The Court of Miracles: The SUNDAY TIMES Bestselling Reimagining of Les Misérables: Book 1 (The Court of Miracles Trilogy)

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So what happened was, I walked out of The Jungle Book film – I was in the States and I had the idea. I don’t think I did much with it except I knew it was about Nina and Ettie. I started to do research on a 48 hour flight from the States to where I live now in Mauritius (you have to stop off in London, the connecting flights were in Florida. It’s the worst). So I had this raging fever and I had a million tabs open on my computer and I was just eating the history of Paris, from this origin all the way through to Napoleon’s fall. And taking notes and getting ideas.

Welcome to the Court of Miracles! You're very clever to have found our little hideaway. Too bad you won't live to talk about it!Adaptationally, however, there is one element of this book that haunts me. And not in a good way. First of all, I want to know who asked for Jean Valjean and Javert genderswap m/f. Who has ever looked at Les Miserables and said you know what I wish? I wish Javert were a woman so that she could kiss Jean Valjean. Who’s asking for them to kiss at all? And if the author is brave and bold enough to raise her hand and admit she, yes, she was asking for them to kiss, why not just leave them as men? I don’t mean this in a why are we putting women in this book way—why are we adding straight people to this book? Weren’t there enough? Didn’t we hit the quota? I don’t know how to explain how little I could take this seriously. I can’t believe I'm expected to take this seriously. United States:Knopf/Random House | United Kingdom & Commonwealth:Harper Voyager | Germany:Piper | Italy:Mondadori | Poland: ZYSK | Russia:AST | Spain:Penguin Random House | Turkey:Dogan-Egmont | Hungary: Maxim So I thought he should have a brother who should stand in moral opposition to him and that was sewn together with this folk tale from Europe call The Fox Reynard [Reynard The Fox] and his enemy the wolf Isengrim. And I fixed on that and said ‘okay Nicholas de la Raynie is Isengrim’ who I changed to a boar because I want to use wolves elsewhere in The Court Of Miracles. He’s the boar Isengrim and his brother is the fox Reynard and his brother is being arrested along with everyone else because he stands against him. [Now they’re] in jail and they don’t know how to get out. That’s where they all band together for their own survival and they form the Miracle Court to escape and to gain revenge and to protect one another. So this gave me my heroes of old, these are the people [the criminals] swear by. This is why they swear by Reynard’s teeth or Isengrim be damned because this is their god and their devil. Isengrim is way worse than the devil for them. The Court Of Miracles includes short folk tales to tell the history of the city – how did they come about? At the peak of Louis XIV’s reign, over 10% of the population of Paris was destitute and lived in slums. Due to several harsh winters and Louis XIV’s continuous waging of war, the cost of bread was exorbitantly high and amounted to over 60% of a household’s wages in a year. Despite these conditions, 5% of France’s entire income was dedicated to maintaining Louis XIV’s lavish palace of Versailles in the center of Paris. One of the most interesting aspects of the Court of Miracles was that it was not an automatically welcoming society to the downtrodden. If one wanted to join the organization, or community, of thieves within the Court they had to survive two purse-cutting tests. Thanks to the rigidly hierarchical nature of the Court societies, especially the thieves’ group, more experienced members had the right to set criteria and rituals for new people wanting to join.

The graveyard where the Court is located does exist in the 20th arrondissement (administrative district) of Paris, known as Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. Coincidentally, the protagonist of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Jean Valjean, was given an honorary grave at Père-Lachaise. It is, to be honest, less a love triangle/square/whatever shape you want, and more a love three-legged-monster-thing. It took some time for Sauval’s writings on the Court to be widely recognized. It was unpopular and little published soon after printing, as the details were considered salacious and seditious. However, about a half-century after its creation, the historical accounts began to receive greater attention and respect as a historical and anthropological work. Musical: Balancing Act • Rest and Recreation • Rhythm of the Tambourine • Into Notre Dame • Top of the World • Thai Mol Piyas • Esmeralda • City Under Siege • Flight Into Egypt • Out of Love ( Reprise) • Dance of the Gypsies • Made of Stone • Finale Ultimo I was intrigued to see just how this Les Miserable meets The Jungle Book meets Six of Crows meets Throne of Glass mash up was going to work, but, you know what, I think it pulled it off!

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The beggars had a clear and rigid hierarchy, with the names of the officers coming from the beggars’ slang itself. The equivalent of the king of the beggars was originally called the ragot, but later became known as the chef-coërsre. The chef-coërsre was served by assistants called ducs. Below the ducs were the archissupots. The archissupots were former students of the beggars’slang who took on the role of teaching the slang to newly initiated beggars. I thought that the atmosphere was also well done, I enjoyed the glitz and glamour of the court alongside the more seedy and grimy elements of the underworld. Alongside this we also have glimpses of the lives of the common people during the June Rebellion, who were dying of starvation and illness. Overall, the atmosphere, setting and political aspects were my favourite elements throughout. It was okay, I guess, but not nearly as remarkable as I expect a book that's advertised as Six of Crows meets Les Mis, to be. Well, I’m a giant Les Mis fan, I saw the musical for the first time when I was a small child and I’ve seen every iteration and read the original book, and every single time I would be so frustrated with the Marius, Eponine and Cosette love triangle. In the book, Eponine and Cosette grow up together with a very abusive criminal man, and then one of them is, for all intents and purposes, sold to a stranger. Years later when they meet again, the only thing one of them says to the other is, “oh I was a young girl with her once”. And I just thought that is just not how females are! You would love each other, you would hate each other but you would definitely have a reaction to one another that was not solely based on this guy that you had both fallen in love with. Courts of miracles were, during the 17th century, places in which migrants and gypsies used to live.