This chapter is a tough one.
As the young women wait for the men to return with their surprise they have more of the same kind of chatter they’ve been having. Fantine is once again singled out for her naivety / simplicity and the reader can’t help but draw an even firmer conclusion that she is not the same as the other three.
A sealed envelope from the young men is delivered and Favourite (being the one who can read) reads it for the group. The young men have left. Not temporarily, but for good. They have returned to their homes to begin their lives and families, leaving these young women on their own. The relationships are over and there will be no future. The others call it a good joke and land on it being something obviously born from the mind of Tholomyès. We get the idea that the young women are all ok with this outcome, with the exception of Fantine, but she does not let on to this while with her companions.
At the end of the chapter we see Fantine weeping on her bed. Why? Just because Tholomyès has left her? No, there’s more - it seems that she had fully given herself to him, and is now carrying his child. For Fantine the hope of a future and a family with this young man with deep pockets and a promising future is shattered in an instant. Now it’s just her, alone in the world, with a child on the way. How will she survive? How will she avoid being cast further and deeper into poverty? The cost feels extremely high for Fantine and non-existent for Tholomyès. This is often the way things go in our unjust world, and now we see parallels of a sort to the story of Valjean.
Though Valjean was a criminal, we have talked already about how unjust his punishment was and the ongoing stain that followed him. He was destroyed as a man. Here we see the innocent and gentle Fantine crushed by the same system - an impoverished orphan left alone to raise the child in her womb. Tholomyès (as far as we know at this time) bears no responsibility and moves on with his life as if it never happened. The rich protected from the consequences of their actions while the poor suffer for things out of their control. This is not justice. This is tragedy.