(Readers should be advised that what follows carries some spoilers)
Lately, I have been spending time in the company of Victor Hugo and his wonderful Les Misérables. This huge French novel is a rite of passage read for many, and I have arrived somewhat late to the party, but its impact and the relevance of its message are landing with me in midlife in a powerful way. Hugo’s innate sense of social justice, his steady eye for irony, and the close humanity of his characterisation have been drawing me in and helping me to see my own world just that little bit more clearly. I am so grateful for this.
One episode in the first quarter of the novel has spoken to me afresh about how important fidelity to one’s own conscience is in order to live a good life before the face of God. Monsieur Madeleine is introduced to us as a stranger whose arrival in the town of Montreuil-Sur-Mer changes its fortunes for the better. As a man with a keen business sense and a moral compass that moves him ever closer to the most needy in his community, the philanthropy of Monsieur Madeleine seems to know no bounds. Those who are the offscouring of their society, those easily overlooked or summarily condemned, come under his kindness and patronage, so that the moral and social flavour of the whole town is transformed. What no one in Montreuil-Sur-Mer knows is that Madeleine is a man with a secret, with a past from which he seems to have successfully escaped. He is Jean Valjean, who, in a former life, was a violent criminal, a common thief, an ex-convict and a repeat offender. Kindness received in the home and at the hand of Monsieur Bienvenu is a renewing force in Valjean’s life, so that his new identity and his indispensable charity are symptomatic of life changed by grace. So far, so redemptive, but trouble lurks in Madeleine’s world in the shape of Javert, a viciously moral police inspector. Javert lands a bombshell in Madeleine’s world by telling him that a man in Arras is to be tried, and he has been identified as the ex-convict Jean Valjean.
Madeleine is now caught on the horns of a dilemma: should he continue to conceal his identity and let an innocent man be condemned (thus allowing his philanthropy to continue) or should he hand himself over and save the wrongly accused man? In Book Seven, chapter three is entitled ‘A Storm in the Mind’, and here Hugo allows us into the moral agonies that Madeleine faces as he decides on which course to take. Aside from Hugo’s formidable descriptive powers as a novelist, what is laid bare is a man’s struggle to work out how to be true to himself, how to know fidelity in his inner and private life. There is much pacing and pondering, weeping and worrying on Madeleine’s part, but what emerges is that he must find and follow inner fidelity in order to be at peace with himself and with his God. At the heart of this is personal fidelity, the need to know that one’s life is right in the eyes of God, rather than merely acceptable in the eyes of men. For Madeleine, this is excruciating, and he summarises his conundrum in the following way:
And whatever he did, he kept coming back to this agonising dilemma that underlay his reflections: Remain in paradise and become a demon! Return to hell and become an angel!
Aside from the narrative importance of these moments, there is a psychological and moral relevance to it for many of us. There are times in our lives when we are faced with choices which demand we face up to ourselves, listen to our conscience, and make sacrificial decisions even though no one else is compelling us to. It might be that we feel a need to stand against ethical slippage in the workplace, or injustice being visited on neighbours, or we may need to stand with a victim even though the one who has perpetrated evil can ruin us as well. These are rare moments when the components of our consciences are laid bare, when a moral imperative drives us away from comfort and community, urging us to act in a way that is costly and humanly illogical. This tumult and trauma is the cost of inner fidelity, and only those who have ridden its waves can understand how hard and how horrible it is.
Madeleine ministers to us here. Hugo’s character shows to us that fidelity to ourselves and to what is right rarely comes to us easily, and that it often has to cut through many layers of self-protection and self-justification to get us to where we need to be. Perhaps some readers are living in the aftermath of prioritising personal fidelity to their principles and conscience. Perhaps there has been pain and loss entailed in remaining true to what we innately know to be our best and true course of action. Victor Hugo’s empathy here is considerable but so is his insistence that personal fidelity is primary in our pursuit of inner peace and health. Interestingly, Hugo relates Madeleine’s desire for inner fidelity to Christ Jesus in Gethsemane:
Thus did this poor soul struggle in its anguish. Eighteen hundred years before this ill-fated man, the mysterious being in whom are concentrated all saintliness and all the sufferings of humanity had also refused for a long time the terrible chalice, streaming with darkness and brimming with shadows, that appeared to him in the star-filled depths while the olive trees shook in the fierce blast of the infinite.
Not only is inner fidelity a painful priority for Madeleine, but his agonising is an echo of the Saviour’s struggle in the garden, meaning that the quest for personal fidelity follows in the footsteps of God’s perfect Son who, in His full humanity, wrestled in the tension-filled space between what He knew He was called to do, and the bitter cup it meant He had to drink. In our own quest for personal fidelity we can expect no less pain, but we endure this in solidarity with all souls who have likewise faced such agony, and in fellowship with the Son of God whose own path led Him all the way to and through the cross which wrought our salvation.
The featured image is courtesy of Maximilian Thiel via Unsplash. We are grateful for his generosity.
Andrew Roycroft is married to Carolyn, and they have two teenage daughters. Originally a
medievalist by training, Andrew served for 24 years in full-time Christian ministry – mostly in
local church pastorates. Andrew is a visiting lecturer at the Irish Baptist College, teaching
Biblical Theology and Apologetics. An active writer, Andrew has published poetry in a number of
Irish and British literary journals, has produced work for BBC Radio 4, has contributed to Arts
Council Northern Ireland projects, and written commissioned work for New Irish Arts. Andrew is
also a regular contributor to the Rabbit Room Poetry community. His first poetry collection, 33
(published by Square Halo Books in 2022) is a collaborative work with visual artist Ned Bustard,
offering reflections on John’s gospel. Since leaving pastoral work in November 2024, Andrew is
working as a freelance editor and writer.
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