Victor Hugo Timeline

Hugo's mother, Sophie Trébuchet, died in June 1821. A month later, his father Léopold married his long-time mistress Catherine Thomas.

Image source: Sophie Trébuchet

Victor Hugo married Adèle Foucher in October 1822. Despite their respective affairs, they lived together for nearly 46 years until her death in August 1868.

Adèle and Victor Hugo had their first child, Léopold, in 1823, but the boy died in infancy. On 28 August 1824, their second child, Léopoldine, was born, followed by Charles (1826), François-Victor (1828), and Adèle (1830).

Image source: Léopoldine Hugo

Hugo's eldest and favourite daughter, Léopoldine, died at the age of 19 shortly after her marriage to Charles Vacquerie when she drowned in a boating accident on the Seine. Hugo was devastated and wrote deeply moving poems in her memory.

Hugo and Léonie Biard were caught committing adultery on 5 July 1845. Due to his peerage, Hugo escaped punishment while Léonie was imprisoned, though she later became influential in securing pardons for offenders.

Hugo's wife Adèle died in August 1868 in Brussels, ending nearly 46 years of marriage. Juliette Drouet, Hugo's devoted mistress since 1833, continued to care for him until her own death in 1883.

Image source: Adèle Foucher

After the death of his son Charles in 1871, Hugo took custody of his grandchildren Jeanne and Georges-Victor, who brought joy to his final decades.

Image source: Charles Hugo (writer)

Hugo suffered a mild stroke on 27 June 1878, yet continued writing. At age 75 he had declared, "I am not one of these sweet-tempered old men," maintaining his vigor and creative output.

Celebrations began on 25 June 1881, when Hugo was presented with a Sèvres vase, the traditional gift for sovereigns. His birthday was celebrated like a national holiday, honoring France's greatest living writer.

Juliette Drouet, Hugo's faithful mistress who had devoted her whole life to him since February 1833 and once saved his life in December 1851, died in 1883, only two years before Hugo himself.

Image source: Juliette Drouet

Hugo died on 22 May 1885, aged 83, at 50 Avenue Victor Hugo (now number 124) in Paris. His death prompted national mourning, and he received a hero's funeral with interment in the Panthéon.

Alongside Chateaubriand, Hugo attended the Coronation of Charles X in Reims in 1825, reflecting his early royalist sympathies.

Image source: Coronation of Charles X of France

On the nomination of King Louis Philippe I, Hugo entered the Upper Chamber of Parliament as a pair de France, styled as "Vicomte Victor Hugo," where he spoke against the death penalty and social injustice and in favour of freedom of the press and self-government for Poland.

In 1848, Hugo was elected to the National Assembly of the Second Republic as a conservative. The following year he broke with conservatives with a noted speech calling for the end of misery and poverty.

Image source: Frankfurt National Assembly

At the International Peace Congress held in Paris in 1849, Hugo expounded his views on peace and a united Europe, foreshadowing his vision of the United States of Europe.

In a letter to American abolitionist Maria Weston Chapman, Hugo condemned slavery: "The United States must renounce slavery, or they must renounce liberty."

When Louis Napoleon seized complete power in 1851, establishing an anti-parliamentary constitution, Hugo openly declared him a traitor to France. Forced to flee, he decided on self-imposed exile and briefly lived in Brussels before moving to the Channel Islands.

Image source: 1851 French coup d'état

After leaving France, Hugo lived on Jersey from 1852 to 1855 before being expelled for criticizing Queen Victoria's state visit, moving to the smaller island of Guernsey.

Image source: Jersey

Hugo finally settled with his family at Hauteville House in Saint Peter Port, Guernsey, where he lived in self-imposed exile until 1870, refusing Napoleon III's amnesty of 1859 because it would have curtailed his criticism of the government.

Image source: Hauteville House

Hugo wrote to the United States government asking it to spare abolitionist John Brown's life, declaring that if insurrection is ever a sacred duty, it must be when directed against slavery. He also sold a drawing, "Le Pendu," as homage to Brown.

Image source: John Brown (abolitionist)

Only after Napoleon III fell from power following the Battle of Sedan and the Third Republic was proclaimed did Hugo return to his homeland in 1870, where he was hailed as a national hero and promptly elected to the National Assembly and the Senate.

Image source: French Third Republic

Hugo was in Paris during the Prussian siege, famously eating animals given to him by the Paris Zoo. On 25 September 1870 he expressed fears about the city's fate during the darkest days of the siege.

Image source: Siege of Paris (1870–1871)

Harshly critical of atrocities on both sides during the Paris Commune, Hugo denounced in the Belgian newspaper l'Indépendance the government's refusal to grant political asylum to Communards threatened with imprisonment, banishment or execution.

Image source: Paris Commune

After the siege of Paris, Hugo lived again in Guernsey from 1872 to 1873, and then finally returned to France for the remainder of his life. A census-taker asked him in 1872 if he was Catholic, and he replied no.

Image source: Guernsey

Hugo was elected to the newly created Senate of the Third Republic on 30 January 1876, continuing his lifelong political engagement into old age.

Image source: Senate (France)

At a banquet celebrating the abolition of slavery, in the presence of Victor Schœlcher, Hugo declared that in the twentieth century Europe would make a world out of Africa, expressing his progressive humanitarian vision.