Victor Hugo

Career

Hugo published his first novel, Hans of Iceland, in 1823, followed by Bug-Jargal in 1826. Between 1829 and 1840 he issued five poetry volumes—Les Orientales (1829), Les Feuilles d'automne (1831), Les Chants du crépuscule (1835), Les Voix intérieures (1837), and Les Rayons et les Ombres (1840)—which established him as a leading elegiac and lyric poet. Like many young writers, he was deeply influenced by François-René de Chateaubriand, and as a youth resolved to be 'Chateaubriand or nothing'; he later paralleled Chateaubriand by advancing Romanticism, entering politics, and enduring exile.

Hugo attended the Coronation of Charles X in Reims in 1825 alongside Chateaubriand. His first poetry collection, Odes et poésies diverses (1822), earned him a royal pension from Louis XVIII, and the 1826 collection Odes et Ballades revealed him as a master of lyric and creative song. His first mature fiction, Le Dernier jour d'un condamné (1829), reflected a social conscience that would mark his later work and influenced Albert Camus, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

In 1834 he published Claude Gueux, a documentary short story about a real-life executed murderer, which he later considered a precursor to Les Misérables.

Political life and self-exile

Hugo was elected to the Académie française in 1841 after three unsuccessful attempts, partly delayed by academicians opposing Romanticism. In 1845 King Louis Philippe I appointed him a pair de France in the Upper Chamber, where he spoke against the death penalty and social injustice and for press freedom and Polish self-government. Elected to the National Assembly of the Second Republic as a conservative in 1848, he broke with conservatives the following year by calling for an end to misery and poverty, and advocated universal suffrage and free education.

When Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III) seized power in 1851, Hugo declared him a traitor and went into exile, first in Brussels, then Jersey, and finally Guernsey, where he lived at Hauteville House from October 1855 until 1870. During exile he published the political pamphlets Napoléon le Petit and Histoire d'un crime, which were banned in France but influential, and composed major works including Les Misérables and the poetry collections Les Châtiments, Les Contemplations, and La Légende des siècles.

Relationship with music

Hugo lacked exceptional musical ability but greatly influenced music through his works, which inspired composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. He enjoyed the music of Gluck, Mozart, Weber, and Meyerbeer, and in Les Misérables called the huntsman's chorus in Weber's Euryanthe 'perhaps the most beautiful piece of music ever composed.' He admired Beethoven and appreciated earlier composers such as Palestrina and Monteverdi. Hugo was friends with Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt; Liszt played Beethoven in Hugo's home, and Hugo joked that thanks to Liszt's piano lessons he learned to play a favourite song with one finger.

He wrote the libretto for Louise Bertin's 1836 opera La Esmeralda, based on a character from The Hunchback of Notre-Dame; the opera closed after five performances but saw modern revivals in 2007 and 2008. Hugo introduced Frédéric Chopin to George Sand, who became Chopin's lover, and attended Chopin's funeral in 1849. He held a low opinion of Richard Wagner, calling him 'a man of talent coupled with imbecility.' Over one thousand musical compositions have been inspired by Hugo's works, including more than one hundred operas such as Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, Verdi's Rigoletto and Ernani, and Ponchielli's La Gioconda.

Personal life

Hugo married Adèle Foucher in October 1822. Despite affairs on both sides—Adèle had a relationship with Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve from 1830 to 1837—they lived together nearly 46 years until her death in August 1868. Hugo, then in exile, could not attend her funeral in Villequier, where their daughter Léopoldine was buried. The couple had five children: Léopold (born 1823, died in infancy), Léopoldine (born 28 August 1824), Charles (born 4 November 1826), François-Victor (born 28 October 1828), and Adèle (born 28 July 1830).

Hugo's favourite daughter, Léopoldine, died at age 19 in 1843, shortly after her marriage to Charles Vacquerie; she drowned in the Seine at Villequier when her boat overturned, and her husband died trying to save her. Hugo learned of her death from a newspaper while traveling in southern France. He wrote many poems about her, including 'Demain, dès l'aube.' Hugo outlived four of his five children, only his youngest Adèle surviving him.

After Napoleon III's coup in 1851, Hugo lived in exile in Brussels, then Jersey, then Guernsey until 1870; he declined a general amnesty in 1859 and returned only after Napoleon III's fall. After the Siege of Paris (1870–1871), he lived again in Guernsey from 1872 to 1873, then finally returned to France. Following his son Charles's death in 1871, Hugo took custody of his grandchildren Jeanne and Georges-Victor.

Did You Know?

• Hugo believed he was conceived on 24 June 1801, which became the origin of Jean Valjean's prisoner number 24601.
• He produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime.
• In 1872, when asked if he was Catholic, Hugo replied, 'No. A Freethinker.'