Cosette Timeline and Summary

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• Cosette spends the first part of her life wandering around with her mother, Fantine. Eventually, the strain of taking care of Cosette while looking for work proves too much for Fantine. So Fantine leaves Cosette with the Thénardiers.
• Big mistake. Cosette spends the next few years working as a slave for Monsieur and Madame Thénardier.
• Life is brutal, until one day a nice man in a yellow jacket (Jean Valjean) shows up and takes Cosette away from the Thénardiers. The guy has a lot of money and a lot of sympathy, so Cosette begins a new and much better life with him.
• After living in a convent with Valjean for several years, Cosette reemerges into the world as a young woman.
• One day, Cosette looks in the mirror and realizes she's pretty. She starts paying more attention to nice clothing and dresses, even though Valjean doesn't want her attracting much attention.
• While walking through the park, Cosette makes eye love with a young man named Marius and falls in love. Months later, Marius finds out where she lives and leaves a love letter for her in her backyard garden.
• Soon afterward, Cosette and Marius meet in person and share their first kiss and then naturally decide they want to be together forever. There's just one snag: Valjean wants to take Cosette to live in England.
• Cosette spends the next part of the book not realizing that Marius has gone to fight in a rebellion. The next thing she knows, Marius is lying wounded and recovering in his grandfather's house. She helps nurse him back to health and they get married.
• Cosette sees less of Jean Valjean after she's married, but she doesn't notice much because she's so in love with Marius. How's that for gratitude?
• At the end of the book, Cosette finds out that Valjean is dying and runs to his bedside to tell him how much she loves him before he dies. Then he dies.