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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 four 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".Hugo, Victor. Les Misérables (English language), Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition, 481
Claquesous is described by Hugo as a creature of the night, and a vague underworld dweller at best, a ventriloquist, more often masked than not and shrouded in a thick cloud of mystery. He is possibly a police informer, given his almost miraculous talent for escaping police custody, most notably after Javert captures the gang at Gorbeau house. Javert ponders, "Had Claquesous melted into the shadows like a snow-flake in water? Had there been unavowed connivance of the police agents?"Les misérables, Volume IV, Saint Denis, Book Second - Eponine, Chapter 2. Under the name of Le Cabuc he joins the revolutionaries at the barricade, where he is shot by Enjolras for murdering an innocent citizen. Hugo suggests that he may have been sent to discredit the revolutionaries.
Babet was a jack of all trades, a performer, a doctor, tall and thin with "daylight ... visible through his bones". He had a family (a wife and children) at one point, but lost them "as one loses a pocket handkerchief".
Gueulemer is described as the most physically imposing of the gang members, "a Hercules ... come down in the world". However, he was known to have very little brain.
Anne Ubersfeld notes that they are associated with theatre, all having worked in street theatre as bit-part actors or clowns, creating "a theatricality in the lower depths, a social theatre of crime, a carnival of horror".Anne Ubersfeld, Lire Les Misérables, José Corti, 1985, p. 126. When they are contacted by Thenadier to rob Valjean, they wear theatrical masks. Valjean frees Javert from the revolutionaries, just as Javert's intervention rescued Valjean from the gang's attempt to rob him.
They are also linked to irrationality and superstition. When Éponine intervenes to disrupt their plan to invade Valjean's house, the gang withdraws after convincing themselves that they have witnessed a series of bad omens.
Book 7 of Part 3 (Marius) is called Patron-Minette. Initially, the books had 9 chapters but Victor Hugo allowed the publisher, Albert Lacroix to excise 7 digressive chapters (chapters 3 to 9) and split the first 2 chapters into the 4 chapters Book 7 of Part 3 currently contains. This is the only cut that the author allowed the publisher to make. The chapters are included in some French Editions in the Notes and Variants section at the end of the book. The English translators have left the excised chapters untranslated.
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