Eight years later, a student named Marius Pontmercy leaves his family because of his grandfather, M.Gillenormand’s royalist political views. Brought up to be a royalist and taken away from his father, he discovers his own views after the death of his father, a colonel at Waterloo. His father instructs him to provide help to Thénardier who saved his life, not realizing that he did it by accident, and called himself a sergeant to not be exposed as a robber. He then joins the Les Amis De l’ABC, a group of revolutionaries led by Enjolras planning the June 1832 rebellion with some of the poor such as the street urchin Gavroche, eldest son of the Thénardiers. Marius falls in love with the grown up and charming Cosette. The Thénardiers, after losing their inn, live beside Marius under the name Jondrette in order to beg for money. Éponine, madly in love with Marius, goes to his apartment and proves her literacy by writing “The Cops are Here” on a sheet of paper. After she leaves, he spies through a crack in the wall and realize that they are going to rob Valjean and Cosette for revenge, with Patron Minette, a gang of assassins and robbers. He goes to Javert to report the crime, and is given two pistols. He is caught in a dilemma though, realizing that Thénardier ‘saved’ his father’s life. Wanting them to evacuate but Valjean to be safe, he throws the piece of paper in which Éponine has written ‘the cops are here’. They try to escape, but they are arrested when Javert stops them.
