Une planche pour dormir, la chiourme, les coups, les boulets au pied, dix-neuf ans de cet implacable bagne ont fait du forcat Jean Valjean un homme meurtri, brise. Tout ca pour avoir casse un carreau et pris un pain. Pourtant, lorsqu'il est enfin libere en 1815, l'espoir renait lorsque l'ancien bagnard croise sur sa route Fantine et Cosette.
After Napoleon III seized power in 1851, French writer Victor Marie Hugo went into exile and in 1870 returned to France; his novels include The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862).
This poet, playwright, novelist, dramatist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, and perhaps the most influential, important exponent of the Romantic movement in France, campaigned for human rights. People in France regard him as one of greatest poets of that country and know him better abroad.