Discussion post: 3.1.4

[genarti]

Time for chapter 3.1.4! (Previously numbered 2.4.4 according to some translations.) This is "Leur vie sous terre," translated as "Their Life Underground" or "Life Underground." Dunno why one translation decided to drop out the pronoun, but discuss away!

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3.1.5

[bobbiewickham]

The peasants in this chapter are described as superstitious, gullible, easily made to believe all sorts of ridiculous things by a priest; they’re also cunning, ruthless, prone to pillaging, especially fond of slaughtering their own countrymen who take up republicanism, and pleased when the war gives them an excuse to slaughter those who they dislike anyway (the bourgeois) and take their stuff. Their weapons are make-shift, their soldiers are fierce and silent and lethally efficient, and they have the occasional woman in their ranks, who are even more devoted to the cause than the men. It’s all very dramatically compelling, and very, well, Hugo in both its poetry and its sneery sort of prejudice.