There is something inherently tragic in Jean Valjean. A convict, on the run, who falls in love with fatherhood - his story is poetic, charming, and unfortunately, doomed. After spending ten years of his life bringing up little Cosette, Valjean has finally given himself a sense of purpose; hard to come by after nineteen years in the prison hulks. The pinnacle of life becomes his Cosette, and for a long time this is reciprocated – they are all each other have; Valjean is really all Cosette knows. When, however, she inevitably falls in love and begins to transition into womanhood, everything changes. She no longer needs Valjean, she wants Marius. For Valjean this means he has lost her, and letting her go is no easy feat.

Victor Hugo does something really interesting here; for so long he represents Valjean as this incredibly tough man – he has survived hell and come back from it [repeatedly]. And yet, when it comes to Cosette, Hugo gives us a very different portrait, we now see Valjean as a weary, sad, and irrefutably sensitive man. His inner monologue divulges to us that it is not Javert, or prison or even death that scares him, it is being without Cosette he fears, it’s being alone.

Rue Aubriot / Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie

There is a heart wrenching sequence in the latter stages of the novel where we see Valjean wilting away. An old and decaying man at this point, tired and burdened by the weight of his past, he walks solemnly, every day, in the direction of Cosette and Marius’ house. Eventually, he can no longer bring himself to finish his walk, and subconsciously he curtails it, every day Valjean’s journey becomes shorter and shorter.

Soon he barely makes it halfway and with a tear in his eye, he turns back on himself. To me, this signals closure, the end of an arch – we’ve cycled through the heroic, passionate and fearless phases of Valjean’s life and now we are here: watching him walk in solitude through the darkening streets of the Marais until he can no longer bring himself to do it.

Hugo diligently maps out Valjean’s walk for us:

‘During the last months of spring and the first months of summer 1833, the occasional passer-by in the Marais… noticed an old man, neatly dressed in black, who every day at the same time, towards nightfall, emerged from the Rue de l’Homme-Armé, on the Rue Ste-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie side, walked past Blancs-Manteaux up to Rue St Culture-Ste-Catherine, and at Rue de l’Echarpe turned left into Rue St-Louis…He would come to Rue de Filles-du-Calvaire. Then he would stop.’

… ‘Little by little, the old man ceased to go as far as the corner of Rue de Filles-du-Calvaire. He would stop halfway, in Rue St-Louis, sometimes a little further off, sometimes a little closer. One day he stopped at the corner or Rue Culture-Ste-Catherine and looked towards Rue des Filles Calvaire from a distance. Then he silently shook his head, as if denying himself something, and he turned back.’

Hugo literally gave me the directions to Bookpack Valjean’s journey- and so I did. Rather annoyingly, over time, street names change. So, with the help of google maps as well as some 19th Century maps of Paris, I was able to make connections. What was the ‘Rue de L’Homme-Armé’ is now the Rue des Archives. What was ‘Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie’ is now Rue Aubriot, what was ‘Rue St Culture-Ste-Catherine’ is now Rue de Sévigné. And finally, what Hugo describes as ‘Rue St Louis’ is now Rue de Turenne. Luckily for me, Rue de Filles-du-Calvaire kept its name, and the monastery of the Blancs-Manteaux still remains.

I started on the Rue des Archives and did exactly as Valjean would have, making my way up, meandering through the Marais. From the get-go this felt intimate and personal, this is such a powerful scene in the novel that to walk in the steps of our deteriorating protagonist felt almost like an invasion of his space, of his peace. Yet, delicately, I continued up Rue Aubriot, passed the Monastery of Les Blancs Manteaux [The white cloaks – Monks]. And made my way up to Rue Sévigné.

As I was walking, I thought to myself – I need to put myself in Valjean’s head, I need to feel his presence here… And, as if on cue, the rain came hurtling down. I knew it had been too easy before! The rain filled me with a sufficient glumness to continue on Valjean’s route. I turned left on Rue de Turenne and trudged on through the summer storm. There is something reflective about the Marais – with its narrow, cobbled streets, historical architecture, and quiet passages, I began to think of it more symbolically. To me, it seems as though the area echoes the passage of time that Valjean contemplates as he walks. You can literally see the history around you, you can feel it as you turn onto a teeny, tiny alleyway that seems as though it has been transported right from the 19th Century.

I started to make some more connections between the Marais and Valjean himself: there is a rich religious history, and you can see it in the ancient churches scattered about the Marais, perhaps this could link to Valjean’s journey to redemption – could it symbolize Valjean's desire for spiritual reconciliation? His inner dialogue as he walks seems like a spiritual contemplation on his past, his present and his future. Then I started to think about how the Marais has gone from a religious hub to the center of gay Paris; so, we notice a sense of transformation – also a crucial theme in Valjean’s arc. There is so much in Hugo placing Valjean in the Marais, and by walking in his steps, I felt like I could really connect to the intention behind it.

Eventually, I reached Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire and at the very same moment – the sun finally showed face. It seemed so perfectly timed that at the end of my journey, at the end of Valjean’s journey, the sun should replace the rain – shedding some light on the narrow streets of Paris. Now that I could look around without an umbrella whacking me in the face, I got to take in the quiet charm of the street. There was a sad, quaint beauty about it. Completely revolutionized by big name brands, the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire was a bittersweet climax.

I am not exactly sure what I expected to find waiting for me – was it Jean Valjean, hunched over, all dressed in black walking slowly towards me? Or Cosette and Marius, strolling hand-in-hand through the crowds? Perhaps just any sign of them, something saying ‘we were here!’ Yet, there was nothing, no-one waiting for me, nothing more to do. I felt oddly alone at that moment; the street was crowded and yet it was just me there. Now I understood Valjean – I spent all afternoon meandering through the Marais, trying to reach him and it was then, when I had come to end of it all, on the corner of Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire that I did. With nothing more to find, I turned around and walked back on myself.