Patron-Minette

Patron-Minette
The Patron-Minette gang in their hide-out in the Paris sewer system. Illustration by Pierre-Georges Jeanniot
Created by	Victor Hugo
In-universe information
Nationality	French

Patron-Minette was the name given to a street gang in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables and the musical of the same name. The gang consisted of five criminals: Montparnasse, Claquesous, Babet, and Gueulemer, Brujon. They were well acquainted with the Thénardiers, who recruited them to assist in robbing Jean Valjean.

Hugo explains that the name "Patron-Minette" is an old-fashioned slang expression for the early dawn, "the hour at which their work ended, the dawn being the vanishing moment for phantoms and for the separation of ruffians".^[1]