About Eponine and Father Mabeauf

[honesttradesman]

I'm on the St. Denis and the Idyl of the Rue Plumet book. Marius and Cosette have just kissed. I have a nagging problem about how Epinone knew how to contact Marius in the first place. How did she know anything about Father Mabeauf? She was the "apparition" in Mabeauf's garden, but how did she even know how Mabeauf was--querying Mabeauf about Marius' location led her to the Field of the Lark.

[honesttradesman]

EDIT: if the information is a spoiler, please don't say anything.

I'm on the St. Denis and the Idyl of the Rue Plumet book. Marius and Cosette have just kissed. I have a nagging problem about how Epinone knew how to contact Marius in the first place. How did she know anything about Father Mabeauf? She was the "apparition" in Mabeauf's garden, but how did she even know how Mabeauf was--querying Mabeauf about Marius' location led her to the Field of the Lark.

[kiki1982]

I should have checked this in the book, but it's too late now...
Is it not so that, when Marius observes 'Mr Leblanc' and 'Ursule', the two benefacters of the Thénardiers, nextdoor, he asks Eponine to follow 'Mr Leblanc' home? She comes to tell him, eventually, that she knows where 'his Ursule' lives and they are called Mr Maboeuf and Cosette and that they live in the Rue Plumet.

[honesttradesman]

Thanks for replying! I've been mentally quibbling over this detail but you've shed some light on it. The book is so huge that it's hard to remember everything. i'll go ahead and consult the part to which you refer and let you know if you are right. thanks nick


I should have checked this in the book, but it's too late now...
Is it not so that, when Marius observes 'Mr Leblanc' and 'Ursule', the two benefacters of the Thénardiers, nextdoor, he asks Eponine to follow 'Mr Leblanc' home? She comes to tell him, eventually, that she knows where 'his Ursule' lives and they are called Mr Maboeuf and Cosette and that they live in the Rue Plumet.

[honesttradesman]

Yes, you've got it, Kiki.

And at the same moment the same idea occurred to them both, and made her smile and him blush. She stepped up to him, and laid her hand on his shoulder: "You pay no heed to me, but I know you, Mr. Marius. I meet you here on the staircase, and then I often see you going to a person named Father Mabeuf who lives in the direction of Austerlitz, sometimes when I have been strolling in that quarter. It is very becoming to you to have your hair tumbled thus."

That is the connection. Thanks!

[kiki1982]

Your welcome... ;)

You always have to keep such a lot in mind in French literature... Sometimes even the birdy in the tree is important... :rolleyes:

Anyway, I'm reading it in French, so I don't really know which part you are referring to, but I'll check on the train tomorrow... I was also in the dark about the fact that Eponine was the apparition in the garden of Maboeuf... So thanks for bringing that to my attention...:)

[honesttradesman]

Yes, it doesn't explicitly say it is Epinone but there are plenty of clues. The biggest one is that right after the "apparition" in Mabeauf's garden departs, the next day she goes to the Field of the Lark, where Mabeauf directed her in the previous section.

[kiki1982]

I obviously was asleep when I read it, because it was very clear that it was Eponine... Besides, the book itself is called 'Eponine' :rolleyes:

She never tells Marius that the guy at Rue Plumet is called Mabeuf, though, because straight after the 'apparition to Marius' you get a description what happened with Cosette and Jean Valjean during the episode in the gardens at the Palais du Luxembourg and how they left the convent of Petit-Picpus, that you had earlier when Marius falls in love with Cosette. And in that you get Eponine who asks Mr Mabeuf where mr Marius lives.

A person should never fall asleep with a French book, because he doesn't get half the story... Thanks for waking me up...

[honesttradesman]

You're welcome. Yes, I know that Eponine doesn't tell Marius that the resident of Rue Plumet is called Mabeuf--its residents are Valjean, Cossette, and the maid. I'm on the descent into the sewers of Paris!