Victor Hugo

In nineteenth century France, a former convict tries to overcome his past and is asked to raise a prostitute's daughter, while being hounded by a policeman who vows to put him back behind bars.

"Peut-on imaginer un monde sans Jean Valjean, Cosette, Gavroche, Javert ou Fantine, à jamais vivants au Panthéon de l'esprit humain? En 1862, paraissent Les Misérables, qui désignent toutes les victimes d'un ordre social dont Victor Hugo condamne les injustices. Immense épopée populaire, le roman est emporé dans l'air de Paris et de ses bas-fonds, l'odeur des barricades et de la Révolution. Il deviendra l'une des oeuvres les plus lues dans...

Ninety-Three (1874) is the final novel of Victor Hugo. As a work of historical fiction, the story is set during the period of conflict between the newly formed French Republic and the Royalists who sought to reverse the gains of the revolution. Praised for its morality and honest depiction of the horrors of war, Ninety-Three influenced such wide-ranging political thinkers as Joseph Stalin and Ayn Rand. "The soldiers forced cautiously. Everything was...

Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago to-day, the Parisians awoke to the sound of all the bells in the triple circuit of the city, the university, and the town ringing a full peal. The sixth of January 1482, is not, however, a day of which history has preserved the memory. There was nothing notable in the event, which thus set the bells and the bourgeois of Paris in a ferment from early morning. It was neither an assault...