Les Miserables: Volume 5, Book 3 Summary & Analysis

Chapter 1 It is in these sewers that Valjean finds himself, passing from midday light to pure darkness. He is blinded by it, but slowly grows accustomed to the dark. He makes his way into a wall of fog, eventually reaching a fork in the path. The only clue to his direction is the slope, since going downhill would lead to the river. If he follows the slope left, he reasons, he’ll arrive at the Seine around the Pont-Neuf, one of the most densely populated areas of Paris. He turns right, trusting fate.

As Valjean drags Marius, he can feel the latter’s breath on his cheek, confirming that he’s still alive. Valjean believes he’s under the Rue Saint-Denis, which runs straight to the Grand Sewer, but he’s actually in the Montmartre sewer, one of the most labyrinthine of the city. Valjean is slowly overcome by gloom, almost horror. He doesn’t know if Marius will die, if someone else will penetrate the sewer, or if they’ll both be lost and die. Suddenly, he realizes he’s now descending, but he knows it’s more dangerous to retreat than to continue on.

At some point Valjean realizes that he’s returning to the peaceful part of the city, and hears vehicles and sounds of daily life overhead. Suddenly he sees a shadow in front of him. He turns around and sees eight or ten shadowy policemen moving behind him.

Chapter 2 On June 6th, the police had ordered the sewers to be searched, since it was assumed that the insurgents might take refuge there. While Valjean can see the patrol through their lantern, he remains in the shadow. The sergeant gives orders to turn left towards the Seine, and Valjean remains crouched behind them.

Chapter 3 The policemen of Paris had maintained their regular service even in the midst of insurrection. That afternoon, two men could be seen on the banks of the Seine, one trying to overtake the other, but waiting to seize him until the other might reveal some important criminal meeting-place. The policeman made a sign to the driver of a hackney-coach, who followed them. The first man, in rags, did not climb to the Champs-Elysees (ideal for escaping), but instead continued along the quay towards the Pont de Jena. He ducked behind a pile of rubbish at the water’s edge, and the policeman lost sight of him—he’d disappeared. But then he’d looked below him and seen iron bars leading to a dark vaulted corridor.

Chapter 4 Valjean resumes his march, stumbling along in the darkness. His monumental strength finally begins to give way. At about 3 a.m. he reaches the belt-sewer, with four paths ahead of him. He chooses the broadest, deciding he must descend to the Seine despite the risks. This was the right decision, for had he ascended he’d have reached a wall.

Valjean stops to rest a little further on, and he puts his hand on Marius’s heart, which is still beating. He dresses Marius’s wounds and then looks at him with total hatred. He finds the note in his pocket asking that his body be carried to Gillenormand’s address. Valjean continues on, gradually becoming aware, with the growing intermittency of vehicles overhead, that he must have reached the city outskirts.

Chapter 5 The narrator compares Valjean to a walker along a beach who slowly realizes that it’s grown more difficult to walk, though his eyes haven’t perceived any change. He turns back to shore, uneasy, and begins to sink into the sand, suddenly realizing that he’s caught in quicksand. If he’s all alone he’s condemned to be engulfed by the tide, but only slowly, over the course of hours. This fate, the narrator notes, was also possible in Paris’s sewers, with a mix of earth and water creating a kind of quicksand—a truly terrible way to die.

Chapter 6 Valjean now finds himself in such an area of the sewer, as a result of the previous day’s rain. He enters the slime, knowing it’s impossible to retrace his steps. But the water soon comes to his waist, the slime to his knees. He feels he is sinking, and he holds Marius up. Suddenly his foot strikes something solid. Valjean climbs back up, pauses, and prays.

Chapter 7 Valjean sets out again, though he’s exhausted by this effort. After a hundred paces, he raises his eyes, and at the end of the vault sees daylight. No longer is Valjean conscious of his fatigue or of Marius’s weight. He reaches the outlet and stops: there’s no way to get out. The arch is closed by a grating, which is clamped by a thick, rusty double-lock, like those used in the prison.

Valjean lays Marius down by the wall and seizes each bar, but none of them move. He asks himself how he can retrace his steps, survive the quagmire from before, avoid the police patrol, and then reach other outlets that would undoubtedly be barred like this one. Valjean turns his back to the grating and slides to the floor. He thinks only of Cosette.

Chapter 8 Suddenly a hand is laid of Valjean’s shoulder, and a low voice says to him, “Half shares.” Valjean thinks he’s dreaming, but a man is in front of him: Thenardier. Valjean is so disfigured and bleeding that Thenardier doesn’t recognize him. Thenardier asks how he’ll manage to get out. Thenardier says he has the key. He assumes that Valjean has killed the man (Marius) for his money, so if he gives Thenardier half, he’ll open the door. Valjean was clever not to have pushed his victim into the mire, Thenardier goes on—the workmen who will arrive tomorrow could trace him back to the assassin. Valjean searches Marius’s pockets, and only finds a few francs, which Thenardier takes. He then swings open the gate and allows Valjean to pass out.

Chapter 9 All at once, Valjean can breathe easily again. Night is coming on and a few stars can be seen in the sky. Valjean is overtaken by a feeling of serenity, though it’s quickly followed by unease: he turns around, and sees a tall man carrying a bludgeon—Javert. Javert had been in pursuit of Thenardier, who had disappeared. Thenardier had then allowed Valjean out of the sewer, knowing that Javert waited above. Javert doesn’t recognize Valjean, who nevertheless tells him his name. He tells Javert to take him, but to grant him one favor—help him carry Marius to his home. Javert mutters that this man was at the barricade. Javert calls to the coachman of the hackney. The three enter and set out in the coach.

Chapter 10 The trio arrives at the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. Javert addresses the porter, saying that Gillenormand’s son is brought back, dead. The porter doesn’t seem to understand, but wakes up Marius’s great-aunt Gillenormand, and Basque goes in search of a doctor. Javert touches Valjean’s shoulder, and they descend the stairs. Valjean asks Javert one more favor: let him go home for an instant.

Chapter 11 Valjean wants to tell Cosette where Marius is and to warn her of what is to come. Suicide is impossible to him: he merely accepts his fate. As they arrive, Javert tells Valjean that he’ll wait for him below. Valjean ascends the stairs, and then looks out the window from the second floor. Javert has gone.

Chapter 12 Meanwhile, Marius is carried into the living room. He has a shallow wound in his ribs, slashes on his arms, and a broken collarbone. It’s unclear how serious the cuts on his head may be. Basque prepares bandages as the doctor inspects the patient. Then a pale figure creeps around the door: the old man Gillenormand. He gazes at Marius, astonished, and exclaims that he is dead. Gillenormand wrings his hands and cries that he’s gotten himself killed on the barricades out of hatred for his grandfather—only to cause him misery. The doctor takes his arm, as he calms down and begins to reproach Marius in a low but agonizing voice.

Gillenormand says that instead of dancing and carousing, as a twenty-year-old should do, Marius has gotten himself killed for the Republic—a reason to drive Gillenormand mad. He yells at Marius that he will not even grieve over his death. At that moment, Marius’s eyes open, and Gillenormand cries out to his “child” and “well-beloved son,” ecstatic that he’s alive—and then he faints.