Les Misérables: Translated by Julie Rose recap

Released after nineteen years in prison, Jean Valjean is transformed by Bishop Myriel's mercy and builds a new life as the charitable mayor Monsieur Madeleine. Pursued by Inspector Javert, he promises the dying Fantine to protect her daughter Cosette, rescues the abused child from the Thénardiers, and raises her in hiding. Years later Cosette and the impoverished student Marius fall in love as republican unrest grows in Paris. At the 1832 barricade, Valjean spares Javert, protects the rebels, and carries the wounded Marius through the sewers; the uprising is crushed and Gavroche, Éponine, Enjolras, and the other insurgents die. Javert releases Valjean and then kills himself because mercy has broken his moral certainty. Marius marries Cosette but shuns Valjean after learning of his conviction. Thénardier inadvertently proves Valjean's heroism, allowing the couple to reconcile with him shortly before his peaceful death.

Bishop Myriel of Digne lives with radical generosity, giving up comfort and status to serve people others dismiss. Jean Valjean arrives after nineteen years in prison, branded by a yellow passport and refused shelter throughout the town. Myriel welcomes him, but Valjean steals his silver and is caught. The bishop tells the police the silver was a gift and adds his candlesticks, asking Valjean to use the mercy to become an honest man. Soon afterward Valjean steals a coin from the child Petit Gervais almost by reflex. Realizing what he has done, he is overwhelmed by remorse and begins the moral struggle that will direct the rest of his life.

Fantine is abandoned by the student Tholomyès and leaves her daughter Cosette with the Thénardiers while she seeks work. The innkeepers exploit both mother and child, inventing expenses while treating Cosette as a servant. In Montreuil-sur-Mer, a prosperous manufacturer and mayor called Monsieur Madeleine has transformed the town through industry and charity; he is Jean Valjean under a new identity. Fantine loses her job, sells her possessions, hair, and teeth, and enters prostitution to meet the Thénardiers' demands. After Javert arrests her, Madeleine intervenes and promises to bring Cosette. A case of mistaken identity forces Valjean to reveal himself to save an innocent man. Javert confronts him beside the dying Fantine, who dies without seeing Cosette. Valjean escapes custody after arranging her burial.

After another period of imprisonment and an apparent death at sea, Valjean reaches Montfermeil. Cosette, now eight, is abused and overworked at the Thénardier inn while their daughters are indulged. Valjean meets her carrying water at night, protects her during the Christmas market, pays the innkeepers, and takes her away despite Thénardier's attempt to demand more money. The two travel toward Paris. Cosette slowly learns that she is safe and comes to love Valjean as her father, while he discovers in caring for her an attachment stronger than the solitary benevolence of his earlier life.

Javert traces Valjean and Cosette to the Gorbeau tenement and pursues them through nighttime Paris. Valjean escapes over a wall into the Petit-Picpus convent, where he finds Fauchelevent, a gardener whose life he once saved. With Fauchelevent's help, Valjean establishes a secure identity and remains at the convent as an assistant gardener while Cosette is educated there. Years of seclusion give them safety from the police. Eventually Valjean decides that Cosette should have a life beyond the convent, and they return to the city under assumed names, living quietly in several houses while he continues charitable visits among the poor.

The focus shifts to Marius Pontmercy, raised by his royalist grandfather Gillenormand and taught to think poorly of his absent father. After his father's death, Marius learns that Colonel Pontmercy loved him and had been kept away. He embraces his father's memory, adopts Bonapartist and republican views, and quarrels with his grandfather, choosing poverty and independence. Courfeyrac introduces him to the Friends of the ABC, a republican circle led by Enjolras, though Marius remains apart from their organized politics. In the Luxembourg Garden he repeatedly sees an older man and a young woman: Valjean and the now-grown Cosette. His curiosity becomes love, but his clumsy attempt to discover their address alarms Valjean, who moves away.

Living in the Gorbeau tenement, Marius encounters the destitute Jondrettes and recognizes their father as Thénardier, whom he believes once saved Colonel Pontmercy at Waterloo. He also discovers that the family's intended victim is Valjean, brought there by charity with Cosette. Thénardier and the Patron-Minette gang prepare an ambush. Torn by his debt to his father's supposed rescuer, Marius alerts Javert but hesitates to give the signal during the attack. He finally intervenes by using a message from Éponine to frighten the criminals, and the police arrest them while Valjean slips away. Marius is left without Cosette's address, and his obligation to Thénardier remains founded on a misunderstanding: at Waterloo the innkeeper was robbing, not rescuing, Pontmercy.

Éponine finds Cosette's home for Marius, allowing the young couple to meet secretly in the garden and pledge themselves to each other. Valjean, disturbed by danger and Cosette's growing independence, plans to leave for England. Marius asks Gillenormand for permission to marry and leaves in anger when the old man insults Cosette. With hope collapsing, he joins his republican friends as the June 1832 uprising begins. Enjolras and the Friends of the ABC build a barricade at the Corinthe tavern. Éponine dies protecting Marius and gives him Cosette's letter. Marius sends a farewell message to Cosette; Valjean intercepts it, learns of their love, and goes armed to the barricade.

Valjean joins the barricade's defenders, saves a man under fire, and asks to execute the captured Javert. Once alone with the inspector, he cuts his bonds and lets him go. The army's final assaults close in. Gavroche is shot while collecting ammunition from fallen soldiers, Mabeuf and the student rebels die, and Enjolras is executed after the position falls. Valjean carries the unconscious Marius away through an opening and descends into the sewers, still determined to save the young man Cosette loves.

Valjean carries the gravely wounded Marius away through the Paris sewers. Thénardier, hiding there, assumes Valjean has murdered the young man and opens a locked gate in exchange for money, secretly tearing cloth from Marius's coat as evidence. Javert waits outside; Valjean asks first to deliver Marius to Gillenormand and then to say farewell to Cosette. Instead of arresting him, Javert lets him go, then kills himself because Valjean's mercy has made his rigid idea of justice impossible to sustain. Marius recovers and marries Cosette. After revealing his criminal past to Marius, Valjean is gradually shut out of their lives and begins to fail. Thénardier's attempt at blackmail proves that Valjean saved Marius and earned Cosette's fortune honestly. Marius and Cosette reach Valjean in time to reconcile; he tells Cosette about Fantine, blesses the couple, and dies peacefully beside Myriel's candlesticks.

Marius recovers under Gillenormand's roof and marries Cosette. Valjean gives her a large fortune but privately tells Marius that he is a former convict. Marius misreads this confession and gradually excludes Valjean from their home, leaving him isolated. Thénardier later tries to sell Marius damaging information, but his evidence instead reveals that Valjean saved Marius from the barricade and that Monsieur Madeleine's money was honestly earned. Marius and Cosette hurry to Valjean and learn the full extent of his protection and sacrifice. Their reconciliation comes as he is dying. Valjean blesses them, gives Cosette the truth about Fantine, and dies peacefully with the bishop's candlesticks nearby. He is buried in an unmarked grave. Javert, unable to reconcile Valjean's mercy with his own absolute faith in the law, has already drowned himself in the Seine; Thénardier departs for America after receiving money from Marius.