YEAH, it would never have occurred to me as weird either because student radicals are such a trope and it makes sense in-narrative--the place where it gets weird, and I never noticed it until I buried myself in Saint-Merry research, is that the actual stats of the June Rebellion were the exact opposite. The Amis in the book are mostly students with some token workers thrown in; the real-life insurgents were mostly working-class--and within that category, mostly educated skilled artisans--with a handful of students.
To get into specifics: At Saint-Merry there were two law students joined by a third on the night of the 5th, a Polytechnicien who showed up on the 6th to great acclaim and was immediately given a command post, and a student of the Alfort veterinary school found dead in the building where they made their last stand. All of them sufficiently remarked-upon that I doubt there were many others. Geography comes into play here--Saint-Merry is across the river from the Latin Quarter, so it's likely that as the uprising was suppressed on the Left Bank, students started sneaking across under cover of night to join the holdouts at Saint-Merry, and many of them were probably caught and detained before they could get there. But still. Five students out of about 120 insurgents.
Which would still be down to artistic license except that so much of the stuff from the barricades is pulled almost verbatim from history, and Enjolras is so clearly modeled on Charles Jeanne. It seems like a really stinkeye-inducing thing for Hugo to change. The best I can come up with is that the Chanvrerie barricade was sort of a remix of Saint-Merry with elements taken from a bunch of different revolts throughout the 19th century, and it could be that Hugo wanted to celebrate the tradition of student radicals by having a student-led barricade exist in parallel with the worker-led barricade. But. Like. It's just an impression, but I get the feeling Hugo was uncomfortable writing about the skilled, educated working classes, because they're kind of an awkward fit with the social narrative he was trying to construct with Les Mis--he's comfortable writing about (and criticizing) the bourgeoisie, and advocating on behalf of the destitute and marginalized, and the existence of people who are neither but are still getting pushed around and fucked over by the system and have their own voice and initiative in fighting it kind of throws him for a loop.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-03-29 07:27 am (UTC)To get into specifics: At Saint-Merry there were two law students joined by a third on the night of the 5th, a Polytechnicien who showed up on the 6th to great acclaim and was immediately given a command post, and a student of the Alfort veterinary school found dead in the building where they made their last stand. All of them sufficiently remarked-upon that I doubt there were many others. Geography comes into play here--Saint-Merry is across the river from the Latin Quarter, so it's likely that as the uprising was suppressed on the Left Bank, students started sneaking across under cover of night to join the holdouts at Saint-Merry, and many of them were probably caught and detained before they could get there. But still. Five students out of about 120 insurgents.
Which would still be down to artistic license except that so much of the stuff from the barricades is pulled almost verbatim from history, and Enjolras is so clearly modeled on Charles Jeanne. It seems like a really stinkeye-inducing thing for Hugo to change. The best I can come up with is that the Chanvrerie barricade was sort of a remix of Saint-Merry with elements taken from a bunch of different revolts throughout the 19th century, and it could be that Hugo wanted to celebrate the tradition of student radicals by having a student-led barricade exist in parallel with the worker-led barricade. But. Like. It's just an impression, but I get the feeling Hugo was uncomfortable writing about the skilled, educated working classes, because they're kind of an awkward fit with the social narrative he was trying to construct with Les Mis--he's comfortable writing about (and criticizing) the bourgeoisie, and advocating on behalf of the destitute and marginalized, and the existence of people who are neither but are still getting pushed around and fucked over by the system and have their own voice and initiative in fighting it kind of throws him for a loop.