Artistic unity is complete in the confrontation of Fantine and Mme. Thénardier. The scene is a halfway house on Fantine's road to Montreuil, but she herself is at a halfway house, half Virgin with Child, half unmarried mother, on her road to Calvary. Mme. Thénardier too is at a halfway house, still capable of tenderness in the romantic dreams of her youth and in her love for her children, but under her husband's influence she has begun to lapse into brutality. Fantine's love for Cosette will save the child, but Cosette is also the agent who will bring about Mme. Thénardier's spiritual doom. Provided with a helpless victim, the innkeeper's wife will give way to all her worst instincts, and Cosette will totally corrupt her.
