Les Miserables: Volume 3, Book 5 Summary & Analysis

Chapter 1 Marius is forced to leave the hotel so as not to go into debt, and he begins to go hungry. He learns to endure the locked door at night when the rent is not paid, the laughter of young girls, and the sneers of neighbors. Misery, notes the narrator, can sometimes strengthen the soul, creating obscure heroes, but heroes who still hold their own greatness.

Marius is finally admitted to practice as a lawyer, and he tells his grandfather in a cold but respectful letter. Gillenormand trembles as he reads it and then throws it into the trash. But he later mumbles to himself that one cannot be both a baron and a lawyer.

Chapter 2 Finally Marius’s misery ends up becoming bearable. He learns German and English; he translates articles and does other small tasks for about 700 francs a year. He moves into the Gorbeau hovel, where he eats meagerly but sometimes splurges on a dinner at the Restaurant Rousseau. With all his expenses, he usually has fifty francs a year left over. It has taken several years of hard labor and destitution, but he’s never been in debt, which he considers the first step to slavery.

Marius never forgets two names: that of his father, and that of Thenardier. He had been distressed at hearing of the man’s ruin at Montfermeil, and has never been able to find him since, though he’s traveled through the whole country, and he vows to continue to look. He dreams of finding Thenardier and bringing him out of misery.

Chapter 3 Three years after he left, Marius still imagines that Gillenormand had never loved him, although his grandfather had adored him despite his severity. Gillenormand secretly had hoped his grandson would return. When Guillenormand asks himself if he’d act the same all over again, his pride answers yes, but his age and sadness answer no. He misses Marius and thinks of him constantly. His daughter, meanwhile, thinks of Marius less and less. At the same time Marius thinks of Gillenormand without bitterness, and is happy to have suffered for his father’s sake. He feels that he has become a man: misery has been good for him. He perhaps has spent too much time in meditation, not understanding that contemplation can become another form of idleness.

One publisher offers to take Marius into his house, lodge him, give him work, and pay 1500 francs, but that would mean giving up his liberty and his dignity, so he refuses. He remains friends with Courfeyrac, though he no longer frequents the Friends of the ABC. His one other friend is the old man named M. Mabeuf, the warden at church who had been responsible for reintroducing Marius to his father.

Chapter 4 Mabeuf understands little of how he himself impacted Marius’s political opinions, and he prefers to think less about politics than about plants and books. He has never loved any woman as much as a tulip bulb. He once told someone that he has forgotten whether or not he was ever married. Mabeuf lives alone with an old housekeeper, a spinster. Marius enjoys spending time with Mabeuf when he’s tired of reading about wars and military glory.

In 1830, Mabeuf’s brother dies, and a notary’s mistake results in him receiving no inheritance. The July Revolution brings a publishing crisis, and the first books to cease to sell are the ones about flowers. Mabeuf is forced to leave his house, sell some of his prints, and move into a tiny thatched cottage near the Salpetriere. But Mabeuf remains calm and serene.

Chapter 5 When he’s not seeing Mabeuf or Courfeyrac, Marius takes pleasure in his long walks on the boulevards, the Champs-de-Mars, or in the Luxembourg Gardens. Sometimes he goes to visit his father’s old generals or comrades, though he only attends their parties on days when it’s freezing cold, since he can’t afford a carriage and doesn’t want to arrive with dirty boots (from the unfrozen ground).

Even with the Revolution of 1830, Marius’s opinions stay the same, though he thinks of human affairs as largely small and petty. Still, he has pure ideas and aspirations for the future, and the narrator notes that a man’s real character is to be found in his aspirations. Towards the middle of 1831, the old porter tells Marius that his neighbors, the Jondrettes, are being turned out since they have not paid their rent of 20 francs. Marius has thirty francs saved up in a drawer, and gives 25 to the porter, telling her to give it to them without telling them that it was him.

Chapter 6 Theodule’s regiment arrives in Paris for garrison duty, and Mademoiselle Gillenormand decides to plot to have Theodule take Marius’s place as the heir. She tells her father that Theodule is coming, but he cares little. Instead he grows enraged by what he’s reading about, a students’ conflict with the Minister of War. The schools of law and medicine plan to “deliberate” on the War Minister’s actions at the Place du Pantheon that day. He angrily imagines Marius there with them. At that moment, Theodule arrives, and Gillenormand begins a monologue about the absurdity of the radical young students, and how idiotic Marius was to leave and become a republican.

Political disagreements are now devolving into chaos and disorder, Gillenormand says, growing more and more dramatic. At each pronouncement, Theodule says that his uncle is right, nods his head, or remarks at his eloquence. Finally, Gillenormand pauses, looks Theodule in the eye, and says he is a fool.