One thousand, two-hundred and seventy-five pages into Les Miserables, the almost superhuman Jean Valjean approaches his death following his increasingly shorter walks, originally making it all the way to Cosette’s house before turning around, then the street before, then not even that, until eventually the once infallible Jean Valjean becomes confined to his bed. The streets that Jean Valjean walked are named, and we walked the same streets he once did. We found the street corners where he gave up and turned around: the Rue St-Louis, the Rue Culture-Ste-Catherine, the Rue des Trois-Pavillons.

My first thought when beginning Jean Valjeans walk was how sad even the street looked. Even at midday, the street was empty. In his day that wasn’t true. The book describes how the children laughed at him, calling him “simple-minded,” as he did his walks with no one and nothing in his mind but seeing Cosette. Today, the walk trades jeering schoolchildren for claustrophobia, as the narrow street adds a sense of foreboding to what would be a somber walk. But as you turn the corner on Valjean’s walk, the street does open up eventually.

And it opens up to, coincidentally, two early examples of social welfare. The first is on the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, named so because a noble provided a mansion for the purpose of housing 48 of the Francs Bourgeois, citizens unable to pay taxes, for free. The second of which is the Mont de Piete, an organization that served as a pawn broker that helped provide cash to those who were impoverished. At Hugo’s time of writing Les Miserables, and at Jean Valjean’s time of walking these streets, these social welfare organizations had already existed. That these early examples, albeit small and limited, of welfare existed is remarkable, and gets at the social reform aspect of the novel, even though the placement of Jean Valjean’s walk past them is likely entirely coincidental.

It is the absence of welfare – and the systems that fill in that void that Les Miserables concerns itself with. Jean Valjean’s original rescuing of Cosette can be read as a form of welfare. As mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer, Jean Valjean feels personally responsible for Fantine, a woman who dies of poverty as a result of Jean Valjean’s appointed officer firing her. Stepping in and taking care of her orphaned daughter – Cosette – is an example of the ethos of social welfare, even if it’s only done out of a sense of personal responsibility, rather than institutionalized on a system-level.

While originally embodying the ethos of social welfare, their relationship quickly becomes more complicated. The reliance of Cosette on Jean Valjean changes as they age, as it becomes Jean Valjean that is reliant on Cosette for her company and emotional support to bring him happiness. For this reason, he is originally resistant to her and Marius forming a relationship, fearing her separation from him. And it is due to this separation from her that he ends up in the depths of misery, and eventually, his deathbed. It is the absence of social welfare and institutionalized systems of support and communities of care that lead to this reliance of Jean Valjean on Cosette, and shows how in the absence of a community containing the ethos of social welfare, it is solely the burden of family to care for each other. This reliance on the family reinforces patriarchal notions as the burden often falls on women like Cosette to provide emotional support rather than finding it within the community. This lack of alternative support systems is thus one of the driving forces behind this final arc of the story, leading to scenes of great drama and great tragedy.

The same day we walked the route Jean Valjean walked, we visited The Museum of Paris, which contains relics of another form of social welfare in Paris’ history: specifically, remnants from the Paris Commune. While deeply flawed, this commune allowed people the chance to make art, providing the opportunity to people who otherwise would lack the chance, whether from financial constraints or temporal limitations. The commune recognized the fundamental humanity in the creation of art, and how when our basic needs are met, we turn to art as if by instinct.

This idea recurred in my mind when I later visited the Louvre. While I was amazed by many of the paintings, including all the paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci and Caravaggio, the painting that moved me the most was “Still Life with Fish and Other Sea Creatures,” a painting with a sea turtle on its back, shedding a tear, surrounded by other dying fish, right above a fish with a snout suggestive of a sword. Surrounded by paintings of biblical scenes and figures this still life of sea animals stood out in a way that made me look at the scene as one of emotional valence, rather than just an expression of artistic ability. This made me wonder: what would the Louvre look like if the history of art was developed by people of different backgrounds, of all sorts of scenes. I think the Louvre would be a lot more interesting that way. This is what social welfare allows. Social welfare doesn’t just save lives – it enriches them, allowing people to build relationships outside the limitations of financial reliance, to have support beyond just the family – to have the chance to admire art, and to make it.