by Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo, the son of a general in Napoleon's empire, was born in 1802 in Besancon, France. Although raised by his mother to be a royalist, Hugo's inclination to republican ideals and his mild nostalgia for his father shaped his political and literary career.

Events in History at the Time the Novel Takes Place

The French Revolution. The thirteen American colonies won their independence from Great Britain in part because of support from France. Although French involvement was more an effort to frustrate Britain than a defense of a constitutional democracy, the principles of the American Revolution, along with the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers, who extolled the virtues of tolerance and reason and dismissed the notion of divine right to rule, influenced the French people's quest for a more liberal constitution in their own land.

The financial burden of their involvement in the American...