Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo was a French poet, novelist and dramatist, and the leading figure of French Romanticism. His verse drama Hernani caused a sensation at the Comédie-Française in 1830, and Le roi s'amuse, whose philandering hero is a king of France, was banned in 1832; Verdi's Ernani and Rigoletto were made from them. His novels include Notre-Dame de Paris and Les Misérables. A royalist in youth and later a republican, he denounced Louis-Napoléon's seizure of power in 1851 and spent the Second Empire in exile, fifteen years of it on Guernsey. He was given a state funeral in the Panthéon.