Les Miserables*

Victor Hugo's tender portrait of man's inner-journey amidst social 'happenings' and focused on the brooding/thoughtful ex-convict Jean (Valjean).

A fanfiction adaptation of Les Miserables. 

DISCLAIMER: This work of fanfiction is cast only as an adaptation of admiration and is no intentional presentation of original-work improvement/revision/disparity. 

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Jean worked very hard in the French prison in Toulon, after being convicted of theft. The horrid irony was, Jean grew up poor in the streets and was very hungry one day as an adult-man and saw a loaf of zesty bread in a baker's window in the early dawn and broke the glass and took the bread and tried to run away with it when a walking policeman spotted him and forced him into a 'special corral' of recently-arrested vagrants/criminals composing a special 'governance-roundup' of Toulon-cleanup of the criminal element. He was simply ushered into the Arras jail alongside the rabble and served some years before finally being released on parole.

While en-route to his life-guidance officer in Dijon, Jean decided to stop into a monastery to ask for a night's sleep and presented his parole-papers and was welcomed in by the monk and his wife. While they'd been sleeping, Jean decided to try to steal the monk's rather valuable silver candlesticks and utensils but was spotted by the monk who heard noises in the kitchen. Jean had to hit him on the head to run away with the valuables but was arrested the next morning while walking away and was brought back to the monastery. Shockingly, the monk lied to the police and told them, "This good man was in my employ and I insist he keep the candlesticks en-route to his newfond spiritually-awakened life!" The monk had made Jean promise to him to honestly deliver on this strange promise-vow for spiritual reform.

Jean never forgot that monk near Dijon and had now become a prominent mayor of the small town of Vigo, France. He managed a textile factory employing poor women and managed by a stern governing older female superior who also tended to the mayor's household needs. While serving as the town's private but very well-respected quiet mayor, Jean learned of a visiting Police-Inspector from the town of Toulon named Javert who immediately thought he recognized/remembered Jean's face from his early jail-days in the French prison while he'd served as a quiet/unassuming guardsman. Javert, determined to expose this 'false' mayor of Vigo had no choice but felt quite 'delighted' to stalk Jean and see how to expose him.

When Jean's friend tipped him off regarding Javert's suspicion(s), Jean decided to take his belongings and valuables and run away from Vigo to settle down somewhere in Arles. En-route he picked up an adopted small girl named Cosette, the daughter of a malady-deceased Vigo prostitute named Fantine whom he'd promised to 'rescue' if she should die and he should decide to leave Vigo altogether. Jean, taking Cosette with him after 'bribing' her corrupt/neglectful adoptive parents of cruelty, decided to go to Arles where he became a successful merchant of candlesticks imported from all around Europe.

COSETTE: Father, now that I'm 20, I need to tell you I've fallen in love, with a young street-revolutionary named Marius!

JEAN: Cosette, I forbid you to 'sneak-round' pursuing love-courtship with a dangerous radical now; I live secretly/safely.

COSETTE: Why'd we need to 'hide-out' like common criminals, father, when this Marius 'dares' us to liberty-dream?
JEAN: Cosette, my darling adopted daughter of Vigo, I promised your mother I'd care for you and wish you not into danger(s).

COSETTE: Father...you're so kind...but I love Marius!

JEAN: I must see if this 'Marius' is an immersed radical, my darling; the French Revolution is only fraught with Hellmouth(s).

Of course, as Jean tried to inquire about this radical Marius of the incendiary French Revolution tides in the streets of Arles, the now-promoted police-chief Javert spotted him and knew immediately he'd wrought revenge for having been eluded by the fleeing-Jean from Toulon years ago. When Jean realizes this, he grabs Marius/Cosette and sends them off on a train with almost all of his hidden valuables/treasures, en-route to a 'real' life of love/promise, and then agrees to meet with Javert privately by the port of Arles.

JAVERT: Why'd you help your 'beloved' younglings flee from all this Revolution hellfire and surrender yourself, Jean?
JEAN: I knew you'd want me only, Javert; that's what you care about...I cared only for Marius/Cosette.

JAVERT: You shock me, Jean; you're a man 'hounded' by the sounds of eternal rescue; I confess, I feel like a statue.

JEAN: Do as you wish, Javert; I've no right to render judgment over the free-choice(s) of men with determined fury!

JAVERT: I'm going to let you go, Jean; do keep this secret; you've transformed something auspicious in me, me thinks.

JEAN: Good; I'll reunite (somehow) with my younglings/love-descendants (Marius/Cosette).

JAVERT: May your future be brighter than your past...idealistic Jean!

JEAN: Good.

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)