Victor Hugo

“ Although their concord had only evil as its result, there was contemplation in Madame Thenardier's submission to her husband. That mountain of noise and of flesh moved under the little finger of that frail despot. Viewed on its dwarfed and grotesque side, this was that grand and universal thing, the adoration of mind by matter; for certain ugly features have a cause in the very depths of eternal beauty. There was an unknown quantity about Thenardier; hence the absolute empire of the man over that woman. ”

“ Our readers have possibly preserved some recollection of this Thenardier woman, ever since her first appearance,--tall, blond, red, fat, angular, square, enormous, and agile; she belonged, as we have said, to the race of those colossal wild women, who contort themselves at fairs with paving-stones hanging from their hair. She did everything about the house,--made the beds, did the washing, the cooking, and everything else. Cosette was her only servant; a mouse in the service of an elephant. ”

“ Thenardier was cunning, greedy, slothful, and clever. He did not disdain his servants, which caused his wife to dispense with them. This giantess was jealous. It seemed to her that that thin and yellow little man must be an object coveted by all.
Thenardier, who was, above all, an astute and well-balanced man, was a scamp of a temperate sort. This is the worst species; hypocrisy enters into it.
It is not that Thenardier was not, on occasion, capable of wrath to quite the same degree as his wife ”