3.7 Patron-Minette 17/3/11-20/3/11

[Frédérique]

Volume 3: Marius, book 7: Patron-Minette

Chapters:

1. Les mines et les mineurs/Mines and miners
2. Le bas-fond/The lowest depths
3. Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous et Montparnasse/Babet, Gueuelemer, Claquesous, and Montparnasse
4. Composition de la troupe/Composition of the troupe

You can find the French text of this book here and the Hapgood English translation here.

In which the reader is introduced to the lowest strata of society in general and four semi-iconic denizens thereof in particular.

[MmeBahorel]

Livre 7

Chapitre 1
1 (un troisème dessous): La métaphore de la mine était déjà présente dans Le Rhin : << De leur côté, tous les ans, le second jour de la Pentecôte, les notables de Coblentz et de Rhens se réunissent au même lieu sous prétexte de fête, et confèrent entre eux de certaines choses obscures ; commencement de commune et de bourgeoisie faisant sourdement son trou dans les fondations du formidable édifice germanique déjà tout construit ; vivace et éternelle consipration des petits contre les grands germant audacieusement près du Königstül, à l'ombre même de ce trône de pierre de la féodalité. >> (éd. J. Massin, t. VI, p. 279)
La métaphore théâtrale du << troisième dessous >> était, elle, déjà employée par Balzac dans Splendeurs et Misères des courtisanes, où elle sert une représentation très différente de la société.
The metaphor of the mine was already present in The Rhine: “From their side, every year, the second day of Pentacost, the notables of Coblenz and Rhens, meet at the same place under the pretext of a festival, and confer between them certain obscure things; beginning of community and of bourgeoisie deafly making its hole in the foundations of the formidable Germanic edifice already constructed; hardy and eternal conspiracy of the little against the big germinating audaciously close to the [url]http://www.loreley-info.com/ita/rhein-reno/citta/rhens.php] Königstül[/url], in the very shadow of this stone throne of feudalism.” (ed. J. Massin., vol. VI, p. 279)
The theatrical metaphor of the “third depth” was already employed by Balzac in Splendours and Miseries of Courtesans [A Harlot High and Low], where it serves a very different representation of society.

2 (Fourier): Le << socialisme utopique >>.
Utopian socialism.

3 (Inferi): << Les enfers >>, ou, littéralement, << ceux d'en dessous >>. Le mot renvoie à Dante, voir la note suivante.
“The hells”, or, literally, “those underneath”. The word echoes Dante; see the following note.

Chapitre 2
4 (Ugolin): Tyran italien du XIIIe siècle que Dante rencontre aux enfers, dévorant par la base du crâne la cervelle d'un autre damné. Celui-ci, de son vivant, l'avait enfermé dans une tour avec ses enfants, dont il avait mangé les corps. Voir Dante, L'Enfer, chant XXXIII : << Aveugle, alors déjà,
Je me mis à chercher chacun d'eux... >>
Italian tyrant of the 13th century that Dante meets in Hell, devouring by the base of the skull the brain of another of the damned. The former, in life, had been imprisoned in a tower with his children, whose bodies he had eaten. See Dante, Inferno, canto XXXIII: “By now blind, I went groping over each boy . . .”

Chapitre 3
5 (clown with Bobèche and buffoon with Bobino): Bobèche : pitre célèbre sous l'Empire et la Restauration. Bobino : théâtre, situé rue Madame, où l'on jouait des pantomimes. A partir de 1828, l'autorisation fut donnée d' représenter des vaudevilles et des comédies.
Le portrait de Gueulemer semble bien inspiré d'un (ou plusieurs) portefaix d'Avignon avec lequel Hugo avait eu des démêlés en 1839 : << […] espèces de géants mal taillés, laids, trapus, robustes carrés, velus, odieux à voir. […] La face sinistre et louche du portefaix vous remet d'étranges souvenirs en mémoire ; […] vous voyez apparaître […] l'ombre pâle du maréchal Brune et vous entendez ricaner Trestaillon. >> (Carnet du voyage de 1839, éd. J. Massin, t. VI, p. 767-768.)
Bobèche: famous clown under the Empire and Restoration. Bobino: theatre, located in the rue Madame, where they produced pantomimes. From 1828, authorisation was given to put on vaudevilles and comedies.
The portrait of Gueulemer seems very much inspired by one (or several) porters in Avignon with which Hugo had had disputes in 1839: “. . . species of giant poor built, ugly, thickset, strongly square, hairy, odious to look at. . . . The sinister and shady side of the porter puts strange memories in your head; . . . you see appear . . . the pale shadow of Marshal Brune and you hear Trestaillon [see notes for II, 1 and III, 3] snicker.” (Notebook from the Voyage of 1839, ed. J. Massin, vol. VI, p. 767-768.)

6 (Montparnasse): Dernier de la série des << élégants >> - Tholomyès, Bamatabois, Théodule – il hérite d'un trait du portrait de Gilé qui lui a été réservé : la touffe de cheveux. (Voir le texte du Victor Hugo raconté... donné en note 16 of I, 5.) Derrière le surnom Montparnasse, on ne sait si l'on doit deviner le séjour des Muses ou le tout neuf cimetière, inauguré en 1824. Notons enfin que c'est sur un ton et un rythme très proches qu'est écrit le portrait de Morny au début de Histoire d'un crime, comme si l'escarpe et le duc étaient un peu cousins, par le dandysme et la cruauté.
Last in the series of “dandies” - Tholomyès, Bamatabois, Théodule – he inherits a trait from the portrait of Gilé that was reserved for him: the tuft of hair. (See the text of Victor Hugo Recounted . . . given in note 16 of I, 5.) Behind the nickname Montparnasse, we don't know if we should see the haunt of the Muses or the brand new cemetery, opened in 1824. Let us finally note that the portrait of Morny at the beginning of History of a Crime is written with a very similar tone and rhythm, as if the professional killer and the duke were somewhat cousins, by dandyism and cruelty.

Chapitre 4
7 (the roadmender already encountered): En I, 3, 6.
In I, 3, 6.

8 (Homère Hogu, black): Après Ugolin (voir note 4 ci-dessus), autre image inquiétante de l'auteur, homérique bandit des lettres. On aurait aimé que Hugo développât l'idée de dialogue indiquée dans cet intitulé isolé :
<< Une négresse appelée Mamzelle Juridique – Homère Hogu. >>
(Fragments dramatiques, éd. J. Massin, t. XII, op. 1051.)
After Ugolin (see note 4 above), the other disturbing image of the author, homeric bandit of letters. One would have liked Hugo to develop the idea of dialogue indicated in this isolated title:
“A negress called Mamzelle Juridique [Miss Legal] – Homère Hogu.” (Dramatic Fragments, ed. J. Massin, vol. XII, op. 1051.)

9 (and there's worse): Autocitation ironique d'Hernani (III, 6 : grande scène fameuse des portraits) : << J'en passe et des meilleurs. >>
Ironic self-citation of Hernani (III, 6: famous big scene of portraits); “And that's not all, there's better.”

10 (mendici, mimae): Horace, Satires, I, 2 : << Troupes de joueuses de la flûte, marchands de drogues, mendiants, comédiennes. >>
Horace, Satires, I, 2: “Troupes of female flautists, drug merchants, beggars, actresses.”

11 (society below): Le thème recevra tout son développement dans William Shakespeare. Voir aussi les chapitres retirés du roman et réservés pour L'Ame (Proses philosophiques des années 1860-1865, au volume Critique) qui auraient pu prendre place ici. L'avant-dernier paragraphe de cette << digression >> dit : << […] il nous faut maintenant le bon déluge, le déluge de l'esprit. L'instruction primaire et secondaire à flots, la science à flots, la logique à flots, l'amour à flots […] et les erreurs et les idolâtries, et les exploitations, et les superstitions, et les immondices, et les mensonges, et les opprobres, disparaîtront dans cet immense lavage de l'humanité par la lumière. >>
The theme will receive all its development in William Shakespeare. See also the chapters pulled from the novel and reserved for The Soul (Philosophical Prose of the Years 1860-1865, in the volume Criticism) which could have taken place here. The next-to-last paragraph of this “digression” says: “. . . we now need the good deluge, the deluge of the spirit. Primary and secondary instruction in streams, science in streams, logic in streams, love in streams . . . and the errors and the idolatires, and the exploitations, and the superstitions, and the refuse and the lies, and the shame, will all disappear in this immense washing of humanity by light.”

[MmeBahorel]

Chapter 1

Diogenes, Cynical philosopher. This, from wikipedia, is probably the link: “Diogenes maintained that all the artificial growths of society were incompatible with happiness and that morality implies a return to the simplicity of nature.”

Socinus, anti-Trinitarian Christian reformer. His uncle, who is also considered a founder of Socinianism, actually knew both Melancthon and Calvin, and thus a fight with Calvin could be real. Theology makes my head spin, so what I can figure out is that Socinians were probably happier people than Calvinists – it led to Unitarianism, after all. The article in the Catholic Encyclopedia is interesting. The split in theology seems to be that Socinians are unitary, while Calvinists maintain the trinity, and Socinians don't believe in hell. Calvin has struck me as being all about hell. There appear to be some other things about aspects of god and role of Christ, but the big thing is probably the rejection of the trinity and the rejection of eternal punishment.

“in side galleries” - Hugo here paints utopian socialism as a sidetrack, something that will lead nowhere, ever, a distraction to the main path of historical analysis. Which is sad, as I like the utopian socialists. Such a philosophy requires such as strong belief in the ultimate goodness of humanity.

I think Hugo is wrong in suggesting that the lowest depths have no connection to the higher level of diggers. Some of the higher level recognise and depend on those lower depths; some of the lower depths are not immune to the actions of the higher levels. It isn't that there's a continual back and forth between the intelligentsia and the criminal classes, but there is a mutual recognition and a certain amount of reciprocation. No one in a society is in a completely isolated plane.

Chapter 2
“Hunger and thirst are the point of departure; Satan is the point of arrival. From this cave comes Lacenaire.” Only if hunger and thirst are more metaphor than desperation. This is the trouble with discussing the criminal classes in this period: for the most part, they are potentially conterminous with the labouring classes because the labouring classes are constantly on the starvation. Lacenaire doesn't even qualify as someone who came to theft and murder through hunger and starvation: Lacenaire had a good education, worked white-collar positions for a while, went to Paris because Paris is awesome, then joined the army, deserted, went to work for a liquor exporter for a while, then ended up joining the army again. (French wiki is quite detailed.) The man had an education and options; just because he found it more interesting to live by theft than by work doesn't mean hunger and thirst are the cave from which he sprang.

Cartouche: 18th century highwayman. Who apparently had a cartoon of his own on French tv in 2001. The problem here is that Cartouche apparently did a bit of a Robin Hood thing, distributing some of his ill-gotten gains to the poor, and he seduced women, so he keeps turning up in crappy romance novels (and Saturday morning cartoons, and made for tv movies). Schinderhannes: a german outlaw from the turn of the 19th century. He had a huge gang, nineteen accomplices sentenced to death at the same time he was. They mostly targeted Jews for robbery and extortion (and creepily, the French wiki chooses right after that sentence to add that he was a sort of local Robin Hood). But like Robin Hood as characterised in TH White's The Sword in the Stone, he was committing thefts under the nose of an occupying power (for White, Robin Hood and his men were anglo-saxon partisans stealing from the occupying Normans – Schinderhannes was active during the French occupation of the Rhine). The link here is that both of these brigands are looked up to in the somewhat the same way as the worst excesses of the Revolution, but the Revolution always meant something, while these guys were just trying to get rich dishonestly.

“is the ruin of all things. . . . Including the upper mines, which it execrates.” Oh, look, they're connected after all, aren't they? And I don't like the inclusion of prostitution in this list of crimes after it's already been proved in this novel that prostitution is the recourse of the poorest and most screwed. Prostitution implies providing sex for money, because that is the crime that gets prosecuted, not the paying of money for sex, which is the crime from the perspective of financially ruined woman.

“Destroy the cave Ignorance, and destroy the mole Crime.” *facepalm* Victor, let me introduce you to Bernie Madoff. Yes, I get your point, but your point is wrong. It was wrong then, too; I just don't have a good example to point to, but one must have existed. If you mean a wider definition of “ignorance” to include moral as well as factual knowledge, you're no longer class-based. And your arguments are class-based – you don't cite Nero; you cite thieves from the working class. I, sadly, have a hierarchy of Bernie Madoff, Hosni Mubarak, and Muammar Qaddafi: there must be kings and emperors you could cite if you indeed want to keep class out of it. But you don't. For you, the lowest depths are the lowest social classes, not the lowest specimens of humanity. And thus your idea of Ignorance that can be remedied is probably that lack of education: if only they knew better. My depressing hierarchy of theft and contempt certainly knows better. You even stated it yourself earlier in this chapter. It's the focus on self that defines the lowest depths, and that is the real creator of crime. Not ignorance as one of the problems of the lower classes.

Chapter 3
Now we get fun stuff!

Marshal Brune was commander of the Army of the Var during the Hundred Days, thus the Avignon reference.

Babet's expression in French is “entreprendre Paris”: to embark upon, to tackle, with of course the link to “enterprise”. I think it's awesome that he ran a freak show for a while.

Claquesous is way over the top, being not a bandit at all but a sort of ur-bandit, the personification of crime. Everyone else is; Claquesous represents. It's actually kind of out of place, this image of how the bourgeoisie sees crime, stuck in among descriptions of people who could exist.

And then we have Parnasse. (which I put a star next to at some point in my adolescence.) If he had left a string of bodies in his wake, Paris would have had a much higher murder rate, one would think. And this is interesting: Louis Chevalier says, “fair hair predominates in the Paris underworld. A character must be a really sinister criminal for Eugène Sue to give him brown hair and red cheeks, to Sue – but also to the contemporary criminologists – signs of genuinely deep-seated viciousness.” So Parnasse, having black hair, must be a demon from hell. If Hugo follows the criminologists of the day. Also, Parnasse has a “redingote”, a frock coat, because he is so up-to-the 1829 moment! Even though it's probably 1831. Because he keeps getting blood on the ones he'd really like to steal off dandies' backs, so he's had to wear this one for two years and that's why it's threadbare? Also, “charmer of the shadows” is not quite correct. The french is “ce mirliflore du sépulcre”: charmer is right (though that link with flowers is a really nice image), but sépulcre is the same in French and English, with no other definition. “Charmer of the tomb.”

Chapter 4
Proteus: In the Odyssey, Menelaus tells of capturing Proteus, the original sea-god, in order to force him to tell which of the gods Menelaus had offended. Proteus changes forms (including those enumerated in quotes by Hugo here), but Menelaus keeps hold of him. Proteus answers truthfully and then also tells him of the current fate of several of the other Greek leaders who had survived the Trojan war.

Coco Lacour: Vidocq's successor at the Sûreté, plucked out of prison by Vidocq himself.

I'm sorry, really, Victor? These guys' version of organised crime was to control all muggings in the entire department of the Seine? Paris and the suburbs? Muggings? (ok, “ambushes”, which includes hold ups, but the whole thing just seems – petty. Yes, muggings are awful, particularly when they are pervasive, and they, along with burglary contribute to the general perception of crime, but they're really penny-ante stuff.) I feel like they are precursors to the people who swipe iPhones on the Metro and screw up bank robberies. To keep that many men together, there has to be a benefit. Mugging is so easily every man for himself. Four men are not going to be in charge of all the hold-ups in Paris. Organized crime requires a big payoff for consistent jobs that require lots of cooperation. The “ambush business” does not sound like it qualifies. Add up all the names listed, and you've got a bigger organization than Schinderhannes, who was seemingly working over a larger geographic area and hitting up carriages. But these guys seem to do as much mugging as stagecoach robbery, since Hugo warns about meeting them alone in the middle of the night and them scenting out that you're carrying something of value. Lacenaire did burglaries with false keys, which requires a certain amount of preparation and a probably larger payoff for each job. I suspect I'm hitting rather too high in trying to set up housebreakings.

I've got to quote Chevalier on Patron-Minette because it's really kind of amusing in parts and absolutely fascinating (the last section I quote gets at some of my issues that I don't even think are necessarily derived from Chevalier). These are all from Louis Chevalier, Laboring Classes and Dangerous Classes in Paris during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, trans. Frank Jellinek, Princeton University Press, 1973.

“The survival of these old forms, of what Hugo had learned from others, from books and especially from Vidocq's memoirs, probably accounts for the astonishing contrast between the authenticity of the crime Hugo did not intend to describe and the artificiality of the crime he did mean to describe, embodied in Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous, and Montparnasse. In all the crime literature of the July Monarchy, even the clumsiest and most melodramatic, it would be hard to find bandits less convincing and less impressive than this quartet who, Hugo claims, “governed the lower depths of Paris from 1830 to 1835.” A most improbable government. It is hardly possible to take these small fry seriously and to believe that “owing to their ramifications and the subjacent network of their relations they had the general direction of all the villainies in the department of the Seine.” The horro with which Hugo invested them does not impress us, though he added details and corrections, which are to be found on the original manuscript of Les Misérables. He first wrote of Montparansse: “at the age of nineteen the had several corpses behind him.” This he corrected to: “at the age of eighteen he had several corpses behind him,” and added: “More than one wayfarer lay in the shadow of this villain, with outstretched arms, his face in a pool of blood.” They are small fry as villains, expressing only, and badly at that, their own criminality or a form of criminality abundantly illustrated in Vidocq's memoirs. Indeed, Hugo tried to give an additional turn on the screw by referring to Vidocq and bringing him in in person: “These four bandits formed a sort of Proteus, winding through the ranks of the police and striving to escape Vidocq's uncanny penetration under cover of various disguises.

“Admittedly, these survivals of a former or immediately prior criminality are a small matter compared with the description of the criminality which germinated in the Preface to Le dernier jour d'un condamné and came to full fruition here. But simply to note this as a fact is not wholly satisfactory. The most important pieces of evidence are not, on the whole, those which Hugo meant to put forward or thought he had. An antiquarian view of social matters is of no more help than an academic view of crime.” (p. 92-93)

“The strictly criminal groups were those who dwelt in the lower depths, the bas-fonds, the troisième-dessous, “the great cavern of Evil” to which Hugo devoted the book in Les Misérables entitled “Patron-minette”. The anachronisms, the clumsiness, the bogus antiquarianism, the highly improbable details in the evocation of the criminal groups, all contrast strongly with the authenticity and beauty of the description of the diffused criminality that pervades the paragraphs and chapter devoted to the lower classes. We can interpret this contrast as yet another proof of the transformation of a picturesque criminality, of which Hugo knew very little – and that only from books – into a social criminality, which he knew well but only in exactly the same way as any of his contemporaries, since it was one of the most obvious aspects of contemporary city life in Paris.

“The description of criminal groups appears lifelike or at any rate conveys horror only when it deals with masses or crowds, that is to say, when it compounds men with things, and when it uses the procedures who efficacy we noted when investigating the description of things by way of an approach to the description of men. . . . As soon as the description attempts to individualize any particular character, it loses both efficacy and probability. Note the contrast between the great criminals of Balzac, who are formidable and really horrible, and Hugo's petty loafers of the outer boulevards, who criminal enterprises are always paltry exploits; they can easily be gulled by an urchin like Gavroche.

“The more lifelike and historically important the descriptions of the criminal districts, because they were significant of a criminality that surpassed their bounds, the harder it was for the description of the criminal groups to do what it set out to do. It is upon the districts that the city's criminality as a whole and the social problem as a whole lave their mark, whereas the bandits do not even succeed in conveying to us their criminality as such and the specific problem they constitute.” (p. 111-112)

Chevalier also characterises bringing in Lacenaire as an act of desperation, and a poor one at that. Using the very famous thief and murder to lend credibility to his creation of Patron-Minette, Hugo has selected a representative of the older, exception, picturesque crime, when throughout Les Misérables, Hugo is asserting a basic theme of diffuse collective and social criminality. (p. 115)

the many details supplementing the description of crime add little to the evocation of horror in the first draft. One good example is Part III, Book VII, entitled “Patron-Minette”. The whole of this book comes from the second draft. It was written straight off, with very few erasures. There are a few additional details, such as we noted in the portrait of Montparnasse; and the sentences about Vidocq and Lacenaire are also inserted. In fact, the description of Patron-Minette is merely a reflection, dragged in as an afterthought at the second stage in the composition of Les Misérables, on a form of criminality of which we and Hugo himself had become aware as early as the first state of the manuscript. By heightening the criminal element and complicating it with examples which entail real inconsistencies within the description, Hugo dissociated crime from poverty. So far as the historian is concerned, he toned down his original testimony, the affirmation of social deterioration presented – though involuntarily – in the first manuscript draft and in what remains of it in the final text. And he toned it down precisely because he was now describing, after the event and from the outside, facts which he had previously merely experienced passively and expressed immediately. The problem of the relationship between poverty and crime, which he had simply sensed and experienced in the first improvisation, was now posed, defined, and supported by documents taken from the contemporary literature, a social literature which itself adduced its evidence – and most incomplete evidence at that – very tardily concerning the social developments it nevertheless purported to describe and explain.” (p. 123-4)

[MmeBahorel]

One more translation issue with Fahnestock/MacAfee: what they translate as "goblin" is actually, in the French, larve, which is exactly what it sounds like. Larva, grub, worm.

Que faut-il pour faire évanouir ces larves ? What will make these worms disappear?

Light. And that makes sense, since you see grubs on the underside of a rotting board, not on the side that faces the light.

They aren't fantastic creatures; they are disgusting infantile things that crawl on their bellies through the muck, very much a part of the earth.

[Aurelia Combeferre]

Interesting how Hugo uses the word 'larva'---it's like he has this classification/taxonomy of the various characters he uses in Les Misérables. Perhaps he is suggesting more than decay, but an inability/failure to evolve human potential to its best purpose. It's notable that at least two of the Patron-Minette members can be considered quite talented/even smarter than some of Hugo's other characters, and the tragedy in their story is how their exceptional skills and personalities became associated with the darkness.

[MmeBahorel]

They are perpetual children who feed off decay, if we take it in the most literal form. Because the grubs don't really cause the decay; the decay is what softens the wood enough that they can feed on it. They hasten the destruction, but the decay is what brings them out in the first place. A symptom, therefore, and not the disease.

Where on earthy did "goblins" come from? It seems to be a nineteenth century problem: this 1887 edition uses "phantoms". Was "larvae" too disgusting for an English-speaking audience?

[Ulkis]

Denny used "spirits". How odd.

[Aurelia Combeferre]

December 17, 2013

Mines and Miners

http://www.online-literature.com/victor_hugo/les_miserables/197/

On what one finds when delving deeper

[Aurelia Combeferre]

December 18, 2013

The Lowest Depths

http://www.online-literature.com/victor_hugo/les_miserables/198/

What construes the social peril.

Rather interesting discussion here; it is neither sympathetic nor condemning of these circumstances (a little expository).

[Aurelia Combeferre]

December 19, 2013

Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous, Montparnasse

http://www.online-literature.com/victor_hugo/les_miserables/199/

Four men best avoiding. No matter how alluring the last one is.

[Aurelia Combeferre]

December 20, 2013

Composition of the Troupe

http://www.online-literature.com/victor_hugo/les_miserables/200/

Allies of the nefarious sort.

[TheOfficeIsClosed]

Don't know if this has been discussed before(I can't be the only one who wonders about these things right?!), but does anyone have any more detailed info or even a picture of what exactly the 'style of 1829' is? Lately I've had a strong urge to draw Montparnasse and it would be nice to know I'm not doing his hair all wrong...

[[I love how this is my first ever non-introductory post on here. There's SO MANY other things I want to discuss or ask about, and my first post is about Monty's hair. I've clearly got my priorities *totally* in the right order. ]]

[Gervais]

I like your priorities.

Fashion plates. http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm ... fpc/id/678
http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm ... fpc/id/682
Because they're, well, fashion plates, I can't find any without the hat, but as far as I can tell, curly and sideburns. The Nerdy Fannish Research forum might have some stuff that's hiding from me at the moment (it totally does, because I remember seeing other things by other people with similar stuff. Curls and sideburns.)

[TheOfficeIsClosed]

I like your priorities.

Fashion plates. http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm ... fpc/id/678
http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm ... fpc/id/682
Because they're, well, fashion plates, I can't find any without the hat, but as far as I can tell, curly and sideburns. The Nerdy Fannish Research forum might have some stuff that's hiding from me at the moment (it totally does, because I remember seeing other things by other people with similar stuff. Curls and sideburns.)

Ooh thanks!! That's definitely more helpful than anything I had been able to find! The fact that they're wearing hats isn't really a bad thing seeing as Monty was wearing one, and the main thing I wanted to see was the bit about the hat being turned up on the left side to make room for a tuft/lock/whatever your translation says of hair, and a number of those do have that so it's more or less what I was looking for. And it does actually say in his actual character description that his hair was curled... Now I'm randomly trying to decide what I think of the idea of Montparnasse with sideburns. Don't think it occurred to me before... I'll have to get back to myself on that one. I'm pretty sure he was supposed to be more attractive than those guys though. In my head he is, anyway.

I thought of looking in that forum, but there were so many topics, which wasn't intimidating exactly, just... I thought it might be quicker to just ask. I fully intend on having a look through there one of these days though, never know what good stuff might be hiding in there