Continued from Part One…

{Spoiler Alert! This article gives a detailed analysis of the movie Les Miserables}

Because Javert was so bent on seeing justice served, he was disturbed by Valjean’s successful escape. In the musical, he then sings “Stars” — an absolutely gorgeous piece, majestic and determined. I still remember the very first time I heard it. I was struck by the words even then, but they did not hold the meaning they eventually grew to hold for me, as I traveled on in my own journey to understand grace, and break free of my nearly decade-long detour through the land of legalism. Today, they hit me again, this time in full force: (I’ll edit for brevity)

“There, out in the darkness,
A fugitive running,
Fallen from God,
Fallen from grace.
God be my witness,
I never shall yield,
Till we come face to face.
He knows his way in the dark,
Mine is the way of the Lord,
And those who follow the path of the righteous
Shall have their reward.
And if they fall as Lucifer fell,
The flame, the sword!”

Here, he has completely missed the true meaning of grace. He mentions it, for sure, but he clearly has zero understanding of what grace actually is. Not only that, he somehow has come to the conclusion that it is his job to dole out justice to those who fall. He has clearly stated that his path is the righteous one. That it is he who is following God, not Valjean.

He continues:

“And so it has been, and so it is written,
On the doorway to paradise,
That those who falter, and those who fall,
Must pay the price!
Lord let me find him, that I may see him,
Safe behind bars — I will never rest till then!
This I swear — this I swear by the stars!”

It amazes me here that Javert seems to see righteousness as something one chooses at the very beginning of one’s life, and after making such a decision, one can never stray from the path, and if one does, one is damned forever. He has completely missed the entire point of the Gospel. It’s as though Jesus’ death was almost irrelevant. The odd thing is that he recognizes men are born sinful, which, taking the logic a bit further, indicates he might believe that Jesus’ death was necessary, but that it only allowed for one chance to be righteous, and that chance could be blown. True grace is nowhere to be found in this. I realize this was a creation of Victor Hugo’s imagination, but nonetheless, I have known people whose thought processes are not so far from Javert’s. This lack of understanding on Javert’s part ends up bringing him to the breaking point later on.

After Valjean’s escape, he spent the next nine years raising Cosette as his daughter while undercover in Paris. By this time, a rebellion is brewing in France. While Cosette and Valjean are in the town square one day, Javert discovers them. Valjean finds out about this later that night, so he packs up Cosette and is ready to flee to England. Cosette is distraught that they are leaving France, because she and Marius (her dashing revolutionary love interest) had secretly spoken that same evening through the garden gate, and pledged their deep and enduring love. She leaves a message for Marius at the gate, and through a series of events, he gets the message, and sends one back to her from behind the Revolution’s barricades.

This is where my story picks up. Valjean intercepts the message, and reads it. When he discovers how much Marius means to Cosette, he goes to the barricades himself (following the messenger) to find him. When he gets to the barricade, he does not tell Marius he is Cosette’s father, but instead just offers his services. He helps fend off some rooftop enemies, and then discovers Javert, tied up in a room next to the barricade. (Javert had posed as a revolutionary, been discovered as a double agent, then restrained while shouting all traitors must die.) Valjean asks for permission to “deal with” Javert (which is understood to mean shoot him), and it is granted. He takes Javert out back, where he tells Javert he’s letting him go free. Javert warns Valjean that if he is released, he will not give up his pursuit of seeing Valjean punished as he should be. Even though  he knows he is releasing his worst enemy, Valjean extends grace to Javert, by releasing him with no strings attached. Valjean did not take Javert’s life, though he was given a great opportunity to do so. I would conjecture that Valjean not only knew Javert’s life was not his to take, but also intentionally took advantage of an opportunity to turn the other cheek, and show love and grace to a man who hated him, and wanted to see him back in prison.

Javert leaves, Valjean fires a shot in the air (to convince all who were inside that he had shot Javert), and then returns to the barricade. Marius is shot when the battle begins, so Valjean picks him up and takes him away from the battle through the underground sewer system. Marius is severely wounded and a complete deadweight, and yet Valjean travels a significant distance through sometimes chin-deep refuse, even fighting off robbers who were hiding in the sewer, determined to get Marius to safety for Cosette’s sake, which he does. Cosette and Valjean nurse Marius back to health. Shortly before Marius and Cosette are to be married, Valjean sits Marius down and tells him who he really is. He tells Marius he’s going away so that if he is ever caught, Cosette’s honor will not be tarnished. Valjean leaves without telling Cosette goodbye. While at their wedding reception, through an encounter with one of the men who tried to rob them in the sewer, Marius finds out that it was Valjean who had risked his life to save him. Marius grabs Cosette’s hand, and they go together to the same abbey which had provided a refuge for her and Valjean years before when they first arrived in Paris. They find Valjean dying there. Cosette and Marius express their gratitude and love for Valjean, and are with him when he dies.

They are all unaware of what had previously happened with Javert. Between Valjean saving Marius’s life and Marius’s recovery, Javert has one final scene. I don’t think these lyrics will ever stop amazing me:

“Who is this man? What sort of devil is he,
To have me caught in a trap and choose to let me go free?
It was his hour at last to put a seal on my fate;
Wipe out the past and wash me clean off the slate!
All it would take was a flick of his knife.
Vengeance was his, he gave me back my life!”

This is astonishing to me. Valjean said something similar when the priest introduced him to grace, and he accepted it. Javert was extended the same kind of grace by Valjean, and yet he could not accept it. Not only could he not accept it, he couldn’t understand it at all. He referred to Valjean as a “devil,” indicating that he thought this grace was something twisted; not from God. Javert could not conceive of what true grace was, even though he had referred to it earlier. True grace had stared him straight in the eye, and he could not recognize it. He goes on:

“Damned if I’ll live in the debt of a thief!
Damned if I’ll yield at the end of the chase.
I am the Law, and the Law is not mocked,
I’ll spit his pity back in his face.
There is nothing on earth that we share,
It is either Valjean or Javert!
How can I now allow this man to hold dominion over me?
This desperate man whom I have hunted,
He gave me my life. He gave me freedom.
I should have perished by his hand, it was his right.
It was my right to die as well, instead I live…and live in Hell.”

I find it fascinating here that Javert is unable to see grace as anything but pity. And he is so convinced that Valjean and Javert are so diametrically opposed, one is good, the other is evil, and one or the other has to “win.” They can’t both be free. It’s the old legalistic idea that someone has to pay, and that if A is good, then B is bad, and there’s no other way to see it. This concept is so ingrained in Javert’s mind, that to live in a world of grace (which he cannot recognize as such) is to actually live in hell. Again, he continues (and I’m posting this whole thing because it is all so significant):

“And my thoughts fly apart,
Can this man be believed?
Shall his sins be forgiven?
Shall his crimes be reprieved?
And must I now begin to doubt,
Who never doubted all these years?
My heart is stone and still it trembles,
The world I have known is lost in shadow.
Is he from Heaven, or from Hell?
And does he know that granting me my life today
This man has killed me even so?”

At this point, he realizes maybe he’s been wrong. Maybe grace does exist. Maybe sins can be forgiven. He concludes:

“I am reaching, but I fall,
And the stars are black and cold
As I stare into the void
Of a world that cannot hold…
I’ll escape now from the world,
From the world of Jean Valjean.

There is nowhere I can turn,
There is no way to go on.”

Javert has lived his entire life thinking grace and justice were mutually exclusive. That grace meant the triumph of evil. That justice was the most important thing in life, and God can only be pleased if justice is served. He had used the word “grace” earlier, but his version was so far removed from true grace, he couldn’t even recognize the real thing when he saw it. The idea that true grace could be greater than justice was a concept he simply could not handle. He was so entrenched in his legalism and the belief that he was absolutely right and absolutely on God’s side, he literally could not handle this sudden paradigm shift, so he hurled his body off the bridge he had been standing on, into the rushing river below.

As I hinted earlier, though I realize this is something Hugo made up, I know many people who live much like Javert: thinking they understand God and grace, but are instead tied to the law and essentially clueless. I used to be one of them. Thinking I had it right. That the more closely I followed the law, the more I loved God. That God wanted me to make sure others followed His law too, by “encouraging” and “exhorting.” That I could only please God if I didn’t ever screw up. That God’s blessings in my life were directly proportional to the degree to which I followed His law. I used to be much like Javert. I thought that if others weren’t following the law, they weren’t pleasing God.

In reality, Valjean was the one who got it right. Both Valjean and Javert came face-to-face with true grace, multiple times. Both were given the chance to accept it, and thereby be set free from their slavery to the law (which makes me think over and over of Romans 6, which is ALL about slavery to sin and the law, and grace), but only Valjean accepted it. Javert clung to legalism until the day he killed himself. The theme of this war between grace and legalism is so vivid and obvious, now that I see it. I have to wonder if Hugo was intentionally trying to point out the difference between the two choices.

Regardless, my mind has been blown by this very accurate portrayal of the freedom that comes with grace, and the bondage that comes with legalism.