Hugo Victor – Les Misérables (volume 1): Huge work, jewel of the national literary heritage, rich in figures assimilated by our imagination or our language, it is a dense novel but an easy reading, popular but confusing, it is necessary to have read.
Jean Valjean, a former convict sentenced in 1796, found asylum, after being released from prison and having wandered for a long time, at Bishop Myriel’s, Bishop of Digne. He lets himself be tempted by the silver cutlery of the prelate and clears out at dawn. Gendarmes capture him, but the bishop testifies on his behalf and saves him. Upset, Jean Valjean gives in to a last temptation by robbing a little Savoyard then becomes an honest man. In 1817 in Paris, Fantine was seduced by a student then abandoned with her little Cosette, whom she entrusted to a couple of sordid innkeepers of Montfermeil, the Thenardiers. She is forced to prostitute herself … (source of this presentation: ELG)

Edition Electronic Library of Quebec.