99 Fun Facts About Les Misérables

Who wrote the novel Les Misérables?

Victor Hugo completed Les Misérables during his exile on Guernsey; Flaubert disliked the finished book, finding 'neither truth nor greatness' in it.

In which city did Les Misérables first go on sale in 1862?

Brussels came first because Hugo, living in exile on Guernsey for opposing Napoleon III, had placed the novel with the Belgian publisher Albert Lacroix.

What did Jean Valjean steal, earning him five years in prison that grew to nineteen?

A loaf of bread was all he took, to feed his widowed sister's seven starving children; four failed escape attempts stretched his sentence to nineteen years.

What is Valjean's prisoner number in the musical?

24601 is what Javert calls him all through the show; the prison prologue where it is first heard was added for London in 1985, as the French original opened at the factory.

Which cleric shelters Valjean and then lies to the police, saying the stolen silver was a gift?

The Bishop of Digne, Monseigneur Myriel, had already handed his palace to the town hospital and moved into its small building, which is where he takes Valjean in.

What does Monseigneur Myriel give Valjean in addition to the silverware he had stolen?

Two silver candlesticks are added to the gift; Myriel tells Valjean he has bought his soul for God and that the silver should make him an honest man.

Under what alias does Valjean become a factory owner and mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer?

Monsieur Madeleine is the name under which he grows rich making black glass beads and becomes mayor; the other three names are aliases he uses later in the novel.

Valjean was loosely based on which ex-convict who founded France's first private detective agency?

Eugène François Vidocq was a convict who turned policeman and ran the Sûreté, so Hugo drew on him twice: for the hunted Valjean and for his pursuer, Inspector Javert.

In the novel Les Misérables, what does Fantine sell besides her hair to pay the Thénardiers?

Her two front teeth are sold to a travelling dentist for two gold napoleons, after her hair fetched ten francs; she then turns to prostitution.

The Thénardiers, who abuse young Cosette, run an inn in which village?

Montfermeil, east of Paris, is where the Thénardiers keep their inn; Émile Bayard's drawing of Cosette sweeping there became the musical's emblem.

Which gift does Valjean buy young Cosette on the Christmas Eve he finds her?

A doll from the stall opposite the inn: Cosette calls it 'the lady' and had only dared steal a glance at it, and once it is hers she names it Catherine.

Where do Valjean and Cosette hide from Javert for several years in Paris?

A convent, the Petit-Picpus, takes them in; its gardener is Fauchelevent, the man Valjean once rescued from under a cart, and Valjean works there as a gardener too.

Street urchin Gavroche is secretly the eldest son of which couple?

The Thénardier innkeepers are his parents, though they show him no affection, so he fends for himself on the streets of Paris; Éponine and Azelma are his sisters.

Les Misérables culminates in which real Paris uprising?

The June Rebellion of 1832 broke out at the funeral of General Lamarque, who had died of cholera, and was crushed at the barricades within two days.

How does Valjean escape from the fallen barricade carrying the wounded Marius?

Through the sewers of Paris he carries the unconscious Marius; at the locked outlet grate he runs into Thénardier, who lets him out in exchange for his money.

How does Javert die?

He drowns himself in the Seine after leaving a note of suggestions for the prefect on prison conditions, unable to reconcile the law with the mercy Valjean has shown him.

Hugo devotes 19 chapters of Volume II to which battle, finishing the book at its battlefield?

Waterloo fills 19 chapters; in the digression's final pages Thénardier, looting corpses, accidentally saves Colonel Pontmercy, a meeting that drives much of the later plot.

Hugo supposedly asked his publisher how Les Misérables was selling with a message containing only what?

A question mark was the whole message in the often-told, probably apocryphal tale, and the publisher is said to have replied with a single exclamation mark.

Which two Frenchmen conceived and wrote the original Les Misérables musical?

Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg released it first as a French concept album in 1980; the Paris staging that followed closed within months, and only the English reworking made it a worldwide hit.

Watching which musical in London gave the show's librettist the idea for Les Misérables?

Oliver! was the show: when the Artful Dodger walked on, the lyricist pictured Hugo's street urchin Gavroche, and then saw the rest of the novel's characters singing on a stage.

The original French Les Misérables of 1980 was staged in what kind of Paris venue?

A sports arena, the Palais des Sports, housed Robert Hossein's staging in 1980; it closed within months, and the show might have ended there had its album not reached a London producer.

Which producer took on the English-language Les Misérables after hearing its French concept album in 1983?

Cameron Mackintosh developed it with the Royal Shakespeare Company, whose team expanded and reordered the French original and added a prologue on Valjean's past.

Who wrote the English lyrics of Les Misérables, refusing to call them a 'translation'?

Herbert Kretzmer, a South African-born journalist, got the job because the producer admired the English lyrics he had written for Charles Aznavour, including the hit 'She'.

The English-language Les Misérables opened in October 1985 at which London venue, then home of the RSC?

The Barbican Centre, the RSC's London base, hosted the October 1985 opening; the show moved to the Palace Theatre that December and in 2004 to the smaller Queen's, renamed the Sondheim in 2019.

Which two RSC directors shaped and directed the English version of Les Misérables?

Trevor Nunn and John Caird had already turned a vast novel into theatre with the RSC's eight-and-a-half-hour Nicholas Nickleby in 1980, and this show won them the 1987 Tony for direction.

Who originated the role of Jean Valjean in London and on Broadway?

Colm Wilkinson also sang the Phantom at the 1985 Sydmonton preview of that show, and he returns in the 2012 film in a cameo as the churchman whose mercy changes Valjean.

Which Broadway star played Fantine in the original 1985 London cast?

Patti LuPone was already in London for The Cradle Will Rock at the Old Vic and stayed on to play Fantine; the two parts together won her the 1985 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

Which play is the only West End show to have run longer than Les Misérables?

The Mousetrap, Agatha Christie's whodunnit, opened in 1952 and paused only when the pandemic shut theatres from March 2020 to May 2021; Les Misérables is the West End's longest-running musical.

When Les Misérables left Broadway in 2003, which musical had run longer?

Cats held the record with 7,485 performances when Les Misérables closed after 6,680; the closing had been set for March 2003, but a rush for tickets pushed it back to May.

Frances Ruffelle won a 1987 Tony Award as which Les Misérables character, who sings 'On My Own'?

Éponine won Ruffelle the Tony for Best Featured Actress, one of eight the show took from twelve nominations, after she had moved with the part from the London original to Broadway.

Which solo does Fantine sing after she is thrown out of the factory?

I Dreamed a Dream follows her sacking on stage, but the 2012 film moved it later, after she has sold her hair and gone on the streets.

Whose 2009 Britain's Got Talent audition, singing a Les Misérables song, went viral worldwide?

Susan Boyle, an unknown from a West Lothian village, sang Fantine's big solo, and within nine days clips of the audition had been watched more than 100 million times online.

Who directed the 2012 film of the musical?

Tom Hooper came to it fresh from his Oscar win for The King's Speech; his film had its world premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in December 2012.

Who plays Jean Valjean in the 2012 film Les Misérables?

Hugh Jackman slimmed down and went without water for 36 hours to look gaunt in the opening prison scenes, and earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for the role.

Who plays Inspector Javert in the 2012 film Les Misérables?

Russell Crowe had doubts about the character and only committed after talking them through with the director in London, on his way to a friend's wedding.

Which Les Misérables cast member won an Oscar for the 2012 film?

Anne Hathaway won Best Supporting Actress as Fantine, after having her own hair cut off on camera and losing 25 pounds for the role.

Which new song was written for the 2012 film Les Misérables and sung by Valjean after he collects Cosette?

Suddenly was written because the director felt the stage show skipped the moment Valjean first feels a father's love; it earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.

Who plays Éponine in the 2012 film Les Misérables?

Samantha Barks had sung the part in the West End and at the 25th-anniversary concert, and heard she had the film role when the producer announced it on stage at a curtain call of another show.

Roughly how much did the 2012 film gross worldwide, against a $61M budget?

$443 million or so worldwide, against a $61 million budget; its $18 million Christmas Day opening was the biggest first day for a musical film, beating High School Musical 3.

Who plays the student leader Enjolras in the 2012 film Les Misérables, having auditioned for Marius?

Aaron Tveit, a Broadway leading man from Next to Normal and Catch Me If You Can, had never appeared in the stage musical before being cast as Enjolras in the film.

The 1998 non-musical film version starred which actor as Valjean, opposite Geoffrey Rush's Javert?

Liam Neeson played Valjean for director Bille August in a version that stops well short of the novel's ending, so its hero walks away a free man instead of dying as he does in the book.

The 1935 Hollywood version, nominated for Best Picture, starred which pair as Valjean and Javert?

Fredric March and Charles Laughton starred for Twentieth Century Pictures just before it merged with Fox; the script doubles Valjean's first sentence to ten years in the galleys.

Who adapted Les Misérables as a 2018 BBC series starring Dominic West and Lily Collins?

Andrew Davies, who had adapted Pride and Prejudice and War & Peace for the BBC, wrote six episodes with no songs at all, going back to Hugo's novel rather than the musical.

Charles E. Wilbour's first English translation of Les Misérables appeared within months in which American city?

New York publisher Carleton had Wilbour's translation on sale in June 1862, months before the first British one; a Richmond reprint in 1863 said in its preface that it had cut Hugo's antislavery lines.

What name did Hugo first give the hero of Les Misérables in his early drafts?

Jean Tréjean was the hero's name in the first manuscript, begun in 1845 as Les Misères; Hugo renamed him Valjean only when he took the book up again in exile in 1860.

Where does the street urchin Gavroche sleep in the novel Les Misérables?

Inside an elephant statue he makes his home: the crumbling plaster Elephant of the Bastille, a real abandoned monument, where he also shelters two small boys who are secretly his brothers.

In French, the student club's name 'ABC' is a pun on which word?

The pun is 'Abaissés (the abased)': said aloud, the letters A-B-C sound like abaissé, so the Friends of the ABC are friends of the downtrodden, the students who build the barricade with Marius.

How many volumes make up the novel, which is subdivided into 48 books and 365 chapters?

Five volumes, titled Fantine, Cosette, Marius, Saint-Denis and Jean Valjean, make up the novel; their chapters are short, commonly only a few pages each.

Hugo borrowed plot elements for Les Misérables from which serialized French novel of 1842–43?

Les Mystères de Paris, Eugène Sue's serial about the city's underworld, ran in the Journal des Débats; like Hugo's book, it sees the capital through the eyes of its most downtrodden.

How did the 2012 film of Les Misérables break with Hollywood practice in recording its actors' songs?

Sung live on set, each take was guided by a pianist playing into the actors' earpieces, and the orchestra was added afterwards.

What color is the passport that brands Jean Valjean an ex-convict at every inn in Les Misérables?

Yellow marked the papers of a paroled convict, and Valjean's also ordered him to report to the town of Pontarlier and stay there under strict limits.

Valjean first meets young Cosette in Les Misérables alone in the woods as she struggles to carry what?

A pail of water was her errand for the Thénardiers, and Valjean walks her back to the inn, where he sees how they treat her beside their own daughters.

Which pop star sang Marius at the 25th-anniversary Les Misérables concert after playing Gavroche on Broadway?

Nick Jonas shared the O2 Arena stage with Alfie Boe as Valjean and comedian Matt Lucas as Thénardier.

Often mistaken for the French Revolution, the uprising in Les Misérables is actually against which ruler?

Louis-Philippe had taken the throne only two years earlier, in the July Revolution of 1830, and he rode through the streets during the fighting to show he remained in charge.

The pistol-waving boy in which famous French painting may have inspired Gavroche in Les Misérables?

Liberty Leading the People shows the July Revolution of 1830, two years before the uprising in the novel, with the boy striding beside a woman who carries the tricolor.

To leave his Paris hiding place unseen in Les Misérables, Valjean has himself carried out inside what?

A coffin carries Valjean all the way to the cemetery, where he loses consciousness as the fourth shovelful of earth lands on the lid.

Victor Hugo was living in exile on which island under the British Crown when Les Misérables was published?

Guernsey was Hugo's home from 1855, and he turned down an 1859 amnesty for political exiles rather than soften his attacks on Napoleon III.

On which night of the year does Valjean arrive to rescue Cosette from the Thénardiers in Les Misérables?

Christmas Eve ends with a gift: Valjean slips out and returns with an expensive new doll for Cosette, to the envy of the Thénardier daughters.

The longtime London home of Les Misérables was renamed in 2019 in honor of which American composer?

Stephen Sondheim gave his name to the former Queen's Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, which reopened after a 20-week refurbishment with a new staging of the show.

Inspector Javert, the lawman of Les Misérables, was born in which unlikely place to a fortune-telling mother?

In a prison, where his father was serving in the galleys; feeling shut out of respectable society from birth, Javert chose to become one of its guards.

Gavroche is shot dead in Les Misérables after slipping outside the barricade to gather what from fallen soldiers?

Cartridges were running out behind the barricade, and Gavroche was singing as he collected them from the bodies of dead National Guardsmen when he was hit.

At the end of Les Misérables, Thénardier takes Marius's money to America and sets himself up in which trade?

Slave trading is Hugo's bitter last word on the villain, who sails with his surviving daughter on money Marius paid to make him leave France.

Fresh from Monseigneur Myriel's mercy in Les Misérables, what does Valjean steal from the boy Petit Gervais?

A 40-sou coin that the boy drops ends up under Valjean's foot; he keeps it out of habit, then panics and searches for the child in remorse.

Which old man does Valjean free from under a fallen cart in Les Misérables, a feat that Javert witnesses?

Fauchelevent repays the favor years later as a gardener, sheltering Valjean and Cosette behind the walls where he works and passing Valjean off as his brother.

Which vagabond, caught stealing apples in Les Misérables, is put on trial after being mistaken for Valjean?

Champmathieu walks free only because the real Valjean, by then a respected mayor, spends a night wrestling with himself and then goes to the trial to give himself away.

Which royalist grandfather raises Marius in Les Misérables and keeps him from his father, an officer of Napoleon?

Gillenormand threatened to disinherit the boy if his father came near, so the old soldier hid behind a pillar just to watch his son at Mass.

The Paris funeral of which popular general, a victim of cholera, sets off the uprising in Les Misérables?

Lamarque was a hero of Napoleon's wars who had become a critic of the monarchy in parliament, so republicans chose his public funeral as the moment to launch their revolt.

In which Paris park does Marius fall for Cosette in Les Misérables after seeing her on walks with Valjean?

Luxembourg Garden is where he passed her for months without interest, until he came back after a six-month break and found she had grown into a young lady.

In which famous Paris cemetery is Jean Valjean laid to rest beneath a blank stone at the end of Les Misérables?

Père Lachaise holds Valjean under a slab left bare at his own request, on which an unknown hand later pencils a four-line verse.

In which Mediterranean port does Jean Valjean serve his nineteen years of hard labor in Les Misérables?

Toulon held one of France's great convict prisons, and Hugo toured it in 1839 and took extensive notes, six years before he began writing the book.

Before his arrest in Les Misérables, Valjean supports his widowed sister and her seven children in which trade?

Tree pruner was his living in the small town where he had been orphaned as a child, until a winter of scarce resources drove him to steal food for the family.

By which affectionate nickname do the townspeople know the saintly Monseigneur Myriel in Les Misérables?

Bienvenu means welcome, and Hugo took it from a real churchman of the period, Bienvenu de Miollis, who served as his model for the character.

Cosette is only a pet name in Les Misérables; which formal first name did Fantine give her daughter at birth?

Euphrasie comes from the Greek for good cheer, and the novel mentions it only briefly before her mother's nickname, which means little thing, takes over for good.

Which wealthy Paris student in Les Misérables abandons Fantine when their daughter Cosette is two years old?

Tholomyès, a self-centered student from Toulouse, walks out together with three friends who drop their own girlfriends too, treating the affairs as youthful amusements.

Which gang of four bandits helps Thénardier ambush Jean Valjean at the Gorbeau House in Les Misérables?

Patron-Minette was old slang for the first light of dawn, the hour when the gang's night work ended and its members melted away.

Under which false surname do the bankrupt Thénardiers live next door to Marius in Paris in Les Misérables?

Jondrette is the name they are using when Marius, peering through a crack in the wall, watches the family prepare to fleece a visiting philanthropist.

Which hard-drinking skeptic among the student rebels of Les Misérables asks to die at Enjolras's side?

Grantaire had always scoffed at the cause, but he declares himself a republican at the last and the two men fall hand in hand in the same volley.

Believing he has falsely denounced the mayor in Les Misérables, what does Javert ask for as punishment?

His own dismissal is the only penalty Javert thinks fits, and he argues that simply resigning would be too honorable an exit for a man who had wronged a magistrate.

Which nun in Les Misérables, known for never having told a lie, lies to Javert to protect Jean Valjean?

Sister Simplice, one of the hospital nuns nursing Fantine, tells the inspector that there is nobody in the room but her.

Which later hit musical by the writers of Les Misérables retells the opera Madame Butterfly?

Miss Saigon moved the opera's story to the final days of the Vietnam War, swapping the geisha and the naval lieutenant for a young bar girl and a US Marine.

Which first-act finale of the musical Les Misérables layers nearly every main character's melody in counterpoint?

One Day More borrows tunes heard earlier in the act and has each character sing a different one at the same time before the cast unites for the last chorus.

Which comic number in the musical Les Misérables introduces the Thénardiers and the crooked way they run their inn?

Master of the House is one of the few songs in the show played for laughs, and the 1980 French original gave it a title meaning The Innkeeper's Motto.

Which solo does Jean Valjean sing at the barricade in the musical Les Misérables as a prayer for Marius's safety?

Bring Him Home did not exist in the 1980 French original; it was written later, specifically for the tenor who first played Valjean in English.

Seventeen Valjeans from around the world each sang a line of which Les Misérables song at a 1995 concert?

Do You Hear the People Sing? has since become a real protest anthem, sung on the streets of Hong Kong and then removed from music platforms in mainland China.

Which London venue staged the star-studded tenth-anniversary concert of the musical Les Misérables?

Royal Albert Hall hosted the concert in October 1995, and the filmed recording was on sale on VHS in Britain within a month.

Which singer won a Tony Award as Éponine after creating the role in the original London cast of Les Misérables?

Frances Ruffelle left Starlight Express to join the cast, later sang for the United Kingdom at Eurovision, and turns up in the 2012 film in a cameo.

Which French illustrator drew the picture of young Cosette that became the logo of the musical Les Misérables?

Émile Bayard also illustrated, with Alphonse de Neuville, Jules Verne's Around the Moon, the sequel to From the Earth to the Moon.

Which English poet was the original librettist of the London version of Les Misérables before being replaced?

James Fenton was credited with shaping the adaptation's structure, and his contract entitles him to royalties for the additional material he is credited with.

Which Victor Hugo novel, set in the 1480s, came out three decades before Les Misérables?

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame was the title an 1833 English translation gave a book that Hugo had simply named after the cathedral, Notre-Dame de Paris.

Which actor played Marius opposite Amanda Seyfried's Cosette in the 2012 film Les Misérables?

Eddie Redmayne suggested to the director that Marius's lament for his dead friends should begin unaccompanied, to draw out the character's guilt and pain.

Sacha Baron Cohen gave up a role in which Quentin Tarantino film to play Thénardier in the 2012 Les Misérables?

Django Unchained ended up opening in American cinemas on the very same day as the musical, which took first place at the box office on its opening day.

Usually left untranslated in English, the title Les Misérables has sometimes been rendered as which of these?

The Wretched is one of at least seven English titles that have been tried, The Victims and The Dispossessed among them, but none has displaced the French.

Gavroche's makeshift home in Les Misérables stands on the site of which demolished Paris fortress?

The Bastille site was chosen by Napoleon for a monumental fountain, but the project was abandoned unfinished, leaving a hollow shell that Gavroche shares with other street children.

Fantine is fired from the factory in Les Misérables when a supervisor discovers which secret about her?

She is an unwed mother, as a town gossip confirms by travelling to see the child, and the workroom's overseer then dismisses her without the mayor's knowledge.

Which institution placed Les Misérables on its official list of forbidden books, beside another Victor Hugo novel?

The Catholic Church kept its Index of forbidden books until 1966, and Voltaire, Rousseau, Descartes and Galileo all appeared on it too.

Which younger Thénardier daughter survives Les Misérables and sails for America with her father?

Azelma is the one her father orders to punch out a window pane before a rich visitor arrives, cutting her hand just as he had hoped.

Which 22-year-old adapted, directed and starred as Valjean in a seven-part American radio serial of Les Misérables?

Orson Welles made the 1937 series as his first job as a writer-director for radio, and it marked the radio debut of his Mercury Theatre company.

Recaptured in Les Misérables, Jean Valjean escapes by seeming to drown after saving a sailor aboard which ship?

The Orion rescue was lifted almost word for word from a real letter in which an acquaintance described just such an incident to Hugo.

In which Paris monument was Les Misérables author Victor Hugo buried after a funeral procession of two million?

The Panthéon crypt he lies in is shared with two other giants of French fiction, Alexandre Dumas and Émile Zola.