Les Miserables begins by telling of the inherent goodness of one man, known throughout the book as the Bishop of D. He, for example, selflessly gave his main living quarters to the hospital because they needed more room and began living in the guest house. He would turn away no one who needed help and did not keep anything for himself save a set of silver dishes. He did not like to eat off of anything but silver, that was his one vanity.
The main character, Jean Valjean, is introduced a little later in the book. After the underlying characters are introduced. The characters who will forever change his life. One line I'll never forget from the book was "The galley makes the galley slave. He went to the galley an ignorant man, he emmerged a hardened criminal." Jean Valjean was originally arrested for stealing a loaf of bread to feed himself and his starving family during a shortage of work. He ended up spending almost 20 years at the galley because he tried to escape 4 times and was given an additional sentence for each escape attempt.
When Jean Valjean came to his first town after being released they treated him worse than an animal. The Inn would not take him in. He said he would sleep in the stables but they said there was no room. He saw food cooking on the fire but they claimed they were out of food. He was a criminal, they would have nothing to do with him. Jean Valjean had been traveling some distance and was tired so he lay down to rest on a parkbench. It was then that a kindly stranger told him there was a place he could go. The Bishop was eating his supper when Jean Valjean knocked at the door. It was not locked and the Bishop bid him enter.
Jean Valjean immediately showed the bishop his yellow passport expecting to be turned away once again. The Bishop was not like everyone else, however. He invited Jean Valjean to eat at his table then sleep in his guest room. He treated him a way Jean Valjean had never been treated before, as a human being. He thought perhaps the Bishop did not understand what the yellow passport meant. "I'm a criminal!!" he bellowed. "I could be a murderer who would murder you in your sleep and yet you take me in?" The Bishop told him that he knew God was watching over him. Jean Valjean ate and slept but the Bishops lesson of kindness would take a little longer to sink in. While the Bishop of D was still asleep in his bed, Jean Valjean found and stole his precious silver.
When the Bishop of D realized that his silver was gone he knew that he shouldn't have kept even that for himself. That someone else, someone like Jean Valjean needed it more than he did. So when the guards caught Jean Valjean and brought him back to the Bishop, the Bishop told them that the silver had been a gift to Jean Valjean but that he had forgotten to take the candlesticks which were also given to him. Jean Valjean thought the Bishop a fool at first. Then he came upon a young boy playing with a piece of change, when the boy dropped it and it rolled to Jean Valjeans feet, he stepped on it and refused to give it back. He lied and told the boy that he didn't see it and then scared him away. It was only after he saw the boy run away crying that the lesson given to him by the kindly Bishop finally sunk in. Then and there he fell to his knees and wept. From that day on he was a different man.
The second character you meet is Fantine. A poor young girl who was foolish enough to believe that the young rich man she loved was also in love with her and that he would marry her. She ended up carrying his child alone as he returned to his wealthy family and left her a woman who, in those days, was considered damaged goods. Once she realized that her lover would not return, Fantine decided to go to the town which she grew up in to find an honest job to support her and her daughter, whom she named Cossette. Along the way Fantine realizes that if she brings Cossette everyone will ask where her father is; So coming to an inn along the way, she sees the owner (a woman) playing with her own two daughers and gets an idea. She asks the woman if she would mind caring for her daughter if she sends money for food and clothing. This will prove to be the biggest lapse of judgement that Fantine makes. Assuming Cossette is in good hands Fantine heads to town.
