Editing Jean Valjean (section)

== Outline of the novel ==
[[File:5. Jean Valjean au bagne Le Numéro 24,601 devient le numéro 9,436, 2019.4.2.2.jpg|thumb|left|Valjean (right) in the [[Bagne of Toulon]]; the letters TF on his hat refer to {{lang|fr|travaux forcés}} ("hard labour").]]
As a [[parolee]], Valjean is issued a [[Internal_passport#France|yellow passport]] with marching orders to [[Pontarlier]], where he will be forced to live under severe restrictions. This document, often called a "passeport jaune" (yellow passport), identifies him to all as a former convict and immediately brands Valjean an outcast wherever he travels. His life turns around when [[Bishop Myriel]] of [[Digne]], from whom he steals valuable silverware, tells the police that he has given the treasure to Valjean. Out of this encounter, Valjean becomes a repentant, honorable, and dignified man. He becomes kind, a devoted father-figure to a girl, [[Cosette]], who loses her mother, and a benefactor to those in need.

Although a known criminal and a parolee, Valjean yet grows morally to represent the best traits of humanity. Bishop Myriel tells him in Volume I that "if you emerge from that sad place with thoughts of hatred and of wrath against mankind, you are deserving of pity; if you emerge with thoughts of good-will and of peace, you are more worthy than any one of us."<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Hugo |first=Victor |title=Les Misérables |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/135/pg135-images.html |access-date=2024-04-29 |website=www.gutenberg.org |language=en}}</ref> A few books later Victor Hugo describes that "[w]hat the Bishop had wished to make of him, that he carried out. It was more than a transformation; it was a [[Transfiguration (religion) | transfiguration]] [...][he had] henceforth only two thoughts,—to conceal his name and to sanctify his life; to escape men and to return to God."<ref name=":0" /> Whenever Valjean's desire to remain concealed conflicts with his desire to sanctify his life, "[he] d[oes] not hesitate to sacrifice the first to the second—his security to his virtue."<ref name=":0" /> By the end of the novel, even the police officer Inspector Javert acknowledges that Valjean is "kneeling on the heights of virtue, more nearly akin to an angel than to a man."<ref name=":0" />

His character foil, the police officer Inspector [[Javert]], persecutes him throughout the novel. After Valjean saves his life, Inspector Javert is forced to reconsider the authoritarian worldview he has adopted all his life; there "takes place in him a sentimental revelation entirely distinct from legal affirmation, his only standard of measurement hitherto. (....) justice according to God, running in an inverse sense to justice according to men."<ref name=":0" /> This revelation that "authority might be put out of countenance, that the rule might be inadequate in the presence of a fact, that everything could not be framed within the text of the code" leads to his eventual suicide.<ref name=":0" />