#gavroche

psalm22-6:

[Source: Image Magazine, 1933]

GAVROCHE

— Gavroche !
— Gavroche !

On the grounds of the studio, there is not only one Gavroche, there are ten Gavroches it seems, that everyone calls to and who escapes and leaves, and slips and climbs and banters…we saw him (or saw them?) near Raymond Bernard who, from his folding chair, is observing the installation of the lights, we saw him on a ladder, at the window, in the canteen, everywhere. But when the director calls “Attention Gavroche! It’s your turn!” then there is only one Gavroche, “who is worth ten,” and that’s the little Emile Genevoix.

“The child was pale, skinny, clothed in rags, with canvas pants in the month of February, and was singing at the top of his lungs.”

In reality, under his makeup, Gavroche is hiding a clear complexion that Victor Hugo’s young hero was lacking; but he has in his face what the poet would have liked to see: brown eyes that are always alert, perpetually in motion, he moves from emotive to playful without hesitation.

It’s a miracle: he really is Gavroche of the city–and he stays in character under the camera’s severe eye.

How was he discovered?…An article by my coworker Fernand Lot recounted it to you: a contest was held in Joinville, where 400 children presented themselves. Ten were left after a first test. Among them, a little bell boy from the Pathe-Natan offices.

Quite wisely, he had gone to find the secretary of the big boss.

“Say, mademoiselle Jeanne, do you believe that I presented myself well?”

“Of course.”

So it was decided and that night, in returning to the rue du Mont-Cenis where his mother is a concierge, the little Genevoix said: “Maman, I will succeed!”

And actually, he was chosen because he could not not be.  

“What’s he like?” I asked him friends.

“Oh! He’s a funny guy!”

“Yeah but ‘at work’ uh he’s serious!”

“He’s a hard worker y’know: at night, when he leaves here he races away on his bicycle to sell papers at the gare du Nord.”

“And Sundays, he sells buttons and aprons at the flea market.”

“Why?”

“Because he wants to help his mother.”

“And, you know, he’s our president.”

“Of what?”

“Of the J.S.M.”

“? ? ?”

“Of the youth athletes of Montmartre I mean.”

Proudly, they show me a piece of cardboard, signed with two initials. But when I speak to Emile Genevoix, now Gavroche, about the society, he smiled modestly:

“Oh! There’s just five of us.”

Because, instinctively, Gavroche is a philosopher. So while in the company of an actor he was passing in front of the Louvre, the actor, carried away by his own lyricism and exalting the beauties of the old palace, advised Gavroche:

“Little one, come here to elevate your soul. Let’s see! When you want to elevate your soul, what do you do?”

And with the indescribable accent of a little kid who has been seen, Gavroche said calmly: “To elevate my soul…well! I’m a groom!”

In this way, he does not let his astonishment show. After he was chosen, he was called into the office of M. Emile Natan, and he heard this said:

“Well Genevoix, from now on you are no longer a bellboy. You are an artist.”

“An artist?…and my uniform?”

“You can leave it. You are an artist.”

So, taking off his pea jacket with a decided gesture, he held it out, very dignifiedly, to the first person who came by, maybe to Raymond Bernard’s assistant, and said with condescension: “Take this, my friend!”

When I arrived on the streets of the faubourg Saint-Antoine–of the reconstructed faubourg under the sky of Antibes–Gavroche was playing with the extras. But soon, his warm voice, veiled in the accent of a Parisian kid, rose up: “Don’t be an idiot! There’s a journalist!”

I was detected. So what was I to do? I asked Gavroche a few questions. He stood in front of me, dancing from one foot to the other.

“Well here! I’ll tell ya about my life…I’m a Ch’timi, a boy from the north, from the Lens side. Then I came to Paris, where I was in school in a godforsaken place (!), up there, in Montmartre…I passed my certification at 11, with good marks! Then, I worked at a bank, and then at Pathe-Natan, then here we are, I’m acting…But you know, my bellboy uniform, I put it to the side; hmm, for now?

Gavroche, stylish little boy, you’re calm. But he’s discrete too, because it’s a manager who adds:

“He’s not telling you that he loves his mother and sister very much; and that, from what he’s earning now, he sends 90% to Madame Genevoix…”

“Ah! Why not! I want to assure that my mama grows old.”

“And for your sister?”

“My sister? I put her in the movies…oh! I hired lots of people. Even though they’re women” [?]

“And,” Raymond Bernard interrogates him, “You don’t have a fiancée yet?”

Gavroche lowers his long eyelashes over his brown eyes, and in a flash becomes a little kid again:

“That will be a royal pair! I’d have a little one, me!…Oh! Well, if I had a Pathe-kid, what would be cinema!”…

The journalist intervenes:

“Tell me Gavroche, if there were hard times, a revolution, would you do the same as you do in your role?”

“For sure!”

And if you were already a star, if you were a well known actor, what role would you have wanted?” I expect him to say Enjolras, student revolutionary, wild and romantic, or Javert, or better, Jean Valjean. Gavroche replied to me: “Marius, for sure”

Because of Cosette? Maybe a little, but without a doubt because of all the character’s sensitivity.

A whistles blows.

“Everyone in their places…attention…silence…we’re filming…Les Misérables. Scene 1.324…take two…”

And the voice of Garvroche rises, from the back of the rue de la Chanvrerie, over the barricade, without hesitation without a trace of “stage fright.”

“Mon nez est en larmes,
Mon ami Bugeaud
Prêt’ moi tes gendarmes
Pour leur dire un mot.
En capote bleue
Les poules au shako
Voici la banlieue
Co-cocorico !”

“Cut! Clapperboards! Is the sound good?”

In the distance, two brief clacks ring out relaying that the sound is good.

And Gavroche becomes again, after having been the heroic boy come to life, who feels all the tragedy of the part he plays, Gavroche rebecomes Emile Genevoix, ex-bellboy from the rue Grancoue, and the “cockadoodledoo” that he cries out…that’s the rooster of Pathe-Natan, at the end of the Pathe-Journal.

This killed me.

C'est l'Éponine, Gavroche en jupons.

Nobody wants to see you in petticoats! yells Eponine. God, twelve-year-old boys are the worst.

So, begins Azelma, you would prefer that I date above my age group–

I– what? asks Eponine. How does that… what? What are you talking about?

Oh, nothing, says Azelma.

coriandered:

Final Line of Les Misérables Characters

threadbaremillionaire:

Some unfinished watercolors I finished in photoshop

ID: three small watercolour paintings of Les Mis characters. the first is Javert, standing in profile, wearing a black top hat and overcoat, and holding a cudgel. the second is Valjean from the shoulders up, wearing a green jacket. the third is Gavroche, who is tugging at his cravat and grinning. end ID.

Death: The end of something, change, the impermeability of all things 

Here’s Gavroche! Happy New Year to everyone, here’s some death!

submitted by avecungrantaire

Ordinary children playground in St. Petersburg. With stone elephant.

OKAY so can I like show y’all this draft that has been sitting around since 2014?? 7 friggin years??? This is Les Mis Zombie AU if it isn’t too obvious lol. I love this piece…wip….idea? But considering it’s been 7 years I’m terrified I’m never going to finish this illustration. So I’m sort of trying to like get my hopes up that I can get some encouragement to keep going if people enjoy the idea. (If you hate the idea, I’m sorry).

Look though, let me show you around. We’ve obviously got Enjolras hitting the guard with the butt of his gun…below that we’ve got a zombified Gavroche who has already gone to the other size of the barricade and now coming back up again (Zombie AU is a completely different reason to have a barricade, you see.) Then on the bottom right we’ve got Eponine showing Marius that she’s gotten a bite on her wrist and she’s about to turn. And then above that, we’ve got Grantaire hitting a zombie Bahorel (the first Amis to die in the book) with a bottle.

Anyway I hope y’all like this sketch because I still do! My secret dream is to finish this drawing some day.