Cosette

Cosette
Les Misérables character
Illustration of Cosette in the Thénardiers' inn at Montfermeil depicted by Émile Bayard (1837-1891).
Created by	Victor Hugo
Information
Full name	Euphrasie
Nickname(s)	Cosette
Aliases	Ursule or Ursula the Lark Mademoiselle Lanoire
Gender	Female
Family	Fantine (mother) Félix Tholomyès (biological father) Jean Valjean (surrogate father; no legal or blood relation)
Significant other(s)	Marius Pontmercy
Relatives	Monsieur Gillenormand (grandfather-in-law) Georges Pontmercy (father-in-law)
Religion	Roman Catholic
Nationality	French
Born	1815

Ursule or Ursula

the Lark

Fantine (mother)

Félix Tholomyès (biological father)

Monsieur Gillenormand (grandfather-in-law)

Cosette is a fictional character in the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo and in the many adaptations of the story for stage, film, and television. Her birth name, Euphrasie, is only mentioned briefly. As an orphaned child of an unmarried mother deserted by her father, Hugo never gives her a surname. In the course of the novel, she is mistakenly identified as Ursule, Lark, or Mademoiselle Lanoire.

She is the daughter of Fantine, who leaves her to be looked after by the Thénardiers, who exploit and victimise her. Rescued by Jean Valjean, who raises Cosette as if she were his own, she grows up in a convent school. She falls in love with Marius Pontmercy, a young lawyer. Valjean's struggle to protect her while disguising his past drives much of the plot until he recognizes "that this child had a right to know life before renouncing it"— and must yield to her romantic attachment to Marius.

Euphrasie, nicknamed Cosette by her mother, illegitimate daughter of Fantine and Félix Tholomyès, a rich student, is born in Paris circa 1815. Tholomyès abandons Fantine, who leaves three-year-old Cosette with the Thénardiers at their inn in Montfermeil, paying them to care for her child while she works in the city of Montreuil-sur-Mer. Unbeknownst to Fantine, the Thénardiers abuse Cosette while she is under their care. They beat and starve her and force her to perform heavy labor in the inn. Under the Thénardiers' care she is described as "thin and pale," wears rags for clothing, and has chilblains on her hands as well as bruised and reddened skin. She is forced to go barefoot in winter. The narrator also says that "fear was spread all over her."