Pre Revolutionary France had a class system, dividing the population into three classes, called estates. The first estate was the French version of the 1%, made up of the clergy and holding most of the wealth of the population of France and having the most leverage in the government. The second estate was made of the upper class noblemen of French society. The Third Estate was the largest of the three estates, making up over 95% of the population. Despite this they didn’t have a lot of leverage in the governing body and were treated as lesser than the other two estates. Many of the third estate lived in less than healthy living conditions and were mistreated simply for being in the class they were in, which is the reason that Victor Hugo dubbed
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Fantine was assaulted and retaliated in self defense. Javert “had seen a crime committed,” but not the true crime of the initial assault. All he saw was “there in the street, society represented by a property holder and an elector, insulted and attacked by a creature who was an outlaw and an outcast.” He’d seen that “a prostitute had assaulted a citizen,” (Hugo 71) but in his mind she was simply a prostitute, not a citizen like the rich man who’d attacked her. In Javert’s personal sense of morality, Fantine was the one in the wrong, not Bamatabois, the man who provoked her. He believes that because Bamatabois is a nobleman and a man of property, he couldn’t possibly be in the wrong. That is not the only time that the French justice system has caused problems for the people of the third estate. “Jean Valjean was sentenced to five years in the galleys… In October, 1815, he was set at large; he had entered in 1796 for having broken a pane of glass, and taken a loaf of bread.” (Hugo 22) It is unjust that Jean Valjean. Secondly, that that bread he stole was to feed his starving family. Thirdly, that his sentence was extended to 19 years from his various escapes. The fact that he has to steal to feed his family already says that there is a problem with french society, but then he gets sentenced to 5 years for it. Fantine and Jean Valjean were given unjust sentences for the crimes they’d
Fantine was assaulted and retaliated in self defense. Javert “had seen a crime committed,” but not the true crime of the initial assault. All he saw was “there in the street, society represented by a property holder and an elector, insulted and attacked by a creature who was an outlaw and an outcast.” He’d seen that “a prostitute had assaulted a citizen,” (Hugo 71) but in his mind she was simply a prostitute, not a citizen like the rich man who’d attacked her. In Javert’s personal sense of morality, Fantine was the one in the wrong, not Bamatabois, the man who provoked her. He believes that because Bamatabois is a nobleman and a man of property, he couldn’t possibly be in the wrong. That is not the only time that the French justice system has caused problems for the people of the third estate. “Jean Valjean was sentenced to five years in the galleys… In October, 1815, he was set at large; he had entered in 1796 for having broken a pane of glass, and taken a loaf of bread.” (Hugo 22) It is unjust that Jean Valjean. Secondly, that that bread he stole was to feed his starving family. Thirdly, that his sentence was extended to 19 years from his various escapes. The fact that he has to steal to feed his family already says that there is a problem with french society, but then he gets sentenced to 5 years for it. Fantine and Jean Valjean were given unjust sentences for the crimes they’d