Victor-Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 - 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote abundantly in an exceptional variety of genres: lyrics, satires, epics, philosophical poems, epigrams, novels, history, critical essays, political speeches, funeral orations, diaries, and letters public and private, as well as dramas in verse and prose.

BOOK 1: A JUST MAN: In 1815, M. Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see of D since 1806.