in the 1862 novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. The character is introduced as a spoiled and pampered child, but appears later in the novel as a ragged Éponine Thénardier ( EP-ə-NEEN tə-NAR-dee-ay, French: [epɔnin tenaʁdje]), also referred to as "Ponine", the "Jondrette girl" and the "young working-man", is a fictional character in the 1862 novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. The character is introduced as a spoiled and pampered child, but appears later in the novel as a ragged and impoverished teenager who speaks in the argot of the Parisian st The name "Éponine" derives from the ancient Gaul Epponina, wife of Julius Sabinus, who rebelled against the Roman empire. She "became the symbol of great patriotism and virtue" by protecting her husband for many years and by choosing to die with him when he was finally captured. The name was quite common among both Republicans and Bonapartists in post-Revolutionary France. Her sister's name "Azelma" also derives from the name of a loyal wife who dies with her husband, the wife of Abdul-aziz, a north African warrior who fights Napoleon. Hugo explains both names as the product of Mme Thénardier's love of "stupid romances", melodramatic novels on exotic themes with exaggeratedly noble characters. Hugo says such names were typical of the period, when there was "an anarchy of baptismal names" as working-class people increasingly gave their children exotic or grandiose names, while the upper classes intentionally adopted lowly-sounding names. The two sisters were originally named Palmyre and Malvina, but in 1860 Hugo changed them in the drafts of the novel. He may have used the name Éponine because of Charles Baudelaire's poem Les Petites Vieilles (Little Old Ladies) from Les Fleurs du Mal. Dedicated to Hugo, the poem describes broken-down former beauties: