Three years later, Valjean has become a wealthy self-made factory owner and main employer in the town of Montreuil, and its popular mayor, under the fake name of 'father' Madeleine. Fearing nobody will employ an unmarried mother, Fantine entrusts daughter Cosette to dodgy inn-keeper veteran Thenardier and his wife in a nearby village and gets a job, but is fired by 'Madeleine' for having lied, sells her hear and teeth and lapses into prostitution. Marius is raised by grandpa to despise his Bonapartiste father, yet comes to his deathbed and inherits the Napoleonic baronage. The mayor is duly worried as his newly appointed chief of police, former Toulon prison-hulk CO Javert, guesses his true identity and learns in Paris that 'the real Jean Valjean' is about to be executed for his petty cash theft from Petit-Gervais in Arras. Feeling guilty on both counts, he tries to save Fabtine but can only send for Cosette for her deathbed while he and Javert, who resigns, race to Arras.
—KGF Vissers