Fate abruptly brought together, and wedded with its resistless power, these two shattered lives, dissimilar in years, but similar in sorrow. The one, indeed, completed the other. Cosette’s instinct sought a father, as Jean Valjean’s instinct sought a child. To meet was to find one another.  She loved her father…with all her heart, with a frank filial passion which made the goodman a welcome and very pleasant companion for her. Cosette adored him. She was always at his heels. Where Jean Valjean was, was happiness. When Cosette went out with him, she leaned upon his arm, proud, happy, in the fullness of her heart. Jean Valjean felt his heart melt within him with delight. The poor man shuddered, overflowed with an angelic joy…and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being.

Want me to carry you?

Amanda Seyfried as Cosette in various trailers* for Les Misérables (2012)

*all the shots of adult Cosette in the trailers are alternative angles to those seen in the film itself; some (mostly those of her wedding day) did not appear in the completed film at all.

I’ll let you have your lunch.
      What about you? Don’t you eat?

Cosettes Big & Small

Lia Giovanelli & Ellie Bamber (2018) // Isabelle Allen & Amanda Seyfried (2012) // Mimi Newman & Claire Danes (1998)

It was evident that anyone who had known this conscientious, straightfoward, clear, sincere, upright, austere, fierce man, that Javert had suffered from some great inner commotion. [H]e waited…in genuine humility and tranquil resignation, until it should please Monsieur the Mayor to turn towards him, calm, serious, hat in hand, and eyes cast down with an expression between that of a soldier before his officer and a prisoner before his judge. Nothing was left upon this face, simple and impenetrable as granite, except a gloomy sadness. His whole person expressed abasement and firmness, an indescribably courageous dejection.

Les Misérables 1998 | 2012

Louis & Antoinette + matching or color-coordinating outfits

Anne and George Boleyn in The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970)

I love my brother. Aye, I love my brother! Would any of you that have brothers deny that you love them? It is your duty before God. It is also my inclination, my lords, for we were born of the same parents…we played together, ran free in the fields; we rode together; I watched him as he learned to hunt, to shoot, to dance–I watched him in his learning, and I watched him in the closeness of our family. He was my friend, my lords, as much as my brother, and I did love him for that. I loved him as any sister loves her brother.

My eyes welled with tears and I held him even closer. “Remember when…you told Papa Roi that you loved me? Did you really mean it?”

My husband became so silent I could hear the rapid beating of our hearts as they pressed together. Finally he replied, almost incredulously, “Do you doubt it? I love you sincerely, Antoinette. And,” he added, our faces nearly touching, “I respect you even more.”  He stroked my face so tenderly that I nearly bathed his hand with tears.

— from “Becoming Marie Antoinette” by Juliet Grey

16 May 1770 • The Wedding of Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France, and Marie Antoinette of Austria

“Give this ring to the queen; tell her that I part from it with pain and only at the last moment.”