Hugo was a devout Catholic, with a strong religious overtone in almost all of his works. Les Misérables is no exception.
Les Misérables is actually a novel about religious redemption. There are two very different, corresponding characters in the novel. One is the archbishop who turned ghosts into people to redeem Agen, and the other is Javert who turned people into ghosts and pushed Agen and others into "hell".
Man governs man is a tragedy, and man drives man as a ladder. There is a ladder to have a rank, and there is a sense of superiority with a rank.
France under bourbon rule was hierarchical. The aristocratic clique broke the law and punished themselves with three cups of leniency. In order to maintain their own superiority and cultivate the spirit of obedience of others, they formulated a series of extremely harsh and cruel criminal laws. In order to enforce their rules, they also cultivated some loyal slaves like Javert.
In the history of literature, Javert can be called the most typical slave, but also the most terrible slave. Why? For once a person loses his personality, he is bound to become a beast without a view of right and wrong. If a man regards evil as righteousness, he must be more evil than evil. Beasts will only follow the law of the jungle and obey the idea of "the strong are king".
Javert has only a position, and no personality, and even regards obedience to the strong and the infringement of the weak as justice.
There was no word fairness in Javert's eyes, nor any pity for the people at the bottom, only absolute loyalty to the aristocratic clique. In Javert's view, absolute loyalty to the nobility is absolute justice. It is legal for the nobles to plunder the people's fat and people's anointing, and to spend all day extravagance and lasciviousness. Ordinary people who steal a piece of bread without enough food are extremely evil.
Agen was eventually sentenced to five years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. Javert felt all this made sense, and hated all those who broke the rules of the nobility. Like a dog at the door of a villa, treating all passers-by as potential thieves.
Agen could not bear the miserable life in prison and decided to escape. After many efforts, he finally embarked on the road of escape. As a law enforcer, Javert thought not of punishing adultery and eliminating evil, but like a mad dog, he chased after Agen.
During his escape, Agen fled into a church. The benevolent archbishop accepted without hesitation the old man with a face full of vicissitudes. But Agen did not know the reward, but instead saw that the money was willing to loot the silverware in the church...
Agen, who fled with a bag of silver, was eventually intercepted by two patrolmen because of his suspicious appearance, and then twisted back to the church.
From this detail, we can see that not all law enforcers are as faithless as Javert. The two patrol officers have not completely lost their personalities and beliefs. When they saw the belongings of the church, they still chose to return them on their own initiative.
Faced with a repeat offender in Agen, the archbishop's approach was in stark contrast to Javert's. Instead of exposing Agen in public, he did not hesitate to go against his own beliefs and falsely claimed that Agen's belongings were given to him. In order to win the trust of the patrol, he even gave Agen two remaining silver candlesticks in the church in public.
One thought becomes a Buddha, one thought becomes a demon. Good people infect others, and bad people mature good people into bad people.
Because of this redemption, Agen was completely reborn and became a socially responsible businessman Madrid. After becoming rich, Agen did not choose to join forces with Javert and others, but continued to pass on the archbishop's redemption, selflessly helping Fantine and others.
As a law enforcer, Javert never questioned the legitimacy of aristocratic rules, and it was unreasonable for Agen to steal a loaf of bread and impose a sentence of nineteen years. Because of absolute obedience, Javert completely lost the ability to discern right from wrong.
In the eyes of the nobles who were inexhaustible to virgins, prostitutes belonged to the most filthy people. The absolutely obedient Javert therefore had such thoughts. Therefore, he never asked Fantine the reason for becoming a prostitute, nor did he have any pity for the orphans left by Fantine, but turned a blind eye to the hooligans who oppressed Fantine.
His justice is never equal to the justice understood by ordinary people. Beneath his righteous façade lived a heartbroken demon.
Even after many years, Javert still wanted to ascend the "righteousness of heaven and earth" and bring Agen to justice. Sadly, there is more than one Javert in society. In order to ask for credit, the other Javert "beat" an innocent old man into Agen. The old man was like a sheep, in the midst of the wolves...
Agen, who learned the news, finally chose to turn himself in.
Javert did not have any moral sense of right and wrong, and mistakenly regarded crouching at the feet of the nobility as justice, and defending the interests of the nobility as justice. Thinking of justice has never been associated with justice. There is no psychological burden in mutilating the weak, but instead treats a series of despicable acts as justice, and then becomes more and more ferocious. This kind of justice is often more terrible than all the evil in the world. Because for him: evil is both righteous.
It is precisely because of the existence of people like Javert that "Les Misérables" was created. They united the human world with hell.