Les chandeliers d’argent de Jean Valjean

Les chandeliers d’argent de Jean Valjean are a pair of silver candlesticks whose material value is surpassed by their place in Jean Valjean’s final testament. As he lies dying, he leaves them to Ursule, presenting the bequest as both a practical inheritance and an intimate expression of what the objects mean to him.

The Bequest

The candlesticks stand on the mantelpiece when Jean Valjean calls Ursule and Marius to his side. In the same farewell in which he urges them to live happily and tells Marius that the money he has accumulated came from honest work, he makes clear that the candlesticks are to belong to Ursule. The bequest gives the pair a place in the future he is trying to secure for her, even as he faces his own death.

Silver Made Precious

Jean Valjean distinguishes their worth from their market value: they are silver, he says, but to him they are gold and diamonds. He explains their special effect in devotional terms, saying that they change the candles placed in them into altar candles. Their importance therefore rests not on the metal alone but on the memory of the person who gave them to him and the spiritual meaning he has attached to that gift. At the moment of parting, passing them to Ursule carries that valued connection forward.