Les Misérables Volume 3, Chapter 22 Summary

Summary

Night has fallen as a pale, thin lad in rags ascends a side-alley near the Barrière de Fontainebleau, coming from the direction of the bridge of Austerlitz. He is clearly a street child: lightly dressed in linen trousers in February, loud-voiced and heedless of the cold. Passing a bent old woman rummaging in refuse by a lantern, he startles her and mocks her appearance, provoking her anger. The child greets her with a jeering exclamation about her looking like “an enormous, ENORMOUS dog,” and then offers a flippant compliment that she does not match his taste in beauty.

The boy reaches a locked doorway at No. 50-52 and begins to batter it with resounding kicks that indicate the heavy shoes on his feet. The old woman hurries after him, alarmed and dramatic, and then recognizes him—calling him “that imp.” They exchange brief, sharp dialogue in which the child addresses her as Bougonmuche and mockingly asks after his family. Bougonmuche answers with curt, contemptuous replies: his father is at La Force, his mother at Saint-Lazare, and his sisters at the Madelonettes. The lad reacts with a quick “Ah!” and, after a pirouette, turns away and disappears under the elm-trees, resuming the jaunty little song about “Le roi Coupdesabot” as he vanishes into the winter night.

Key events

1. A pale, ragged boy sings while walking by night toward the Barrière de Fontainebleau.
2. He startles and mocks an old woman scavenging by a lantern.
3. The boy loudly kicks the locked door of No. 50-52.
4. The old woman, having hurried after him, recognizes him and calls him an imp.
5. They exchange a taunting dialogue: the woman names prisons where his family members are.
6. The boy pirouettes and walks away, resuming his song about Le roi Coupdesabot.

Analysis

This short chapter functions as a vivid, concentrated vignette that reinforces the novel’s recurring concern with the street child and the human wreckage of urban poverty. Through a few economical gestures—the child’s incongruous song, his heavy kicks, the old woman’s scavenging by lantern light—Hugo sketches an entire social tableau: abandoned children, fragmented families, and the normalization of incarceration (the woman names prisons as if they were addresses). The boy’s mockery and irreverent humor show resilience and a kind of survivalist cruelty; his irreverent song contrasts sharply with the grim content surrounding him, producing dark comic relief.

Structurally, the episode provides a coda-like moment that echoes earlier scenes of loss and displacement without adding new plot complications; it instead deepens atmosphere and social commentary. The presence of named places of confinement (La Force, Saint-Lazare, the Madelonettes) functions as a symbolic map of social exile, while the locked door and the child’s kicks suggest barriers—both literal and social—that the poor encounter. The narrative voice remains observant and lightly ironic, allowing the boy’s gestures and the old woman’s bitterness to speak for broader conditions. The brief exchange also foreshadows the persistence of these marginal figures in the city’s life and underscores Hugo’s thematic attention to the innocent and abandoned who make the streets their home.

Important quotes

“Hello! And I took it for an enormous, enormous dog!”

BoyThe lad jeers at the old woman he startles, using exaggerated mockery to provoke her.

“What! so it’s that imp!”

BougonmucheThe old woman, having hurried after the child and recognized him, utters this exclamation in anger.

“Le roi Coupdesabot S’en allait à la chasse, À la chasse aux corbeaux—”

Boy (singing)The child's carefree song, which he resumes as he leaves, contrasts with the harshness of his situation and the grim replies about his family.

Characters in Volume 3, Chapter 22

• Bougonmuche
• Le roi Coupdesabot