The one scene in the entire 45-page section on Waterloo that figures into any character’s story occurs at the very end, when Thénardier accidentally saves Marius’ father’s life. He was in a pile of dead bodies, and Thénardier pulled him out to better get at his stuff. The “body” wakes up. “You saved my life!” “Um, yes, I did!”
Years later, the dying Col. Pontmercy impresses upon his son that he must find and repay the great man who saved his life, leading to some difficult choices when Marius finds out just what kind of person Thénardier is.
This is also why you need to be careful when abridging. Yes, you can pick up the basics from Pontmercy’s letter…but he doesn’t know what Thénardier was really doing before he regained consciousness.
The year I read the book the first time, I was in high school, and one of my teachers was using an abridged version of Les Misérables in another of his classes. I caught a glimpse of a student’s character study of Thénardier. Because their edition left out Waterloo entirely, the later misrepresentation of his actions here was taken at face value. It significantly altered the character by giving him a noble past that he never actually had.
On Tumblr (Re-Reading Les Mis)