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Victor Hugo

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  Victor Marie Hugo was born February 26, 1802 in Besançon, France. He was the son of General Count Léopold-Sigisbert Hugo and Sophie Hugo. His parents were separated not long after his birth, and he lived with his mother after that. He attended the lycée Louis-le Grand in Paris from the age of 13 to 16 and started reading and writing poetry here. At a very young age he showed a remarkable talent for writing- in 1817, he was honored by the French Academy for a poem that he wrote. His first book, Odes et Poésies Diverses (Micellaneous Odes and Verses) was published not long after, in 1822. He followed up with his first novel, Han d'Islande (Han of Iceland) in 1823.

  Also sometime in the 1820's, Victor Hugo married Adèle Foucher, who was the daughter of an officer in the French ministry of war. Bug-Jargal was published in 1824, and Odes et ballades (Odes and Ballads) followed in 1826. In 1827, his play Cromwell was published and in the foreword for this play, he wrote about gaining freedom from the classical restrictions- which started the debate between French Classicism and Romanticism, with Hugo the flag-bearer of the Romantic writers. In 1830, his play Hernani was first published and his fame began to grow. His next book, Notre-Dame De Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) was published in 1831, not only contributed to his increasing popularity, but brought about his election to the French Academy in 1841. Also in the 1830's, Hugo wrote several volumes of lyric poetry, which are said to be inspired by Juliette Drouet, with whom he had an extra-marital relationship with right up until her death in 1833.

  Unfortunately, only two years after his election to the French Academy, his daughter Léopoldine was drowned, along with her husband. For quite some time after this tragedy, Hugo didn't write at all. When he did return to the public eye, it was in politics. As his father had been a Napoleonic general, he had become a Royalist, as a young man and in 1845 he was even made a peer of France by King Louis Philippe. However, by the time of the French Revolution of 1848, Hugo was a Republican and had been elected with the new formation of the Second Republic, to the French Constitutent Assembly and to the French Legislative Assembly. Here Hugo was an avid advocate of social justice. In 1851, after the unsuccessful revolt against President Louis Napoleon (later Emperor Napoleon III) Hugo fled to fled to Brussels and then to the island of Guernsey in Belgium. Hugo's exile lasted for almost 20 years.

  Hugo didn't waste his time in exile- it was during this time that he wrote some of his best work. Napoléon le petit (The Little Napoleon) was published in 1852, followed by one of his best known works of poetry- Les Châtiments (Punishments), published in 1853, and his longest and most famous work- Les Misérables , published in 1862. Les Misérables a novel about the social injustice of 19th-century France, in which the main character, Jean Valjean, is sentenced to prison for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread.

  Finally, in 1870, along with the collapse of the Second Republic and creation of the Third Republic, Hugo returned to France. He soon resumed his role in politics and was elected to the National Assembly. In 1876, he was made a senator. He died May 22, 1885, in Paris, and was given a national funeral that was attended by two million people. His body laid in state under the Arc de Triomphe and he was later borne on a pauper's hearse, in accordance with his wishes, to be buried in the Panthéon, the burial place of many of the more famous people of France.

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