After Tholomyès abandons Fantine, she leaves Cosette with the Thénardiers at their inn in Montfermeil, paying them to care for her child while she goes to work in the city of Montreuil-sur-Mer when Cosette is two years old.
Its successor was the mongrel Cosette, the subject of one of Glatigny's sonnets and also included in the caricature of him by André Gill.
Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier's father, Lucien Vogel, an editor, created the magazine Vu in 1928; her mother, Cosette de Brunhoff, sister of the creator of Babar the Elephant, was a fashion photographer.
The inn, which is forced to close down after Cosette is taken, is called "The Sergeant at Waterloo", because of a peculiar adventure that M. Thénardier had following the famous battle.