Les Misrables is a musical with a complicated storyline.

We start at some kind of prison, where one prisoner, number 24601, is starting his parole. After Jarvert releases him, Valjean is shunned everywhere he goes and never given a chance to prove himself to anyone. When a priest takes him in, the holy man decides to give him silver to become an honest man. Several years later, we see the poverty on the streets of France. Inside a factory, women are working away. When one of them spots another reading a letter, she snatches it and shows it to the foreman. The woman with the letter, Fantine, is thrown out because the letter was asking for more money to support her child. She desperately tries to find a way to send money to her child and ends up in the slums. She sells her locket, her hair, and eventually resorts to prostitution. When she injures a gruff man, she is almost taken to jail by Javert, but Valjean has made his way to become the mayor of the town and sends her to the hospital instead. Javert tells Valjean that he found prisoner 24601, causing Valjean to finally confess that he is the escaped convict. He flees to the hospital, where Fantine takes her final breaths and asks him to take care of her child, which he promises to do. We travel to a bar where we see a little girl, Cosette, who is Fantines daughter. She is in the care of the Thnardiers, a gaudy couple of skilled thieves that rip off all of their customers. Valjean pays all the debts that may have been left over since Fantines death and takes Cosette away. Years later, we see Gavroch, a young street urchin that likes to think that he runs the town and many beggars. Javert has not stopped his search for Valjean since last he saw him. Two young revolutionaries, Enjolras and Marius, are rallying the people to fight. Eponine, the Thnardiers daughter all grown up, is in love with Marius, but when he and Cosette meet, he is instantly enamored. The two fall deeply in love, and all Eponine can do is watch from the sidelines. Act one ends with the revolutionaries promising to begin their revolt the next day.