Victor hugo biography timeline book

In , he broke with the conservatives when he gave a noted speech calling for the end of misery and poverty. Other speeches called for universal suffrage and free education for all children. Hugo's advocacy to abolish the death penalty was renowned internationally. When Louis Napoleon Napoleon III seized complete power in , establishing an anti-parliamentary constitution, Hugo openly declared him a traitor to France.

He moved to Brussels , then Jersey , from which he was expelled for supporting L'Homme , a local newspaper that had published a letter to Queen Victoria by a French republican deemed treasonous. He finally settled with his family at Hauteville House in Saint Peter Port , Guernsey , where he would live in exile from October until The pamphlets were banned in France but nonetheless had a strong impact there.

Contact with a wicked man is sometimes enough to rot a good deed and cause something bad to come out of it. Like most of his contemporaries, Hugo justified colonialism in terms of a civilizing mission and putting an end to the slave trade on the Barbary coast. Take it" and "in the nineteenth century the white man made a man out of the black, in the twentieth century Europe will make a world out of Africa".

This might partly explain why, in spite of his deep interest and involvement in political matters, he remained silent on the Algerian issue. It is the duty of this republic to set such a bad example no longer The United States must renounce slavery, or they must renounce liberty. Only one slave on Earth is enough to dishonour the freedom of all men.

So the abolition of slavery is, at this hour, the supreme goal of the thinkers. As a novelist, diarist, and member of Parliament, Victor Hugo fought a lifelong battle for the abolition of the death penalty. The Last Day of a Condemned Man published in analyses the pangs of a man awaiting execution; several entries in Things Seen Choses vues , the diary he kept between and , convey his firm condemnation of what he regarded as a barbaric sentence; [ 37 ] on 15 September , seven months after the Revolution of , he delivered a speech before the Assembly and concluded, "You have overthrown the throne.

Now overthrow the scaffold. Although Napoleon III granted an amnesty to all political exiles in , Hugo declined, as it meant he would have to curtail his criticisms of the government. It was only after Napoleon III fell from power and the Third Republic was proclaimed that Hugo finally returned to his homeland in , where he was promptly elected to the National Assembly and the Senate.

He was in Paris during the siege by the Prussian Army in , famously eating animals given to him by the Paris Zoo. As the siege continued, and food became ever more scarce, he wrote in his diary that he was reduced to "eating the unknown". During the Paris Commune —the revolutionary government that took power on 18 March and was toppled on 28 May—Victor Hugo was harshly critical of the atrocities committed on both sides.

On 9 April, he wrote in his diary, "In short, this Commune is as idiotic as the National Assembly is ferocious. From both sides, folly. Hang him! Death to the scoundrel! Hugo, who said "A war between Europeans is a civil war," [ 45 ] was a strong advocate for the creation of the United States of Europe. He expounded his views on the subject in a speech he delivered during the International Peace Congress which took place in Paris in However, in Pauvert 's published archives, he states strongly that "any work of art has two authors: the people who confusingly feel something, a creator who translates these feelings, and the people again who consecrate his vision of that feeling.

When one of the authors dies, the rights should totally be granted back to the other, the people. Hugo's religious views changed radically over the course of his life. In his youth and under the influence of his mother, he identified as a Catholic and professed respect for Church hierarchy and authority. From there he became a non-practising Catholic and increasingly expressed anti-Catholic and anti-clerical views.

A census-taker asked Hugo in if he was a Catholic, and he replied, "No. A Freethinker. After , Hugo never lost his antipathy towards the Catholic Church. He felt the Church was indifferent to the plight of the working class under the oppression of the monarchy. Perhaps he also was upset by the frequency with which his work appeared on the Church's list of banned books.

In his will, he made the same stipulation about his own death and funeral. Yet he believed in life after death and prayed every single morning and night, convinced as he wrote in The Man Who Laughs that "Thanksgiving has wings and flies to its right destination. Your prayer knows its way better than you do. Hugo's rationalism can be found in poems such as Torquemada , about religious fanaticism , The Pope , anti-clerical , Religions and Religion , denying the usefulness of churches and, published posthumously, The End of Satan and God and respectively, in which he represents Christianity as a griffin and rationalism as an angel.

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame also garnered attention due to its portrayal of the abuse of power by the church, even getting listed as one of the "forbidden books" by it. In fact, earlier adaptations had to change the villain, Claude Frollo from being a priest to avoid backlash. Although Hugo's many talents did not include exceptional musical ability, he nevertheless had a great impact on the music world through the inspiration that his works provided for composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Hugo himself particularly enjoyed the music of Gluck , Mozart , Weber and Meyerbeer. The latter played Beethoven in Hugo's home, and Hugo joked in a letter to a friend that, thanks to Liszt's piano lessons, he learned how to play a favourite song on the piano — with only one finger. Hugo also worked with composer Louise Bertin , writing the libretto for her opera La Esmeralda , which was based on the character in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

He introduced him to George Sand who would be his lover for years. In , Hugo attended Chopin's funeral. On the other hand, he had low esteem for Richard Wagner , whom he described as "a man of talent coupled with imbecility. Well over one thousand musical compositions have been inspired by Hugo's works from the 19th century until the present day.

In particular, Hugo's plays, in which he rejected the rules of classical theatre in favour of romantic drama, attracted the interest of many composers who adapted them into operas. More than one hundred operas are based on Hugo's works and among them are Donizetti 's Lucrezia Borgia , Verdi 's Rigoletto and Ernani , and Ponchielli 's La Gioconda Today, Hugo's work continues to stimulate musicians to create new compositions.

Remarkably, not only has Hugo's literary production been the source of inspiration for musical works, but also his political writings have received attention from musicians and have been adapted to music. When Hugo returned to Paris in , the country hailed him as a national hero. He was confident that he would be offered the dictatorship, as shown by the notes he kept at the time: "Dictatorship is a crime.

This is a crime I am going to commit," but he felt he had to assume that responsibility. Throughout his life Hugo kept believing in unstoppable humanistic progress. In his last public address on 3 August he prophesied, in an over-optimistic way, "In the twentieth century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, hatred will be dead, frontier boundaries will be dead, dogmas will be dead; man will live.

His faithful mistress, Juliette Drouet , died in , only two years before his own death. Despite his personal loss, Hugo remained committed to the cause of political change. On 30 January , he was elected to the newly created Senate. This last phase of his political career was considered a failure.

Victor hugo biography timeline book

Hugo was a maverick and achieved little in the Senate. He suffered a mild stroke on 27 June On 27 June, one of the largest parades in French history was held. The paraders marched for six hours past Hugo as he sat at the window at his house. Two days before dying, he left a note with these last words: "To love is to act. On 20 May , le Petit Journal published the official medical bulletin on Hugo's health condition.

Hugo died on May 22, , at 50 Avenue Victor Hugo now number His death, from pneumonia, generated intense national mourning. He was not only revered as a towering figure in literature, he was a statesman who shaped the Third Republic and democracy in France. All his life he remained a defender of liberty, equality and fraternity as well as an adamant champion of French culture.

In , aged 75, he wrote, "I am not one of these sweet-tempered old men. I am still exasperated and violent. I shout and I feel indignant and I cry. Woe to anyone who harms France! I do declare I will die a fanatic patriot. Most large French towns and cities have a street or square named after him. Je donne cinquante mille francs aux pauvres. Je crois en Dieu.

I leave 50, francs to the poor. I wish to be buried in their hearse. I refuse [funeral] orations from all Churches. The play, which was impossible to stage because of its breadth, nonetheless had a preface that became the veritable manifesto of the Romanticism led by Hugo. His play Amy Robsart is refused. Publication of Orientalia, a collection of poems that will crystallize Romantic imagery and inspire numerous painters, followed by The Last Day of a Condemned Man, a vibrant plaidoyer against the death sentence.

His new play Marion de Lorme is prohibited. Publication of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which, in addition to his poetry and plays, consecrates Hugo as the major Romantic novel writer. Creation of Marion de Lorme and publication of the collection entitled Autumn Leaves. The family moves to Place Royale now Place des Vosges. The play is an immense success.

It is followed by Marie Tudor. Juliette and Victor adopt the habit of making a summer journey in France. Hugo makes many drawings in his notebooks of these trips. Travel to Belgium. Les Rayons et les Ombres Beams and Shadows , last poetry collection before New trip to the Rhine Valley; numerous drawings. Les Burgraves. Six months later, they drown accidentally in the Seine near Villequier.

Victor Hugo is shaken by the news, which he learns about in the newspaper on his return from a trip to Spain. He will not publish further works until Is named Peer of France. Loyal to the royal family, he advocates the regency of the Duchess of Orleans during the Revolution but later supports the Republic, although he turns down a ministry in the provisional government.

Speech on the national workshops, against the death sentence and for freedom of the press. Hugo is elected as the Deputy of Paris to the Legislative Assembly. Speech on misery. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. BBC Local. This led to three of them being expelled. Here he resumed his role in politics and was elected to the National Assembly.

Explore the BBC. BBC Homepage. He publishes several pamphlets against Napoleon the Third and writes to the American abolitionist Maria Weston Chapman that slavery in the United States of America must end. This is referred to in another newspaper in Jersey by Hugo and two others and the three of them are expelled from the Island. He writes to the United States government to spare the life of the abolitionist John Brown.

Emperor Napoleon the Third grants amnesty to all political exiles but Hugo declines to return to France. During the Franco-Prussian War he makes a return to Paris. Food is scarce and he famously eats animals given to him by the Paris Zoo. Napoleon the Third is deposed and the Third Republic is proclaimed in September.