Page "Jean Valjean" Paragraph 6

Valjean was born sometime in 1769 ( most likely before October ) in the small town of Faverolles, Aisne, the son of Jean Valjean and Jeanne Valjean, née Mathieu.

Both parents die when he is still a child ; the father falls from a tree, the mother dies of a milk fever, and his older sister Jeanne raises him.

He becomes a pruner, like his father before him.

Jeanne is married to an unnamed man, who dies in 1794, with whom she has seven children, all born between 1786 and 1793.