Backward

If God had intended man to go backward, He would have given him eyes in the back of his head.

-       Victor Hugo[1]

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[1] Victor-Marie Hugo was born in Besancon, France in 1802. Destined to be perhaps the greatest writer of the 19^th century, his literary calling in life became obvious soon; by age 13 he was already winning awards for his poetry. During the 1820s he became one of the leading figures of the French Romantic movement. In 1830 his position was enhanced by the success of the play Hernani, which was the subject of fierce controversy, symbolizing as it did the conflict between the new ideas and classical French theatre. In the same year, Hugo published his book Notre Dame de Paris, the tragic tale of Quasimodo which has been famous ever since. As the decade wore on, Hugo began to concentrate principally on the theatre, with mixed success. Following difficulties in his relationship with his wife, Adèle, he began a liaison with Juliette Drouet, an actress in one of his plays. This relationship was to last more than fifty years.

In 1841 he was elected (at the fifth attempt) to the Academie Francaise, but following the failure of his play Les Burgraves in 1843, Hugo began to turn his attention more to public and political issues. Later that year he experienced a family tragedy when his daughter Leopoldine and her husband were drowned in the Seine at Villequier in Normandy. He became a Peer of France in 1845. In his earlier years Hugo had been a monarchist, and during the political upheaval from 1848 onwards, Hugo was at first concerned that order should be maintained, initially welcoming and supporting the candidature of Louis Bonaparte. But as he began to realize that his moral and political ambitions were not shared by his political allies his relationship with them deteriorated.

By 1851, his opposition to Louis Bonaparte had hardened. After the coup d’état in December, which he tried in vain to oppose, he, with Juliette’s assistance, fled the country. He first went to Brussels, but the next year relocated to Jersey in the Channel Islands, which had become the home of a number of opponents to the new French regime. In 1855 he moved to nearby Guernsey to show solidarity with a group of political refugees who had been expelled from Jersey for satirizing Queen Victoria’s visit to Paris. In 1856, Hugo published Les Contemplations, a book of poetry which was an immediate success, and with the proceeds he bought 38 Hauteville, now often known simply as Hauteville House, which he decorated in his own highly imaginative manner.

Although legally able to return to France in 1859, Hugo chose defiantly to remain resident in the Island until 1870, and he also returned subsequently, notably for almost a year during 1872/1873. During his period in Guernsey he wrote, completed or published, the majority of the works for which he is best known, including the still-popular Les Misérables (1862). To varying degrees these works were substantial popular successes. Following the fall of Louis Bonaparte in 1870, Hugo returned to France as a hero and once more took an interest in political life during a further period of upheaval further complicated by the Franco-Prussian war. He was elected to the National Assembly in 1871 and was by now a famous public and literary figure. Publication of his works continued.

Hugo’s wish was to be buried in a pauper’s coffin. While this wish was granted, he was nevertheless, on his death in 1885, voted a National Funeral by the two government assemblies. The coffin lay in state under the Arc de Triomphe and, on the first of June 1885, he was buried as a national hero in the Panthéon. It is estimated that at least two million people followed the funeral procession.