Les Miserables: Volume 5, Book 5 Summary & Analysis

Chapter 1 Some time after this, Boulatruelle (the convict from Montfermeil who had attempted to follow Valjean into the forest) has taken up a job as a road-mender, largely abandoning his thefts. One morning he’s on his way to work and catches sight of a familiar-looking man between the trees. Boulatruelle thinks of the treasure and vows to find the man. He pursues him into the forest but then loses him. He climbs up a beech tree to see better.

Boulatruelle sees the man enter an open glade and approach a chestnut tree with a sheet of zinc nailed onto the bark. He jumps gaily down from the tree and zigzags through the underbrush, flailing among the nettles and hawthorns. Finally Boulatruelle reaches the tree, which now has a pick-axe left in front of it and an empty hole. He cries “Thief!” into the horizon.

Chapter 2 Marius remains in a fever for many weeks, with his grandfather seated at his side. Every day a well-dressed man with white hair inquires after him and leaves a package of lint for his bandages. In September Marius’s convalescence begins, and only two months later can he emerge from bed. Six months after the riots, however, France has largely forgotten the actors, and he’s no longer pursued.

When the doctor announces that Marius will recover, Gillenormand grows delirious with joy. Before, he had never really believed in God, but now he prays and cries “Long live the Republic!” Meanwhile, Marius continues to think about Cosette, the only fixed point in his life. His grandfather’s solicitude hasn’t entirely won him over—he believes that as soon as he mentions Cosette, Gillenormand’s true character will be unmasked again. He thinks again of his grandfather’s harshness towards his father. Gillenormand does notice that Marius hasn’t called him “father” since being restored to health. One morning he complains about the Convention based on a newspaper article, and Marius says firmly that the men of ’93 were giants. Gillenormand remains silent.

Chapter 3 One day, Gillenormand suggests that Marius begin to eat meat to regain his strength. Marius takes the opportunity to sit up and say that he has something to say: he wishes to marry. His grandfather agrees and laughs merrily, while Marius, stunned, trembles. Gillenormand says that the girl has spent her time weeping and waiting for him. The girl is charming and discreet, Gillenormand says, and if Marius had died she would have as well. He’s realized Marius does not love him, and now he wants only for Marius to marry and be happy. Gillenormand bursts into tears, and Marius addresses him as Father, shocking his grandfather. He asks if he might see Cosette that day, and Gillenormand agrees.

Chapter 4 Cosette arrives at Marius’s room, delighted and afraid, followed by Jean Valjean. The porter cannot recognize in this man the haggard, muddy figure that had arrived on June 7th carrying Marius, but he still feels that he’s seen Valjean’s face before. Gillenormand asks Valjean for Cosette’s hand on behalf of Marius, and Valjean bows. Cosette tells Marius how afraid she was for him. Then they pause and Gillenormand tells the rest of the room to speak loudly so that the couple may speak in confidence.

Gillenormand exclaims that Cosette is beautiful, but then he turns gloomy, and says that much of his wealth is tied up in an annuity, meaning that they won’t have much to live on after he dies. Valjean says that “Euphrasie Fauchelevent” possesses 600,000 francs, and opens the package on the table. The grandfather exclaims that young Marius has stumbled upon a “studentess” who’s actually a millionaire. Meanwhile Marius and Cosette gaze at each other, unaware of all this.

Chapter 5 The narrator assumes the reader has gathered how Valjean had been able to bury the sum previously deposited at Laffitte’s in the forest of Montfermeil, together with the Bishop’s candlesticks. He’s returned each time he needed money. Now he keeps only 500 francs for himself. He knows he’s free from Javert; he saw in the newspaper that the police inspector was found drowned, in a probable case of mental illness and suicide.

Chapter 6 Valjean and Gillenormand prepare the wedding. Valjean concocts a whole deceased family for Cosette, in which he is her uncle. She’s declared an orphan, with Valjean (as Fauchelevent) her guardian. They deposit a legacy supposedly given to her by a dead person who had wished to remain anonymous. Cosette is slightly saddened by the realization that Valjean is not her true father, but she’s already so joyful that it matters less than it might have otherwise, and she continues to call him father.

Gillenormand is more excited than anyone about the wedding, but claims that the 18th century knew better how to organize such events, with its manners, music, luxury, and gaiety. Today people are too serious, he says, expounding upon the older days as Cosette and Marius stop listening and gaze only at each other. Aunt Gillenormand has lived these past few months in a state of shock, but now she regains her piety and begins to spend much time at church, mumbling her rosary. She’s hurt by her father’s failure to consult her about the marriage, but ultimately decides to leave her inheritance to the young people. It’s decided that they will live with Gillenormand.

Chapter 7 Cosette and Marius see each other every day, accompanied by Fauchelevent/Valjean. Marius doesn’t entirely understand the man, and he asks himself whether he might have seen him in the barricade. Marius is haunted by the thoughts of his friends, all dead. It’s difficult for him to believe that he’s now rich, has a family, and will marry Cosette—nothing he could have expected. Only once does Marius ask Fauchelevent, if he’s acquainted with the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and Fauchelevent replies that he has no idea where that is. Marius decides that he must have been hallucinating.

Chapter 8 Marius makes all the attempts he can to find two men: Thenardier and the unknown man who had brought him back to Gillenormand. But Madame Thenardier had died in prison, and no one can find a trace of the husband or his daughter Azelma. For the other man, Marius finds the coachman who had brought him to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire on June 6th, who declares that on that afternoon, he had stood at the command of a police-agent (Javert) on the quai; around nine o’clock that evening, a man had emerged from the sewer grating bearing another who appeared to be dead. The agent had first brought the two men into the carriage and then to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, where they had deposited the dead man (Marius). Then the police agent had led the other man away into the dark.

Marius wants to find the savior who had led him through the sewer. He asks the police, but no one has any report of an arrest made on June 6th, and they say that the coachman must have made the affair up. Marius wonders what has become of this agent. One day, speaking with Valjean and Cosette, he exclaims how sublime this man must have been, to have traveled more than a league in the terrifying underground chambers with the sole object of saving himself, risking his own life twenty times, whereas he, Marius, was only an insurgent. He would give all Cosette’s 600,000 francs to know who this man was. Valjean remains silent.