest is a great place for an ambush, but instead of an ambush the advance guard finds a woman with three children, one of them a nursing infant. Everyone involved, aside from the baby, proceeds to get very upset. The woman, Michelle Fléchard, is upset because there are soldiers all around her asking her questions she doesn’t understand and she’s scared half to death. The soldiers are upset because they don’t understand what’s happening and they’re standing around in the Murder Forest. Houzarde is upset because LADY YOU COULD HAVE GOT YOURSELF KILLED WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

I really enjoy all of this awkward conversation, actually, in a kind of horrible black comedy way, with Michelle and the sergeant talking at cross-purposes most of the time. Michelle’s grandfather was a Huguenot sent to the galleys by the curate, her father was beaten half to death by the local lord, her father-in-law was hanged by the king… and most recently her husband has been fighting for the king, the lord, and the curate, because what else was he going to do?

One grenadier in particular is angry about this and tries to take out his frustration in Michelle’s direction, but the sergeant, Radoub, isn’t having it.

Michelle doesn’t have any political opinions and nor does she want any, thanks. Her husband was just killed, her house burned in a battle she doesn’t understand, and she doesn’t even quite get what a “patrie” is supposed to be. She’s a Breton, after all, and that’s not actually the same as being French. She just wants to get her children to safety and maybe get them some food, that would be nice.

GoogleMaps tells me that the distance between Azé, where Michelle’s house was, and Astillé, where the Murder Forest is, is about fifty miles. She and her little babies have come fifty miles in three days.

I AM SO UPSET.

Houzarde is also really upset. She compliments the kids, offers to take Michelle on as a sub-viviandère, and tells the story of when she saw Louis XVI guillotined.

I love her, I love her a lot, I want to give her a hug.

I love her little bit about giving everyone on the battlefield water, no matter what side they’re on.

Oh, oh, and the little baby girl smiles at Radoub, and a SINGLE PEARLY TEAR RUNS DOWN HIS FACE INTO HIS MUSTACHE.

And then THE BATALLION ADOPTS ALL THE LITTLE CHILDREN.

Houzarde burts into tears — AND SO DO WE ALL.

VIVE LA RÉPUBLIQUE!!!

I’m trying to both accurately summarize and also reproduce my genuine first reactions here.

Now some Things:

1. Houzarde was vouvoieing Michelle all along, but Radoub doesn’t until the last line, where he says, “Venez, citoyenne.”

2. No one gets addressed by name by the narration, though their names come up in conversation, and I’ll be interested to see whether that’s a Thing or what. (Actually Radoub gets called Sergeant Radoub exactly once. But it’s just the once so I’m leaving this point.)

3. The soldiers trying not to swear by religious figures leads to some HILARIOUS curses: “Sacré mille noms de noms de brutes!” and “nom d’un petit bonhomme” gosh.

4. Oh gosh. WHAT DID THEY FLETCH, YOUR FLETCHERS.

Commentary
Pilferingapples HELLO GOOD MORNING YOU ARE DOING THIS THING VERY RIGHT, though I’d suggest, for your own future ease of archive search, tagging your posts with chapter indicators. TRUST ME ON THIS. o_o

Good call on the thing about the names and narration; I’d actually passed right by the given names of most of them, except the kids, because the narration is so intent on referring to them by roles (and I am Not Good With Names, so repetition of them is important for me). Given how that’s actually trickier than USING names, and how MUCH use of names and identifiers as themes Hugo indulges in during Les Mis, yeah, I’m sure it’s Making a Point, though what point, I’ve got no idea. FURTHER THOUGHTS AS NARRATIVE WARRANTS??

Mamzellecombeferre Not only names but pronouns were something I didn’t pick up on right away as I usually do either. Whether this is me being an inattentive reader or something Hugo is purposely doing, I don’t know, but I like the idea of everyone in the republic not only being identified by job instead of name, but also by job instead of gender.

Bobcatmoran Just wanted to say that oh my gosh, those attempts at secular cursing are hilarious, and I am sad that my translation, at least, only managed a half-hearted “By Jove!” (ah, to be able to read French! Alas. Thanks for noting the vouvoieing, by the way — what an interesting detail!)

The sergeant does, however, seem to be attempting to instill Good Republican Values in Michelle by chastising her, “Oh, my Lord Jesus!” with, “No superstitions.”

Fizzygingr Oooh, that’s a really interesting point about how everyone in this mini-Republic is known by their roles instead of their names. I expect we’ll have more to say about that further on.