#study: c. fauchelevent

[gathersroses]

COSETTE FAUCHELEVENT.

GENERAL.

NAME,   euphrasie cosette fauchelevent

ALIASES.   cosette (from what she knows, this is her real, full name), alouette, the lark

AGE.   eighteen

BIRTHDATE.   march 18, 1815

GENDER.   female

SEXUALITY.   hetreosexual

STATUS.   single / married to marius pontmercy / verse dependent

ETHNICITY.   white

NATIONALITY.   french

BIRTHPLACE.   paris, france

RESIDENCE.   rue plumet in paris, france

APPEARENCE.

HEIGHT.   5’4”

WEIGHT.   94lbs

BODY TYPE.   thin, was malnourished as a child & hasn’t white adapted yet

SKIN TONE.   fair

HAIRSTYLE.   curly

HAIR COLOR.   dirty blonde

EYE COLOR.   blue

SCARS.   several, mostly on her arms and shoulders with a few on her legs

FACECLAIM.   ellie bamber

PERSONALITY.

TRAITS.   positive, kind, selfless, curious, strong-willed, determined, loyal, quiet, keeps to herself, pensive.

HABITS.   chews on her lower lip, bites her nails

HOBBIES.   reading, dancing

FEARS   abandonment, separation

RELATIONSHIP.

FATHER.   felix tholomays (biological), jean valjean (adopted)

MOTHER.   fantine

SISTER.   none

BROTHER.   none

SIGNIFICANT OTHER.   marius pontmercy (husband)

SON.   verse dependent 

DAUGHTER.   verse dependent 

EXTRA.

MBTI.   tba.

ENNEAGRAM.   tba.

ALIGNMENT.   tba.

HISTORY.

born from a passionate love affair, euprhaise to félix tholomyès and his mistress, fantine on march 18th in the year 1815. fantine nicknamed her “cosette,” meaning, “little thing.”

when she was three years old, her father abandoned her love. fantine left cosette under the care of innkeepers, monsieur and madame thénardier. the moment her mother left, the innkeepers showed their true selves and intentions. cosette was treated horribly by them. only a child, she was treated more like a misused maid.

until christmas of 1823 when jean valjean saved her. he gave her the doll she’d been eyeing in the window, who she named catherine.

to escape from his past, jean valjean took the name fauchelevent which became cosette’s surname. while he worked as a gardener, cosette studied at the convent school.

at the age of fourteen, she had grown into a beautiful young woman and valjean moved them into rue plummet. cosette took up gardening, a small look into the world. she and her papa continued to do charity work, handing out coins to beggars and feeding the hungry.

three years later, cosette fell in love with marius pontmercy, a revolutionary she met briefly at the gardens. they introduced themselves. but when cosette returned to her father, he was suspicious of the young man and warned her not to see him again.

a letter from a beggar man inspired valjean and cosette to bring warm clothes and money they didn't have to their apartment. but upon finding their home, cosette recognized the family as her former abusers. stricken by cold fear, cosette tried to warn her father. they get away. cosette begged him not to return as he said he would, but valjean insisted it was the only way to get them off their back. valjean returned, hurting from whatever happened; he spared cosette the details.

valjean left for a few days, leaving cosette behind. but one night, after receiving a letter, marius pontmercy arrived. they met up every night. valjean is alarmed by a scream and moves himself and cosette to their apartment, intending to move them to england. cosette begged him not to. she wrote a letter to marius, telling him of where she was.

the next day, the june rebellion began. marius wrote a letter back, but it never got to her. instead, valjean reads the letter and goes to find marius. he saved his life. cosette did everything she could to help marius as he mourned his friends and healed from his wounds. he proposed and she accepted.

the day of their wedding was bittersweet. before the ceremony, valjean disappeared. marius told her he went on a journey far away. it broke her heart to not have her beloved father at her wedding. afterwards, marius took her to a convent where cosette got to see her father again before he died.

#interaction: c. fauchelevent #study: c. fauchelevent #headcanon: c. fauchelevent #visage: c. fauchelevent #aesthetic: c. fauchelvent

[dolphin1812]

This shouldn’t be as funny as it is:

“Fauchelevent had expected anything but this, that a grave-digger could die. It is true, nevertheless, that grave-diggers do die themselves. By dint of excavating graves for other people, one hollows out one’s own.  [ . . . . ]

“Father Mestienne is the grave-digger.”

“After Napoleon, Louis XVIII. After Mestienne, Gribier. Peasant, my name is Gribier.””

“Grave-diggers can also die” is a wild plot twist, especially since Hugo portrays it as a shocking fact. And Gribier’s matter-of-fact attitude (and his listing of political events, as if all of this is just “natural” turnover) is humorous in a dark way.

Gribier himself is fascinating. The fact that he has to provide for seven children links him to Jean Valjean, who had to care for the same number of children before his imprisonment. His need to work, then, is desperate, as we know just how hard it is to provide for so many. Avoiding drinking is one way of saving money, but it also speaks to the deprivation of small enjoyments for the poor. Drinking isn’t just a pleasure in itself, but a major way of socializing, as Fauchelevent notes here; by not accepting drinks, Gribier is not only dodging an expense, but a chance to get to know his coworker, one of the few people he has a chance at bonding with in a life dominated by work. Of course, this expense isn’t just hard on him. Fauchelevent is also nervous about the idea of paying for drinks, highlighting his own financial struggles. But Gribier is also even worse off, working two jobs and still having this worry. It’s notable that his jobs mean he literally works day and night: he writes by day and digs by night, not having any real time to rest. The extent to which he can keep this up is debatable. He doesn’t complain of the hours, but he does say that digging is ruining his hand, which he needs to write. He’ll ultimately be forced to choose, losing the funds of one job and likely his dream of writing. Work has consumed his life because he has no alternative if he wants to feed seven children, just as it had taken over Valjean’s existence.

Although the parallel to Jean Valjean is more blatantly referenced through the number, Gribier bears an even closer resemblance to an early Fauchelevent. When we first encountered him, Fauchelevent had just fallen on hard times, losing all the relative comfort he’d had as a notary but maintaining a sense of pride and superiority from that status. Gribier is certainly poor if he works all day and all night, but he also specifically came from an educated class (having studied even more than Fauchelevent). He’s fully literate, speaking of the examinations he’s passed; how he was destined for a career in literature; using words Fauchelevent can’t understand; and referencing philosophy in the middle of their conversation. His contempt for Fauchelevent also links to a rural-urban divide, with him addressing him as a “peasant” and a “rustic” to stress the differences between him, an educated Parisian, and the convent gardener from the countryside. His pride is even more extreme than Fauchelevent’s was, although he doesn’t necessarily have a specific target for his bitterness at his loss of status (unlike Fauchelevent with Father Madeleine). Gribier is doubly dangerous, then. On the one hand, his poverty keeps him from building ties with people that could ultimately create a system of support for him and bring him closer to others. On the other, he rejects these ties on the basis of his past status. He can’t feel solidarity for Fauchelevent if he feels superior to him, and while he does address him as “colleague,” he largely seems to look down on him.

This parallel is particularly interesting given that Fauchelevent is depicted the way Valjean typically is in this chapter. We see him as an outsider would, only being told who he is later on. We may know that Fauchelevent actually has quite a bit in common with Gribier, even if they differ because of their origins (city vs countryside) and the extent to which they rose and fell class-wise. But Gribier only sees that image from the beginning of the chapter: an elderly worker limping behind a hearse. 

#les mis letters #lm 2.8.5 #fauchelevent #gribier #jean valjean #he's such a fascinating character!! even if he's so frustrating #the coffin heist is dramatic enough without outside obstacles but unfortunately #nothing can ever go so smoothly for Jean Valjean :(