It came off as calculated to me, too, but I can see room for both. Like, obviously there's some element of calculation, but my question is, how cynically Machiavellian is it? Versus a tactical application of something he sees as true. I don't know the guy well enough yet to say how I'm supposed to perceive him -- does Hugo want us to see him as calculated and manipulative, or does Hugo want us to see him as virtue carried to vice or virtue in service of evil ends?

Some of the rhetorical beats reminded me of various Les Mis characters and barricade speeches, but of course everyone at the barricade would find this guy repugnant, and in many ways so do I. It's an interesting tension for me as a reader who appreciates this kind of scene of cool-headed charismatic competence but is also rather rooting for Halmalo. (Including in ways Halmalo isn't necessarily rooting for himself -- you're absolutely right that his ideology requires his own self-abnegation, both as a sailor in a strict chain of command and more fundamentally as a feudalist peasant in a royalist military.)

I might not agree with Hugo either way about how he wants us to view the fake peasant, of course, but I'm kind of sitting back to steeple my fingers and see how things unfold.