As someone who loves looking at maps, I’ve had a field day mapping locations from Dickens’ and Victor Hugo’s Paris over the past week. It fascinates me to compare old maps with our contemporary maps and see where they differ. The urbanization of Paris becomes especially prominent when we look through the years, and I find it interesting to see how this huge international city has evolved over the centuries.
The main maps that we are using for our mapping exercises include the 1778 and 1823 maps of Paris. I’ve been relying on Google Maps for my modern comparison, usually switching it to satellite imagery so that I’m able to get a better understanding of what building or space occupies each land area.
Over the weekend, we were tasked with locating the house that Cosette and Jean Valjean lived in on Rue Plumet. Hugo notes that the house was previously owned by a High Court judge, and it had a villa, a garden, and a big iron gate.
“Towards the middle of the last century, a High Court judge in the Paris parliament who was keeping a mistress on the sly – for in those days aristocrats were open about their mistresses and the bourgeoisie were secretive about theirs – had ‘a little house’ built in Faubourg St-Germain, on that deserted street Rue Blomet, now called Rue Plumet, not far from the spot then known as the Combat des Animaux.”
Hugo goes into so much detail about the layout and appearance of this house that we can assume it was based on a real house in that location. Although the passage of time has likely reshaped this house into something different today, we still walked down the Old Rue Plumet, now called Rue Oudinot. We actually did manage to find a large gate, but there was no garden in sight. Turning the corner, we found another tall black gate with lots of greenery around it.
On Monday, I studied the maps to find the street where Marius and his grandfather lived (Rue des Filles du Calvaire), as well as Jean Valjean's apartment on Rue de l’Homme-Armé. Finding both of these locations proved to be fairly straightforward.
“The lodgings in Rue de l’Homme-Armé were situated overlooking a back yard, on the second floor, and comprised two bedrooms, a dining room and adjoining kitchen, and a room under the eaves with a trestle-bed that was allotted to Toussaint.”
Near the end of the novel when Jean Valjean is living alone, he walks to Marius and Cosette’s house daily. The happy couple lives with Marius’s grandfather, Monsieur Gillenormand, on Rue des Filles du Calvaire. Valjean is described as exiting his house on the St. Croix de la Bretonnerie side, then walking past Blancs Manteaux up to Rue Culture St. Catherine. He is said to turn left at Rue d’Écharpe onto Rue St. Louis. Valjean continues along this road until he nears the Rue des Filles du Calvaire, where he turns around to head back home. Although there are some gaps in Hugo’s route, we have enough information to trace a possible route that Valjean could have taken.
On Wednesday, we began our walk by finding the approximate location of Valjean’s house on Rue de l’Homme-Armé. We discovered that the modern name for this street is Rue des Archives, and we made our way up this street. We turned onto Rue des Blancs Manteaux, near what used to be the Blancs Manteaux monastery.
We stopped at the Victor Hugo museum in Place des Vosges along the way to try to gain a glimpse into Hugo’s life. I most enjoyed seeing the painting of Jean Valjean helping Cosette lift her water bucket, which was the scene in the book where Valjean met Cosette for the first time. Seeing this reminder of their relationship made me realize how sad Valjean must have felt stumbling through these streets. He deeply missed Cosette, who for so many years had been his reason to keep going and do good in the world.
We did not finish the walk all the way to Monsieur Gillenormand’s house on Rue des Filles du Calvaire, because one of our group felt faint in the heat - but our failure to complete the walk was actually more true to Jean Valjean’s experience following this route. Marius, believing it best for Jean Valjean and his criminal past to stay far away from him and Cosette, had made Valjean feel alienated from the family. Valjean’s hopelessness caused his walks to become shorter and shorter until he no longer even left his bedroom. Similar to Jean Valjean, we did not walk all the way to the place where Marius and Cosette lived.
Transitioning from mapping residences to mapping the events that took place in the Latin Quarter, we started off by locating Café Musain. The café was used as a meeting place for the Friends of the ABC, the fictional student revolutionary group that met to discuss politics and life.
“They met in Paris in two places, near Les Halles in a tavern called the Corinthe, of which we shall hear more later, and near the Panthéon in a little café on Rue St-Michel called Café Musain, which has now been pulled down.”
Even though the café is located on Rue St-Michel, the Friends of the ABC were said to have met in a back room with a staircase that led to Rue des Grès. I found the little Rue des Grès right near the Luxembourg Gardens, another key book location.
In our afternoon bookpacking for this section of the novel, we strolled around the Latin Quarter before locating the site of the Café Musain. The Latin Quarter was really neat to explore. With university buildings, small restaurants, and narrow streets, I could imagine Marius walking around the area as a young man. He would have walked into the back room of Café Musain, listening in on the Friends of the ABC as they talk politics. There is no longer a café on the corner of the old Rue des Grés and Rue St-Michel, but we stopped at the nearest café for an afternoon snack.
Being able to map these locations and routes before we go out to explore has really helped immerse me in the bookpacking experience. Every mapping exercise is like a little scavenger hunt, and I can’t wait to continue walking the streets of Paris, tracing the steps taken by characters in Les Misérables.