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Les enfants bien-aimés en mangent beaucoup.

Les enfants bien-aimés en mangent beaucoup.
The beloved children eat a lot of it.
From Lesson 403:Compound adjective agreement·French

Questions & Answers about Les enfants bien-aimés en mangent beaucoup.

Why does aimés have an -s in bien-aimés, but bien doesn't?
In compound adjectives made of an adverb and an adjective, only the adjective part agrees with the noun it modifies. Since bien is an adverb (meaning "well"), it is invariable and never changes. aimés acts as an adjective modifying the masculine plural noun enfants, so it takes an -s.
How would the agreement change if the compound adjective was made of two adjectives instead?
This is the core of your current lesson! If a compound adjective consists of two adjectives (Adjective + Adjective), both parts agree with the noun. For example, if you described the children as deaf-mute (sourd-muet), both halves would take a plural -s: Les enfants sourds-muets.
Why do we need the pronoun en here? Doesn't beaucoup already mean "a lot"?
In English, you can simply say "The children eat a lot." In French, adverbs of quantity like beaucoup cannot stand completely alone if the specific thing being eaten is known from context. You must use the pronoun en to represent "of it" or "of them" to grammatically complete the phrase.
Why is en placed before the verb mangent instead of next to beaucoup?
Even though en logically completes the quantity beaucoup (meaning "a lot of it"), en is an object pronoun. In French, object pronouns must be placed directly before the conjugated verb, which gives us the structure en mangent beaucoup.

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