Published August 9, 2012
Author's Note: While reading the novel Les Misérables I came across a rather startling line, when Marius' grandfather, Monsieur Gillenormand, suddenly mentions someone named Eponine in reference to another person, Sabinus (page 1353 of the Signet Classics edition). I knew he couldn't have known about the character Eponine, so I tried to research who he was talking about. When I found my answer, it inspired this.
"What's your name?" the traveler asked. He had been watching the two little girls play on the floor of the inn.
Their parents always said to be polite to their clients, so she answered, "Eponine."
"Eponine. That's a pretty name. It's different."
Was it? Eponine had never given much thought to her name. It was just what it was; it was her.
She had been called pretty, but her name hadn't, until now.
One day she asked her parents individually how they had chosen her name. Her father simply said that her mother had found the name in some romance novel; he couldn't be bothered to remember any details.
It was her mother who explained, sounding both tender and stern, the origin of her name. "You were named after a saint. Eponine was the French name of the wife of a man called Julius Sabinus, the Roman governor of Gaul. Always remember that, daughter: you have a noble name. It means 'heroine.'"
As a preteen, it occurred to Eponine that her mother must be quite learned to know so much about a historical name. And if she talked about the origin of her name, it would make her sound smart, too.
As a teenager, Eponine clung to her name the way her father clung to the sign that had hung outside their inn at Montfermeil. She could use a different surname – Thénardier became Jondrette, among other aliases – but she refused to change her first name. It was the only thing about her that stayed the same through the years.
Life could take away her fortune, her happiness, even her family, but it couldn't take away her name. Eponine. Heroine.