Cosette

Hugo was inspired by a little girl named Marie-Jeannette from the village of Colpo, whose story is quite similar to Ephrazi’s story. To describe Cosette’s living conditions, Hugo went to England—and more specifically to Morbihan.

Her real name is Ephrazi. Cosette was an illegitimate daughter of the commoner Fantine and Félix Tholomyes, a frivolous man from a wealthy family. To meet her child’s needs, Fantine has to work, and for that she must part with Cosette. She naïvely leaves Cosette to a pair of innkeepers in the village of Montfermeil, by the surname Thenardier. These people turn out to be very cruel. They hate the poor child, using her as a servant, and demand more and more money for her upkeep from Fantine, who has settled in Montreuil, her hometown, where she works at Jean Valjean’s enterprise until the day she is fired for having been denounced by one of the envious workers—who suspects Fantine of sexual misconduct. With no means of living, Fantine continues to find money (she sells two central incisors in the upper jaw to a wandering dentist charlatan, supposedly to treat Cosette, and she turns to prostitution), sacrificing herself for her daughter’s well-being, and sending it to the Thenardiers—amounts that increase again and again, yet everything is spent around Cosette.

Fantine is arrested by the police for allegedly beating a “respectable citizen”—a young layabout who allowed himself to insult Fantine verbally and harass her in the street, for which she gave him a firm rebuff. In the police station, Fantine ends up under the investigation of Inspector Javert, but she is miraculously freed in time by Jean Valjean, who uses his knowledge of French criminal and civil law and the powerful authority of the mayor of Montreuil. Jean Valjean takes Fantine under his care and looks after her until her death.

At the bedside of the dying Fantine, Jean Valjean promises to care for Cosette. Soon afterward, he takes Cosette away from the Thenardiers and takes her with him to a monastery in Paris, where she spends the rest of her childhood, receiving a basic education.

Later, during daily walks with Jean Valjean in the Luxembourg Gardens, Cosette notices a young student, Marius, and they fall in love. After many adventures, they marry. Cosette didn’t know who Jean Valjean really was and what her own mother was called until the last pages of the novel.