page_title: Gavroche
section_title: In the novel
hierarchical_section_title: Gavroche / In the novel
caption_attribution_description: English: A pen and ink drawing by Victor Hugo, entitled: "Gavroche à 11 ans" ("Gavroche at 11 years old")
context_page_description: Gavroche is a fictional character in the 1862 novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. He is a boy who lives on the streets of Paris. His name has become a synonym for an urchin or street child. Gavroche plays a short yet significant role in the many adaptations of Les Misérables, sharing the populist ideology of the Friends of the ABC and joining the revolutionaries in the June 1832 rebellion. He figures in the 3rd, 4th and 5th parts of the novel.
context_section_description: Gavroche is the eldest son of Monsieur and Madame Thénardier. He has two older sisters, Éponine and Azelma, and two unnamed younger brothers. Hugo never provides his given name but says Gavroche has chosen his own name. His parents show him no affection and send him to live in the street, where he is better off than at home.
   The Thénardiers sell (or lend) their two youngest sons to a woman named Magnon. 
  Due to a freak accident, the two boys are separated from Magnon without identification, and encounter Gavroche purely by chance. They are unaware of their identities, but Gavroche invites them to live with him and takes care of them. They reside in the hollow cavity of a giant elephant statue, the Elephant of the Bastille conceived by Napoleon as a fountain, but abandoned unfinished. This was no imaginary construction; located at the Place de la Bastille, it had been designed by Jean-Antoine Alavoine. The two boys soon leave him the next morning. They are last seen at the Luxembourg Garden retrieving and eating discarded bread from a fountain. It is unknown what has happened to the two after that.
  At dawn, Gavroche helps his father, Patron-Minette and Brujon escape from prison due to the request of Montparnasse.
  During the student uprising of June 5–6, 1832, Gavroche joins the revolutionaries at the barricade. After an exchange of gunfire with the National Guards, Gavroche overhears Enjolras remark that they are running out of cartridges. He decides he can help. He goes through an opening in the barricade and collects the cartridges from the dead bodies of the National Guard. In the process of collecting the cartridges and singing a song, he is shot and killed.
caption: "Gavroche a 11 ans" (Gavroche aged 11), Pen and ink drawing by Victor Hugo
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