Les Misérables · Chapter
Preliminary Gayeties explained
In a wine-shop, Laigle de Meaux, Grantaire, and Joly engage in drunken philosophical banter.
What happens
In a wine-shop, Laigle de Meaux, Grantaire, and Joly engage in drunken philosophical banter. A gamin delivers a message from Enjolras about the funeral of Lamarque, but the trio decides to stay and drink rather than join the procession. As they descend into deeper intoxication, a mob led by Enjolras and Gavroche passes by to build a barricade, and Courfeyrac agrees to construct it in the Rue de la Chanvrerie. Grantaire rambles cynically about morality, revolutions, and divine providence.
Themes in this chapter
Revolution and Social Upheaval
The chapter revolves around the impending funeral of Lamarque and the call to build a barricade, highlighting the revolutionary fervor of the era.
The Human Condition and Fate
Grantaire's drunken ramblings explore fate, divine providence, and the absurdity of human existence, reflecting on the randomness of events.
Characters to notice
- Bossuet
Receives a message from Enjolras via a gamin; decides to stay drinking instead of joining the funeral.
- Grantaire
Drinks heavily, delivers cynical monologues about love, morality, and revolutions; refuses to follow Enjolras.
- Joly
Drinks with Bossuet and Grantaire; expresses reluctance to go out in the rain.
- Gavroche
Appears briefly as a gamin delivering a message; later seen with Enjolras carrying a pistol.
- Enjolras
Sends a message via a gamin; later passes by the wine-shop with armed followers to build a barricade.
- Courfeyrac
Leads the mob to build a barricade; agrees with Bossuet's suggestion to build it in the Rue de la Chanvrerie.
- Matelote
Mentioned as a maidservant in the wine-shop.
- Gibelotte
Mentioned as a maidservant in the wine-shop.
Key passages
“Marius is a fog, and he must have found a vapor. Marius is of the race of poets. He who says poet, says fool, madman, Tymbraeus Apollo.”
Grantaire mockingly describes Marius as a dreamy poet, implying his love affair is ethereal and foolish.
Grantaire's cynical view of Marius's romantic nature.
“A.B.C., that is to say: the burial of Lamarque.”
Laigle deciphers the cryptic message as a reference to the funeral of General Lamarque.
The signal from Enjolras to join the revolutionary gathering.
“I don't execrate this Government. It is the crown tempered by the cotton nightcap. It is a sceptre ending in an umbrella.”
Grantaire dismisses the July Monarchy as a weak, bourgeois compromise, likening its authority to a crown softened by a nightcap.
Grantaire's satirical critique of King Louis Philippe's rule.
“The beer-glass is the abyss. Having neither opium nor hashish on hand, and being desirous of filling his brain with twilight, he had had recourse to that fearful mixture of brandy, stout, absinthe, which produces the most terrible of lethargies.”
Grantaire turns to a potent mix of drinks to induce a dreamlike stupor, seeking escape from reality.
Description of Grantaire's descent into heavy drinking.
“What does a revolution prove? That God is in a quandry. He effects a coup d'etat because he, God, has not been able to make both ends meet.”
Grantaire argues that revolutions are divine improvisations, revealing God's inability to manage the world smoothly.
Grantaire's blasphemous and fatalistic view of historical upheavals.
