Inspector Javert--Part III, The Third Conversion

Marius Pontmercy and Cosette, as depicted
in an early version of Les Miserables 

We have already seen that Victor Hugo wrote Les Miserables as a conversion story.  First, and most obvious is the conversion of Jean Valjean from homeless parolee to giant of a man who lives the rest of his life under various aliases. Funded by Bishop Myriel's valuable silver heirlooms, he adds to his fortune. But, he lives his whole life as a fugitive from (unjust) justice. 

The second conversion we saw in Part II, that of Javert, who wrestles with God and finally gives up the struggle, admitting that his whole life has been a sham. Everything he has struggled to be--a man of law and order--finally comes crashing down on him on the night he does the unthinkable . . . violates the law by releasing his nemesis, Jean Valjean, from custody. 

What happens next can be described as "the point beyond which." Having yielded to his "Higher Power," he sees his only choice to be ending his life. Some might say, he finds God only to then run away by committing suicide. I prefer to think that his conversion is so sudden and powerful that nothing remains on earth for him to be, do, or accomplish that he throws himself from the bank of the River Seine into . . . the loving arms of the same God he has fought against all his life.

But . . . there's a third conversion story up Victor Hugo's authorial sleeve. And that is the good fortune of Marius Pontmercy, husband of Jean Valjean's fosterchild, Cosette. Shortly after their wedding, Jean Valjean revealed to Marius his true identity as the former convict Javert had hunted all his life. Despite the fact that Valjean endowed Marius and Cosette with his entire fortune, Marius still cannot accept him and does everything he can to keep his wife apart from her beloved "father." 

Approached by Thenardier, the ne'er do well scoundrel, bribes Marius to use the money to start a new life (in America). During their heated discussion, Marius learns only by chance that Jean Valjean was the man who saved  his life, after the massacre at the barricade in 1832. Stunned by this news, Marius realizes how wrong, cruel, and ungrateful he has been to Cosette's recuer. He confesses to her and together they rush to Valjean--only to find him on his deathbed.

So, the three "converts" in Les Miserables are Jean Valjean, Inspector Javert, and Marius Pontmercy. The casual reader of Hugo's immortal novel often misses the clues Hugo reveals in the book's Prologue:

"The book which the reader has under his eye at this moment is, from one end to the other, as a whole and in detail, whatever may be its intermittences, exceptions and faults, the march from evil to good, from the unjust to the just, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from rottenness to life, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. Point of departure: matter; point of arrival: the soul. The hydra at the beginning, the angel at the end."

Note: Thenardier could have been the fourth convert. Instead, he remained a scoundrel, presumably for the rest of his life. Hugo tells us Thenardier used Marius's money to book passage to America, where he became a slave trader.