Who is Who in Les Misérables

Jean Valjean

A pruner from Brie. He steals a loaf of bread for his starving nephews, serves nineteen years in the prison at Toulon, and walks out with a yellow passport. After that he lives under more than one name

Relations father of Cosette

Javert

A police officer in Montreuil-sur-Mer. Born in a prison, he became a policeman. He says he has seen strength enough to lift a fallen cart in only one man, a convict at Toulon

Cosette

Fantine's daughter, christened Euphrasie. Left at an inn in Montfermeil before she is three, she is its servant before she is five. The village calls her the Lark

Relations daughter of Fantine · daughter of Jean Valjean

Thénardier

He keeps an inn at Montfermeil called the Sergeant of Waterloo and tells everyone he was that sergeant. He keeps raising the board for the child in his care

Relations father of Éponine · father of Azelma · husband of Madame Thénardier · father of Gavroche

Éponine

The Thénardiers' elder daughter. In spring 1818 she is the child on the chain swing outside the inn, and years later she lives next door to Marius in Paris

Relations daughter of Thénardier · daughter of Madame Thénardier

Fantine

A Paris working girl born in Montreuil-sur-Mer. Abandoned by her first love in 1817, she leaves her little daughter at an inn in Montfermeil the next spring

Relations mother of Cosette

Fauchelevent

A former notary in Montreuil-sur-Mer. His business fails and he becomes a carter, and he never has a good word for Monsieur Madeleine

Madame Thénardier

Thénardier's wife. The sight of her swinging her two daughters on a chain swing is what persuades Fantine to leave her child there

Relations mother of Éponine · mother of Azelma · wife of Thénardier · mother of Gavroche

Azelma

The Thénardiers' younger daughter. She is always at her sister's side and does what her father tells her

Relations daughter of Thénardier · daughter of Madame Thénardier

Bishop Myriel

The Bishop of Digne. He gives his palace over to the hospital, lives in a small house, and keeps no lock on its door

Baptistine

The bishop's sister. She believes whatever her brother does is right and follows him

Madame Magloire

The old woman who keeps the bishop's house. On the evening rumours of a vagrant go round, she wants the bolts put back

Petit-Gervais

A Savoyard boy of about ten who wanders from village to village. He drops a forty-sou coin in a field outside Digne

Boulatruelle

An old road-mender on a back lane near Montfermeil. Rumour says he has been in prison, and he cannot forget a stranger he saw in the woods

Bamatabois

An idler in Montreuil, a voter and a landlord. In January 1823 he pushes snow down Fantine's back outside the officers' café

Champmathieu

A poor old man of the district. Caught holding a branch from someone else's apple tree, he is taken at Arras for Jean Valjean

Sister Simplice

A Sister of Charity who nurses Fantine in the factory infirmary. She has never told a lie in her life

Brevet

A former convict held in the prison at Arras. He is the first to call Champmathieu Jean Valjean

Chenildieu

A former convict brought from Toulon. To burn away his brand he held his shoulder to hot coals, and the whole right shoulder is scarred

Cochepaille

A former convict brought from Toulon. Inside his left arm he has tattooed 1 March 1815, the day the Emperor landed at Cannes

Mother Innocente

Prioress of the convent of the Petit-Picpus. About sixty, cheerful, and at home in Latin, Greek and Hebrew

Mother Crucifixion

A nun of the Petit-Picpus. With the Pope's leave she has slept in her own coffin for twenty years

G., the old Conventionnel

An old man who sat in the Convention during the Revolution. He lives alone in a remote valley outside Digne, and the town calls him a monster

Tholomyès

The man Fantine first loves, in Paris in 1817. He and his friends leave a single letter and go home

Madame Victurnien

A widow of fifty-six in Montreuil. She spends thirty-five francs of her own going to Montfermeil and finds out that Fantine has a child

Marguerite

Fantine's elderly neighbour. She teaches her to get through winter without a fire, to save candles, and to live on nothing

Gribier

The new gravedigger at the Vaugirard cemetery. He has seven children to feed, so he does not drink

Marius

Monsieur Gillenormand's grandson and Colonel Pontmercy's son. Raised a royalist by his grandfather, he is ashamed of a father he has never known

Relations son of Colonel Pontmercy · descendant of Gillenormand

Gillenormand

A royalist past ninety living in the Marais in Paris. Threatening to cut off the inheritance, he takes his grandson Marius from his son-in-law and raises him

Relations father of Mademoiselle Gillenormand · ancestor of Marius

Mabeuf

A churchwarden of Saint-Sulpice. He cares nothing for politics and loves flowers and books. He knows the story of a father who watched his son from behind a pillar

Mademoiselle Gillenormand

Monsieur Gillenormand's unmarried elder daughter and Marius's aunt. At her father's wish she sends Marius money

Relations daughter of Gillenormand

Toussaint

An old country servant whom Jean Valjean took in from the hospital and poverty. She stammers

Colonel Pontmercy

One of Napoleon's cuirassier officers. He took an enemy flag at Waterloo and was made colonel and baron, but after the Restoration he grows flowers at Vernon

Relations father of Marius

Théodule

A lieutenant of lancers, a distant relation of the Gillenormands, and the aunt's favourite

Mother Plutarch

Old Mabeuf's elderly servant. She stays with him though she has not been paid

Gavroche

An eleven- or twelve-year-old who lives on the streets of Paris. He has no home and no bread, and he is happy because he is free. He is the Thénardiers' son

Relations son of Madame Thénardier · son of Thénardier

Courfeyrac

The centre of the Friends of the ABC. He takes the homeless Marius into his lodgings and finds him work

Enjolras

Leader of the Friends of the ABC. An only son of a rich family, twenty-two but looking seventeen. His one passion is right

Combeferre

The one among the Friends of the ABC who shows the way. He wants revolution to come hand in hand with civilisation

Bossuet

Real name Laigle. An unlucky law student from Meaux, bald at twenty-five, and one of the Friends of the ABC

Montparnasse

One of the four robbers of the Paris underworld known as Patron-Minette. A pretty-faced boy not yet twenty

Grantaire

The drinker among the Friends of the ABC who believes in nothing. He mocks every grand word but looks up to Enjolras

Brujon

A young member of the gang at the Gorbeau house. He always looks vacant but is full of tricks

Bahorel

The one among the Friends of the ABC who enjoys a fight. He goes about in a crimson waistcoat

Feuilly

A working man among the Friends of the ABC who paints fans. He raises his voice for Poland

Jean Prouvaire

The gentle poet of the Friends of the ABC. He recites love poems

Joly

The medical student among the Friends of the ABC. He and Bossuet are never apart

Magnon

A woman with ties to Patron-Minette. She takes in other people's children and collects money for their keep

Le Cabuc

A man no one knows who slips in among the insurgents. Inside the barricade he uses his gun recklessly