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131-518: The rediscovery of medieval civilization was one of the intellectual curiosities of the beginning of the 19th century, with much input from the Ancien Régime and its institutions, rites (the coronation ceremony dated back to the 16th century) and the medieval churches in which family ceremonies occurred. Even while exhuming the remains of the kings and putting on the market a multitude of objects, works of art and elements of medieval architecture,

262-686: A Papal fief 36. Imperial Free City of Mulhouse 37. Savoy , a Sardinian fief (parl. in Chambéry 1537–59) 38. Nice , a Sardinian fief 39. Montbéliard , a fief of Württemberg 40. (not indicated) Trois-Évêchés ( Metz , Toul and Verdun ) 41. (not indicated) Dombes ( Trévoux ) 42. (not indicated) Navarre ( Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port ) 43. (not indicated) Soule ( Mauléon ) 44. (not indicated) Bigorre ( Tarbes ) 45. (not indicated) Beaujolais ( Beaujeu ) 46. (not indicated) Bresse ( Bourg ) 47. (not indicated) Perche ( Mortagne-au-Perche ) In an attempt to reform

393-590: A crucifix or priest. In his will, he made the same stipulation about his own death and funeral. Yet he believed in life after death and prayed every single morning and night, convinced as he wrote in The Man Who Laughs that "Thanksgiving has wings and flies to its right destination. Your prayer knows its way better than you do." Hugo's rationalism can be found in poems such as Torquemada (1869, about religious fanaticism ), The Pope (1878, anti-clerical ), Religions and Religion (1880, denying

524-456: A Catholic and professed respect for Church hierarchy and authority. From there he became a non-practising Catholic and increasingly expressed anti-Catholic and anti-clerical views. He frequented spiritism during his exile (where he participated also in many séances conducted by Madame Delphine de Girardin ) and in later years settled into a rationalist deism similar to that espoused by Voltaire . A census-taker asked Hugo in 1872 if he

655-596: A Condemned Man published in 1829 analyses the pangs of a man awaiting execution; several entries in Things Seen ( Choses vues ), the diary he kept between 1830 and 1885, convey his firm condemnation of what he regarded as a barbaric sentence; on 15 September 1848, seven months after the Revolution of 1848 , he delivered a speech before the Assembly and concluded, "You have overthrown the throne. ... Now overthrow

786-606: A bad example no longer.... The United States must renounce slavery, or they must renounce liberty." In 1859, he wrote a letter asking the United States government, for the sake of their own reputation in the future, to spare abolitionist John Brown's life, Hugo justified Brown's actions by these words: "Assuredly, if insurrection is ever a sacred duty, it must be when it is directed against Slavery." Hugo agreed to diffuse and sell one of his best known drawings, "Le Pendu", an homage to John Brown, so one could "keep alive in souls

917-554: A banquet to celebrate the abolition of slavery, in the presence of the French abolitionist writer and parliamentarian Victor Schœlcher, Hugo declared that the Mediterranean Sea formed a natural divide between "ultimate civilisation and ... utter barbarism." Hugo declared that "God offers Africa to Europe. Take it" and "in the nineteenth century the white man made a man out of the black, in the twentieth century Europe will make

1048-629: A blooming of the Neogothic style, but in France this remains limited to certain 'feudal' buildings in the parks surrounding châteaux. After the Troubadour style disappeared in painting, around the time of the 1848 French Revolution , it continued (or re-emerged) in architecture, the decorative arts, literature and theatre. Besides fine arts and architecture, the style also manifested in furniture, metalworks, ceramics and other decorative arts during

1179-579: A combination of aggression, annexation and quasilegal means, he set about extending his gains to stabilize and strengthen France's frontiers, culminating in the brief War of the Reunions (1683–1684). The resulting Truce of Ratisbon guaranteed France's new borders for 20 years, but Louis XIV's subsequent actions, notably his revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, led to the deterioration of his military and political dominance. Louis XIV's decision to cross

1310-474: A comrade of General Hugo's during the campaign in Vendee. In October 1807, the family rejoined Leopold, now Colonel Hugo, Governor of the province of Avellino . There, Hugo was taught mathematics by Giuseppe de Samuele Cagnazzi , elder brother of Italian scientist Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi . Sophie found out that Leopold had been living in secret with an Englishwoman called Catherine Thomas. Soon, Hugo's father

1441-568: A few smaller German princes and dukes in Italy. Extensive back-and-forth fighting took place in the Netherlands, but the dimensions of the war once again changed when both Emperor Leopold and his son and successor, Joseph, died. That left Archduke Charles, the second son of Leopold, younger brother to Joseph , as the Alliance candidate for both king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor. Since such

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1572-693: A great source of inspiration for musicians, stirring them to create not only opera and ballet but musical theatre such as Notre-Dame de Paris and the ever-popular Les Misérables , London West End 's longest running musical. Additionally, Hugo's poems have attracted an exceptional amount of interest from musicians, and numerous melodies have been based on his poetry by composers such as Berlioz , Bizet , Fauré , Franck , Lalo , Liszt , Massenet , Saint-Saëns , Rachmaninoff , and Wagner . Today, Hugo's work continues to stimulate musicians to create new compositions. For example, Hugo's novel against capital punishment, The Last Day of

1703-493: A letter to a friend that, thanks to Liszt's piano lessons, he learned how to play a favourite song on the piano – with only one finger. Hugo also worked with composer Louise Bertin , writing the libretto for her 1836 opera La Esmeralda , which was based on the character in The Hunchback of Notre Dame . Although for various reasons the opera closed soon after its fifth performance and is little known today, it has enjoyed

1834-488: A major role in favour of edifying painting, sculpture and literature, often inspired by religion. Artists and writers rejected the neo-antique rationalism of the French Revolution and turned towards a perceived glorious Christian past. The progress of the history and archaeology in the course of the 18th century began to bear fruit, at first, in painting. Paradoxically these painters of the past were unaware of

1965-696: A mentor to Hugo and his brothers. In 1811, the family joined their father in Spain. Hugo and his brothers were sent to school in Madrid at the Real Colegio de San Antonio de Abad while Sophie returned to Paris on her own, now officially separated from her husband. In 1812, as the Peninsular War was turning against France, de La Horie was arrested and executed. In February 1815, Hugo and Eugène were taken away from their mother and placed by their father in

2096-526: A modern revival, both in a piano/song concert version by Liszt at the Festival international Victor Hugo et Égaux 2007 and in a full orchestral version presented in July 2008 at Le Festival de Radio France et Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon . He was also on friendly terms with Frederic Chopin . He introduced him to George Sand who would be his lover for years. In 1849, Hugo attended Chopin's funeral. On

2227-442: A new effect of colour; the figure is charming and full of expression, and this green curtain thrown across this window renders the illusion complete". Compositions lit from the back of the scene, with the foreground in semi-darkness, became rather a trademark of the early years of the style. Fragonard's painting of François Premier reçu chevalier par Bayard ( Francis I knighted by Bayard , Salon of 1819) has to be read not as

2358-526: A new tax based on the dixième , the vingtième , was enacted to reduce the royal deficit and continued for the rest of the ancien régime . Another key source of state financing was through charging fees for state positions (such as most members of parlements, magistrates, maître des requêtes and financial officers). Many of the fees were quite high, but some of the offices conferred nobility and could be financially advantageous. The use of offices to seek profit had become standard practice as early as

2489-469: A peace program that was agreed to by Fleury, and the two powers formed an alliance. The Dutch Republic was much reduced in power and so agreed with Britain's idea of peace. In Vienna, the Holy Roman Empire's Habsburg emperors bickered with the new Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V, over Habsburg control of most of Italy, but relations with France were undramatic. In the mid-15th century, France

2620-488: A periodical called Le Conservateur littéraire . Hugo published his first novel ( Hans of Iceland , 1823) the year following his marriage, and his second three years later ( Bug-Jargal , 1826). Between 1829 and 1840, he published five more volumes of poetry: Les Orientales , 1829; Les Feuilles d'automne , 1831; Les Chants du crépuscule  [ fr ] , 1835; Les Voix intérieures , 1837; and Les Rayons et les Ombres , 1840. This cemented his reputation as one of

2751-458: A playwright grew with subsequent plays, such as Marion Delorme (1831), Le roi s'amuse (1832), and Ruy Blas (1838). Hugo's novel Notre-Dame de Paris ( The Hunchback of Notre-Dame ) was published in 1831 and quickly translated into other languages across Europe. One of the effects of the novel was to shame the City of Paris into restoring the much neglected Cathedral of Notre Dame , which

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2882-578: A precursor to his great work on social injustice, Les Misérables . Hugo became the figurehead of the Romantic literary movement with the plays Cromwell (1827) and Hernani (1830). Hernani announced the arrival of French romanticism: performed at the Comédie-Française , it was greeted with several nights of rioting as romantics and traditionalists clashed over the play's deliberate disregard for neo-classical rules. Hugo's popularity as

3013-624: A rediscovery of a medieval past, but as a memory of a recent monarchic tradition. Reaction to this genre, as to the Pre-Raphaelites in England, has been mixed. It can be seen as overly sentimental or unrealistically nostalgic, treating its subjects in a way "later associated with Hollywood costume dramas." To its proponents, the archaic details were regarded as a rallying cry for a new, localized nationalism, purged of classical (or neo-classical) and Roman influence. The small size of many of

3144-566: A sixtieth of the official charge, which permitted the titleholder to be free of the forty-day rule. The paulette and the venality of offices became key concerns in the parliamentarian revolts of the 1640s called the Fronde . The state also demanded a "free gift", which the church collected from holders of ecclesiastic offices through taxes called the décime (roughly a twentieth of the official charge, created under Francis I). State finances also relied heavily on borrowing, both private (from

3275-538: A strong impact there. He also composed or published some of his best work during his period in Guernsey , including Les Misérables , and three widely praised collections of poetry ( Les Châtiments , 1853; Les Contemplations , 1856; and La Légende des siècles , 1859). However, Víctor Hugo said in Les Misérables: The wretched moral character of Thénardier, the frustrated bourgeois,

3406-572: A superior unity and constitute a European fraternity, just as Normandy , Brittany , Burgundy , Lorraine , have been blended into France", this new state would be administered by "a great Sovereign senate which will be to Europe what the Parliament is to England". Because of his concern for the rights of artists and copyright , he was a founding member of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale , which led to

3537-515: A union between Spain and the Holy Roman Empire would be too powerful in the eyes of Charles VI's allies, most of the allies quickly concluded a separate peace with France. After another year of fruitless campaigning, Charles VI did the same and abandoned his desire to become the king of Spain. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht resolved all these issues. France gave up Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Louis XIV's grandson became King Philip V of Spain and kept all of his overseas colonies but renounced any rights to

3668-644: A world out of Africa". This might partly explain why in spite of his deep interest and involvement in political matters he remained silent on the Algerian issue. He knew about the atrocities committed by the French Army during the French conquest of Algeria as evidenced by his diary but he never denounced them publicly; however, in Les Misérables , Hugo wrote: "Algeria too harshly conquered, and, as in

3799-476: Is better remembered for his landscapes, but also painted in the style, as did Eugène Delacroix . The peak period was brought to an end by the Revolution of 1848 , and later the arrival of Realism , although the style arguably merged into late 19th-century academic painting . The transition can be seen in the work of Paul Delaroche . Arguably the first troubadour painting was presented at the Salon of 1802, under

3930-423: Is that this book is going to be one of the peaks, if not the crowning point of my work." Publication of Les Misérables went to the highest bidder. The Belgian publishing house Lacroix and Verboeckhoven undertook a marketing campaign unusual for the time, issuing press releases about the work a full six months before the launch. It also initially published only the first part of the novel (" Fantine "), which

4061-451: The fermiers généraux ('farmers-general"). The taille was only one of a number of taxes. There also existed the taillon (a tax for military purposes), a national salt tax (the gabelle ), national tariffs (the aides ) on various products (wine, beer, oil and other goods), local tariffs on speciality products (the douane ) or levied on products entering the city (the octroi ) or sold at fairs and local taxes. Finally,

Troubadour style - Misplaced Pages Continue

4192-465: The généralités of the Renaissance went through a variety of reforms. In 1577, Henry III established 5 treasurers ( trésoriers généraux ) in each généralité who formed a bureau of finances. In the 17th century, oversight of the généralités was subsumed by the intendants of finance, justice and police. The expression généralité and intendance became roughly synonymous. Until

4323-433: The pays d'élection , the pays d'état and the pays d'imposition . In the pays d'élection (the longest-held possessions of the French crown; some of the provinces had held the equivalent autonomy of a pays d'état but had lost it through the effects of royal reforms) the assessment and collection of taxes were trusted to elected officials (at least originally, since later on those positions were bought), and

4454-609: The gabelle or salt tax. Southern France was governed by written law adapted from the Roman legal system , but northern France used common law , codified in 1453 into a written form. The representative of the king in his provinces and cities was the gouverneur . Royal officers chosen from the highest nobility, provincial and city governors (oversight of provinces and cities was frequently combined) were predominantly military positions in charge of defense and policing. Provincial governors, also called lieutenants généraux , also had

4585-578: The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works . However, in Pauvert 's published archives, he states strongly that "any work of art has two authors: the people who confusingly feel something, a creator who translates these feelings, and the people again who consecrate his vision of that feeling. When one of the authors dies, the rights should totally be granted back to

4716-492: The Comte de Tressan (1707–1783) in his Bibliothèque des romans , and in England with the first fantastical romances and gothic novels , such as The Castle of Otranto (1764). These English romances inspired late 18th-century French writers to follow suit, such as Donatien de Sade with his Histoire secrete d'Isabelle de Baviere, reine de France . The Le Troubadour, poésies occitaniques (1803) by Fabre d'Olivet popularized

4847-546: The French Consulate . It was a work by Fleury-Richard , Valentine of Milan weeping for the death of her husband , a subject which had come to the artist during a visit to the " musée des monuments français ", a museum of French medieval monuments. A tomb from this museum was included in the painting as that of the wife. Thanks to its moving subject matter, the painting was an enormous success – seeing it, David cried "This resembles nothing anyone else has done, it's

4978-468: The Habsburgs ' internal family conflict, and the territorial expansion of France in the 17th century all demanded great sums, which needed to be raised by taxes, such as the land tax ( taille ) and the tax on salt ( gabelle ), and by contributions of men and service from the nobility. One key to the centralization was the replacing of personal patronage systems, which had been organised around

5109-638: The Kingdom of Navarra ; there were also foreign enclaves like the Comtat Venaissin . In addition, certain provinces within France were ostensibly the personal fiefs of noble families. Notably the Bourbonnais , Forez and Auvergne were held by the House of Bourbon until the provinces were forcibly integrated into the royal domain in 1527 after the fall of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon . From

5240-847: The Rhine in September 1688 was designed to extend his influence and to pressure the Holy Roman Empire into accepting his territorial and dynastic claims, but Leopold I and the German princes resolved to resist, and the States General and William III brought the Dutch and the English into the war against France. Louis XIV faced a powerful coalition aimed at curtailing his ambitions. The main fighting took place around France's borders in

5371-740: The Spanish Netherlands , the Rhineland , the Duchy of Savoy , and Catalonia . The fighting generally favoured Louis XIV's armies, but by 1696, France was in the grip of an economic crisis. The maritime powers (England and the Dutch Republic) were also financially exhausted, and when Savoy defected from the alliance, all of the parties were keen for a negotiated settlement. By the terms of the Treaty of Ryswick (1697), Louis XIV retained

Troubadour style - Misplaced Pages Continue

5502-708: The ancien régime in France evolved across years of state-building, legislative acts (like the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts ), and internal conflicts. The attempts of the Valois Dynasty to reform and re-establish control over the scattered political centres of the country were hindered by the Wars of Religion from 1562 to 1598. During the Bourbon Dynasty , much of the reigns of Henry IV ( r.  1589–1610 ) and Louis XIII ( r.  1610–1643 ) and

5633-539: The "beaux-arts" and placed in the École centrale des travaux publics under the direction of J.N.L Durand, a harsh promoter of the neoclassical architecture that characterized the styles of the Convention and Consulate . Later, from the Bourbon Restoration and under the impulse of Quatremère de Quincy and Mérimée , a new tradition of teaching architecture put it back under the fine arts umbrella, in

5764-444: The 12th and the 13th centuries. A law in 1467 made these offices irrevocable except through the death, resignation or forfeiture of the title holder, and the offices, once bought, tended to become hereditary charges that were passed on within families with a fee for transfer of title. In an effort to increase revenue, the state often turned to the creation of new offices. Before it was made illegal in 1521, it had been possible to leave

5895-896: The 19th century. In France, it was the first reaction against the hegemony of Neoclassicism . At the end of the Restoration (1814–1830) and during the Louis-Philippe period (1830-1848), Gothic Revival motifs start to appear in France, together with revivals of the Renaissance and of Rococo . During these two periods, the vogue for medieval things led craftsmen to adopt Gothic decorative motifs in their work, such as bell turrets , lancet arches, trefoils , Gothic tracery and rose windows . Ancien R%C3%A9gime Defunct Defunct The ancien régime ( / ˌ ɒ̃ s j æ̃ r eɪ ˈ ʒ iː m / ; French: [ɑ̃sjɛ̃ ʁeʒim] ; lit.   ' old rule ' )

6026-567: The Ages ). Hugo was at the forefront of the Romantic literary movement with his play Cromwell and drama Hernani . His works have inspired music, both during his lifetime and after his death, including the opera Rigoletto and the musicals Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris . He produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime, and campaigned for social causes such as the abolition of capital punishment and slavery . Although he

6157-499: The Bagne in 1839 and took extensive notes, though he did not start writing the book until 1845. On one of the pages of his notes about the prison, he wrote in large block letters a possible name for his hero: "JEAN TRÉJEAN". When the book was finally written, Tréjean became Jean Valjean . Hugo was acutely aware of the quality of the novel, as evidenced in a letter he wrote to his publisher, Albert Lacroix, on 23 March 1862: "My conviction

6288-636: The Commune subjected to brutal repression. He had been in Brussels since 22 March 1871 when in the 27 May issue of the Belgian newspaper l’Indépendance Victor Hugo denounced the government's refusal to grant political asylum to the Communards threatened with imprisonment, banishment or execution. This caused so much uproar that in the evening a mob of fifty to sixty men attempted to force their way into

6419-554: The Dutchman Piet Hein . English mariners nevertheless seriously pursued the opportunities for privateering and trade in Spain's colonies. As he neared his death, Charles II bequeathed his throne to the Bourbon candidate, the future Philip V of Spain. Philip's grandfather, Louis XIV, eagerly endorsed the choice and made unilateral aggressive moves to safeguard the viability of his family's new possessions, such as moving

6550-543: The French army into the Spanish Netherlands and securing exclusive trading rights for the French in Spanish America . However, a coalition of enemies opposed to that rapid expansion of French power quickly formed, and a major European war broke out from 1701 to 1714. To France's enemies, the notion of France gaining enormous strength by taking over Spain and all its European and overseas possessions

6681-470: The French nobility struggled to maintain their influence in local judiciary and state branches while the Fronde and other major internal conflicts violently contested additional centralization. The drive for centralization related directly to questions of royal finances and the ability to wage war. The internal conflicts and dynastic crises of the 16th and the 17th centuries between Catholics and Protestants,

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6812-464: The French throne. Spain lost its European holdings outside the homeland itself. The former members of the alliance also profited from the war. The Dutch maintained their independence in the face of French aggression. The Habsburgs picked up territory north of Austria and in Italy, including the Spanish Netherlands and Naples. However, the greatest beneficiary of the war was Great Britain , since in addition to extensive extra-European territorial gains at

6943-601: The Pension Cordier, a private boarding school in Paris, where Hugo and Eugène remained for three years while also attending lectures at Lycée Louis le Grand. On 10 July 1816, Hugo wrote in his diary: "I shall be Chateaubriand or nothing." In 1817, he wrote a poem for a competition organised by the Academie Française , for which he received an honorable mention. The Academicians refused to believe that he

7074-485: The Spanish title was not legally recognized in France. Hugo later titled himself as a viscount, and it was as "Vicomte Victor Hugo" that he was appointed a peer of France on 13 April 1845. Weary of the constant moving required by military life, Sophie separated temporarily from Léopold and settled in Paris in 1803 with her sons. There, she began seeing General Victor Fanneau de La Horie , Hugo's godfather, who had been

7205-723: The Upper Chamber of Parliament as a pair de France in 1845, 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. In 1849, he broke with the conservatives when he gave a noted speech calling for the end of misery and poverty. Other speeches called for universal suffrage and free education for all children. Hugo's advocacy to abolish

7336-424: The ability to convoke provincial parlements , provincial estates and municipal bodies. The title gouverneur first appeared under Charles VI . The Ordinance of Blois in 1579 reduced their number to 12, and an ordinance of 1779 increased their number to 39 (18 first-class governors and 21 second-class governors). Although in principle, they were the king's representatives, and their charges could be revoked at

7467-431: The arms of King Francois I of France is one of several works bringing rulers and artists together. A number of paintings by Ingres are in the style, and lesser artists such as Pierre-Henri Révoil (1776–1842) and Fleury-François Richard (1777–1852) specialized in the style. The Belgian Henri Leys painted in a more sombre version of the style much influenced by Northern Renaissance painting. Richard Parkes Bonington

7598-409: The assessment of the tax was established by local councils and the tax was generally " real " and so was attached to non-noble lands (nobles with such lands were required to pay taxes on them). Pays d'imposition were recently conquered lands that had their own local historical institutions (they were similar to the pays d'état under which they are sometimes grouped), but taxation was overseen by

7729-448: The author's name and reflected the acute social conscience that would infuse his later work. Le Dernier jour d'un condamné ( The Last Day of a Condemned Man ) would have a profound influence on later writers such as Albert Camus , Charles Dickens , and Fyodor Dostoyevsky . Claude Gueux, a documentary short story about a real-life murderer who had been executed in France, was published in 1834. Hugo himself later considered it to be

7860-460: The book. Hugo returned to political and social issues in his next novel, L'Homme Qui Rit ( The Man Who Laughs ), which was published in 1869 and painted a critical picture of the aristocracy. The novel was not as successful as his previous efforts, and Hugo himself began to comment on the growing distance between himself and literary contemporaries such as Flaubert and Émile Zola , whose realist and naturalist novels were now exceeding

7991-469: The canvases was considered a reference to Northern, primitive painting, devoid of Italian influence. To others, the small canvas sizes represent the artworks' insignificance and lack of vigor. All the brass, gilding, carving and inlaid historical detail of the headboards of the world could not redeem such objects as anything other than interior decoration. A fashion for medieval architecture may be seen throughout 19th century Europe, originating in England, and

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8122-486: The case of India by the English, with more barbarism than civilization." After coming in contact with Victor Schœlcher , a writer who fought for the abolition of slavery and French colonialism in the Caribbean, he started strongly campaigning against slavery. In a letter to American abolitionist Maria Weston Chapman , on 6 July 1851, Hugo wrote: "Slavery in the United States! It is the duty of this republic to set such

8253-523: The cause of Romanticism, became involved in politics (though mostly as a champion of Republicanism ), and was forced into exile due to his political stances. Along with Chateaubriand he attended the Coronation of Charles X in Reims in 1825. The precocious passion and eloquence of Hugo's early work brought success and fame at an early age. His first collection of poetry ( Odes et poésies diverses )

8384-456: The church benefited from a mandatory tax or tithe , the dîme . Louis XIV created several additional tax systems, including the capitation , which began in 1695 and touched every person, including nobles and the clergy although exemption could be bought for a large one-time sum and the "dixième" (1710–1717, restarted in 1733), which enacted to support the military and was a true tax on income and on property value. In 1749, under Louis XV ,

8515-408: The date that the transfer of title was to take effect open-ended. In 1534, a rule adapted from church practice made the successor's right void if the preceding office holder died within forty days of the transfer, and the office returned to the state. However, a new fee, the survivance jouissante protected against that rule. In 1604, Sully created a new tax, the paulette or "annual tax" of

8646-833: The death penalty was renowned internationally. When Louis Napoleon ( Napoleon III ) seized complete power in 1851 , establishing an anti-parliamentary constitution, Hugo openly declared him a traitor to France. He moved to Brussels , then Jersey , from which he was expelled for supporting L’Homme , a local newspaper that had published a letter to Queen Victoria by a French republican deemed treasonous . He finally settled with his family at Hauteville House in Saint Peter Port , Guernsey , where he would live in exile from October 1855 until 1870. While in exile, Hugo published his famous political pamphlets against Napoleon III, Napoléon le Petit and Histoire d'un crime . The pamphlets were banned in France but nonetheless had

8777-486: The double board, which was accused of poor oversight, made numerous administrative reforms, including the restructuring of the financial administration and increasing the number of généralités . In 1542, France was divided into 16 généralités . The number increased to 21 at the end of the 16th century and to 36 at the time of the French Revolution; the last two were created in 1784. The administration of

8908-432: The early years of Louis XIV ( r.  1643–1715 ) focused on administrative centralization. Despite the notion of " absolute monarchy " (typified by the king's right to issue orders through lettres de cachet ) and efforts to create a centralized state, ancien régime France remained a country of systemic irregularities: administrative, legal, judicial, and ecclesiastic divisions and prerogatives frequently overlapped,

9039-619: The expense of Spain and France, it established further checks to French expansion within the continent by moderately strengthening its European allies. The quarter-century after the Treaty of Utrecht was peaceful, with no major wars. The main powers exhausted themselves in warfare, and suffered many deaths, disabled veterans, ruined navies, high pension costs, heavy loans and high taxes. In 1683, indirect taxes had brought in 118,000,000 livres, but by 1714, these revenues had plunged to only 46,000,000 livres. Louis XIV, with his eagerness for warfare,

9170-452: The four Généraux des finances (also called général conseiller or receveur général ) oversaw the collection of taxes ( taille , aides , etc.) by tax-collecting agents ( receveurs ) and the four Trésoriers de France (Treasurers) oversaw revenues from royal lands (the " domaine royal "). Together, they were the Messieurs des finances . The four members of each board were divided by geographical districts (although

9301-435: The government. It was only after Napoleon III fell from power and the Third Republic was proclaimed that Hugo finally returned to his homeland in 1870, where he was promptly elected to the National Assembly and the Senate. He was in Paris during the siege by the Prussian Army in 1870 , famously eating animals given to him by the Paris Zoo. As the siege continued, and food became ever more scarce, he wrote in his diary that he

9432-475: The grandson of the powerful Louis XIV. That was a confrontation between two different styles of ancien régime : the French and Spanish style versus the Habsburg style. Spain's silver and its inability to protect its assets made it a highly-visible target for ambitious Europeans. For generations, Englishmen contemplated capturing the Spanish treasure fleet, a feat that had been accomplished only once: in 1628 by

9563-486: The great banking families in Europe) and public. The most important public source for borrowing was through the system of rentes sur l'Hôtel de Ville of Paris, a kind of government bond system offering investors annual interest. The system first came to use in 1522 under Francis I. Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo ( French: [viktɔʁ maʁi yɡo] ; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885)

9694-474: The greatest elegiac and lyric poets of his time. Like many young writers of his generation, Hugo was profoundly influenced by François-René de Chateaubriand , the famous figure in the literary movement of Romanticism and France's pre-eminent literary figure during the early 19th century. In his youth, Hugo resolved to be " Chateaubriand or nothing", and his life would come to parallel that of his predecessor in many ways. Like Chateaubriand , Hugo furthered

9825-596: The highest peaks in the Vosges Mountains , on a journey from Lunéville to Besançon. "This elevated origin," he went on, "seems to have had effects on you so that your muse is now continually sublime." Hugo believed himself to have been conceived on 24 June 1801, which is the origin of Jean Valjean 's prisoner number 24601 . In 1810, Hugo's father was made Count Hugo de Cogolludo y Sigüenza by then King of Spain Joseph Bonaparte , though it seems that

9956-567: The inauguration of the First French Republic ) and was originally pejorative. Simon Schama has observed that "virtually as soon as the term was coined, 'old regime' was automatically freighted with associations of both traditionalism and senescence. It conjured up a society so encrusted with anachronisms that only a shock of great violence could free the living organism within. Institutionally torpid, economically immobile, culturally atrophied and socially stratified, this 'old regime'

10087-849: The inheritance of the Spanish Empire would soon embroil Louis XIV and the Grand Alliance in a final war: the War of the Spanish Succession . Spain had a number of major assets apart from its homeland. It controlled important territory in Europe and the New World. Spain's American colonies produced enormous quantities of silver, brought to Spain every few years in convoys. Spain also had many weaknesses. Its domestic economy had little business, industry or advanced craftsmanship and

10218-462: The intimate character of its familiar scenes and its other technical means from Dutch Golden Age painting . The paintings were typically rather small cabinet paintings , often showing quiet intimate anecdotal moments rather than moments of high drama, though these were both depicted. As well as figures from political history, famous artists and authors of the past were often shown, especially Raphael and Dante . Ingres' Death of Leonardo da Vinci in

10349-423: The king and other nobles, by institutional systems that were constructed around the state. The appointments of intendants , representatives of royal power in the provinces, greatly undermined the local control by regional nobles. The same was true of the greater reliance that was shown by the royal court on the noblesse de robe as judges and royal counselors. The creation of regional parlements had

10480-418: The king's will, some governors had installed themselves and their heirs as a provincial dynasty. The governors reached the height of their power from the mid-16th to the mid-17th century. Their role in provincial unrest during the civil wars led Cardinal Richelieu to create the more tractable positions of intendants of finance, policing and justice, and in the 18th century, the role of provincial governors

10611-725: The late 15th century to the late 17th century and again in the 1760s, French territory greatly expanded and it attempted to better integrate its provinces into an administrative whole. Despite centralization efforts of the kings, France remained a patchwork of local privileges and historical differences. The arbitrary power of the absolute monarchy was much limited by historic and regional particularities. Administrative (including taxation), legal ( parlement ), judicial and ecclesiastic divisions and prerogatives frequently overlapped (for example, French bishoprics and dioceses rarely coincided with administrative divisions). Certain provinces and cities had won special privileges, such as lower rates for

10742-495: The late 17th century, tax collectors were called receveurs . In 1680, the system of the Ferme générale was established, a franchised customs and excise operation in which individuals bought the right to collect the taille on behalf of the king, through six-year adjudications (certain taxes like the aides and the gabelle had been farmed out in this way as early as 1604). The major tax collectors in that system were known as

10873-606: The margins of the declining official school, beginning with private workshops that behaved as diocesan architects working for historic monuments that would give rise to the Société Centrale des Architectes and make Troubador-style architecture possible. The resurgence of Christian feeling and in Christianity in the arts, with the publication in 1800 of Le Génie du Christianisme ('the Genius of Christianity'), played

11004-471: The masses that the issues it highlighted were soon on the agenda of the National Assembly of France . Today, the novel remains his best-known work. It is popular worldwide and has been adapted for cinema, television, and stage shows. An apocryphal tale has circulated, describing the shortest correspondence in history as having been between Hugo and his publisher Hurst and Blackett in 1862. Hugo

11135-482: The medieval French kings, perhaps even their miraculous curative powers ( Bonaparte visiting the plague-victims of Jaffa by Antoine-Jean Gros was read as a modern re-envisgaing of the thaumaturgical kings). Public interest in the Middle Ages in literature first manifested itself in France and above all England. In France, this came with the adaptation and publication from 1778 of ancient chivalric romances by

11266-423: The memory of this liberator of our black brothers, of this heroic martyr John Brown, who died for Christ just as Christ. Only one slave on Earth is enough to dishonour the freedom of all men. So the abolition of slavery is, at this hour, the supreme goal of the thinkers. As a novelist, diarist, and member of Parliament, Victor Hugo fought a lifelong battle for the abolition of the death penalty. The Last Day of

11397-611: The money, and the treasury was always short. The banking system in Paris was undeveloped, and the treasury was forced to borrow at very high interest rates. London's financial system proved strikingly competent in funding not only the British Army but also those of its allies. Queen Anne was dead, and her successor, King George I, was a Hanoverian who moved his court to London but never became fluent in English and surrounded himself with German advisors. They spent much of their time and most of their attention on Hanoverian affairs. He too

11528-629: The music of Gluck , Mozart , Weber and Meyerbeer . In Les Misérables , he calls the huntsman's chorus in Weber's Euryanthe , "perhaps the most beautiful piece of music ever composed". He also greatly admired Beethoven and, rather unusually for his time, appreciated works by composers from earlier centuries such as Palestrina and Monteverdi . Two famous musicians of the 19th century were friends of Hugo: Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt . The latter played Beethoven in Hugo's home, and Hugo joked in

11659-701: The other hand, he had low esteem for Richard Wagner , whom he described as "a man of talent coupled with imbecility." Well over one thousand musical compositions have been inspired by Hugo's works from the 19th century until the present day. In particular, Hugo's plays, in which he rejected the rules of classical theatre in favour of romantic drama, attracted the interest of many composers who adapted them into operas. More than one hundred operas are based on Hugo's works and among them are Donizetti 's Lucrezia Borgia (1833), Verdi 's Rigoletto (1851) and Ernani (1844), and Ponchielli 's La Gioconda (1876). Hugo's novels, as well as his plays, have been

11790-435: The other, the people." He was one of the earlier supporters of the concept of domaine public payant , under which a nominal fee would be charged for copying or performing works in the public domain, and this would go into a common fund dedicated to helping artists, especially young people. Hugo's religious views changed radically over the course of his life. In his youth and under the influence of his mother, he identified as

11921-477: The popularity of his own work. His last novel, Quatre-vingt-treize ( Ninety-Three ), published in 1874, dealt with a subject that Hugo had previously avoided: the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution . Though Hugo's popularity was on the decline at the time of its publication, many now consider Ninety-Three to be a work on par with Hugo's better-known novels. After three unsuccessful attempts, Hugo

12052-405: The previous success of Les Misérables . Dedicated to the channel island of Guernsey , where Hugo spent 15 years of exile, the novel tells of a man who attempts to win the approval of his beloved's father by rescuing his ship, intentionally marooned by its captain who hopes to escape with a treasure of money it is transporting, through an exhausting battle of human engineering against the force of

12183-529: The primitives of French painting, finding it too academic and not sufficiently filled with anecdote. Napoleon himself did not disdain this artistic current: he took as his emblem the golden beehive on the grave of the Merovingian king Childeric I , rediscovered in the 17th century, and saw himself as the heir of the French monarchy. He also gave official recognition to the Middle Ages in the forms of his coronation, and tried to profit from other trappings of

12314-1875: The revolution, there were 36 généralités , the last two being created in 1784. 1. Généralité of Bordeaux , ( Agen , Guyenne ) 2. Généralité of Provence , or Aix-en-Provence ( Provence ) 3. Généralité of Amiens ( Picardy ) 4. Généralité of Bourges ( Berry ) 5. Généralité of Caen ( Normandy ) 6. Généralité of Châlons ( Champagne ) 7. Généralité of Burgundy , Dijon (Burgundy) 8. Généralité of Grenoble ( Dauphiné ) 9. Généralité of Issoire , later of Riom ( Auvergne ) 10. Généralité of Lyon ( Lyonnais , Beaujolais and Forez ) 11. Généralité of Montpellier ( Languedoc ) 12. Généralité of Paris ( Île-de-France ) 13. Généralité of Poitiers ( Poitou ) 14. Généralité of Rouen ( Normandy ) 15. Généralité of Toulouse ( Languedoc ) 16. Généralité of Tours ( Touraine , Maine and Anjou ) 17. Généralité of Metz ( Trois-Évêchés ) 18. Généralité of Nantes ( Brittany ) 19. Généralité of Limoges (divided in two parts: Angoumois & Limousin – Marche ) 20. Généralité of Orléans ( Orléanais ) 21. Généralité of Moulins ( Bourbonnais ) 22. Généralité of Soissons ( Picardy ) 23. Généralité of Montauban ( Gascony ) 24. Généralité of Alençon ( Perche ) 25. Généralité of Perpignan ( Roussillon ) 26. Généralité of Besançon ( Franche-Comté ) 27. Généralité of Valenciennes ( Hainaut ) 28. Généralité of Strasbourg ( Alsace ) 29. (see 18) 30. Généralité of Lille ( Flanders ) 31. Généralité of La Rochelle ( Aunis and Saintonge ) 32. Généralité of Nancy ( Lorraine ) 33. Généralité of Trévoux ( Dombes ) 34. Généralité of Corsica , or Bastia ( Corsica ) 35. Généralité of Auch ( Gascony ) 36. Généralité of Bayonne ( Labourd ) 37. Généralité of Pau ( Béarn and Soule ) The desire for more efficient tax collection

12445-518: The revolutionaries brought them back to life, it could be said. The Musée des Monuments français (Museum of French Monuments), established in the former convent that would become Paris 's École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts , presented all this glorious debris of the Middle Ages as subjects of admiration for the public and as models of inspiration for students of the departments of engraving, painting and sculpture, but not those of architecture since teaching of this subject had been dissociated from

12576-416: The royal intendant . Taxation districts had gone through a variety of mutations since the 14th century. Before the 14th century, oversight of the collection of royal taxes had fallen generally to the baillis and sénéchaux in their circumscriptions. Reforms in the 14th and the 15th centuries saw France's royal financial administration run by two financial boards, which worked in a collegial manner:

12707-501: The same initial goal of facilitating the introduction of royal power into the newly assimilated territories, but as the parlements gained in self-assurance, they started to become sources of disunity. By the end of 1789 the term Ancien Régime was commonly used in France by journalists and legislators to refer to the institutions of French life before the Revolution. It first appeared in print in English in 1794 (two years after

12838-412: The scaffold." His influence was credited in the removal of the death penalty from the constitutions of Geneva , Portugal , and Colombia . He had also pleaded for Benito Juárez to spare the recently captured emperor Maximilian I of Mexico , but to no avail. Although Napoleon III granted an amnesty to all political exiles in 1859, Hugo declined, as it meant he would have to curtail his criticisms of

12969-474: The sea and an almost mythical beast of the sea, a giant squid. Superficially an adventure, one of Hugo's biographers calls it a "metaphor for the 19th century–technical progress, creative genius and hard work overcoming the immanent evil of the material world." The word used in Guernsey to refer to squid ( pieuvre , also sometimes applied to octopus) was to enter the French language as a result of its use in

13100-463: The system, new divisions were created. The recettes générales , commonly known as généralités , were initially only taxation districts (see "state finances" below). The first 16 were created in 1542 by edict of Henry II . Their role steadily increased, and by the mid-17th century, the généralités were under the authority of an intendant and were a vehicle for the expansion of royal power in matters of justice, taxation and policing. By

13231-477: The tax was generally "personal" and so was attached to non-noble individuals. In the pays d'état ("provinces with provincial estates"), Brittany , Languedoc , Burgundy , Auvergne , Béarn , Dauphiné , Provence and portions of Gascony , such as Bigorre , Comminges and the Quatre-Vallées , recently acquired provinces that had been able to maintain a certain local autonomy in terms of taxation,

13362-470: The term généralité appears only in the late 15th century). The areas were named Languedoïl, Languedoc, Outre-Seine-and-Yonne, and Nomandy (the last was created in 1449, the other three earlier), with the directors of the "Languedoïl" region typically having an honorific preeminence. By 1484, the number of généralités had increased to six. In the 16th century, the kings of France, in an effort to exert more direct control over royal finances and to circumvent

13493-466: The term, and may have led to the naming of the style in art. The Waverley Novels of Walter Scott were hugely popular across Europe, and a major influence on both painting and French novelists such as Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo . In painting, the troubadour style was represented by history painting portraying edifying historical episodes, often borrowing its smoothness, its minute and illusionistic description of detail, its rendering of fabrics,

13624-416: The usefulness of churches) and, published posthumously, The End of Satan and God (1886 and 1891 respectively, in which he represents Christianity as a griffin and rationalism as an angel ). The Hunchback of Notre-Dame also garnered attention due to its portrayal of the abuse of power by the church, even getting listed as one of the "forbidden books" by it. In fact, earlier adaptations had to change

13755-447: The villain, Claude Frollo from being a priest to avoid backlash. Vincent van Gogh ascribed the saying "Religions pass away, but God remains," actually by Jules Michelet , to Hugo. Although Hugo's many talents did not include exceptional musical ability, he nevertheless had a great impact on the music world through the inspiration that his works provided for composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Hugo himself particularly enjoyed

13886-466: The whole of Alsace , but was forced to return Lorraine to its ruler and to give up any gains on the right bank of the Rhine. Also, Louis XIV accepted William III as the rightful King of England, and the Dutch acquired their barrier fortress system in the Spanish Netherlands to help secure their own borders. However, with the ailing and childless Charles II of Spain approaching his end, a new conflict over

14017-641: The writer's house shouting, "Death to Victor Hugo! Hang him! Death to the scoundrel!" Hugo, who said "A war between Europeans is a civil war," was a strong advocate for the creation of the United States of Europe . He expounded his views on the subject in a speech he delivered during the International Peace Congress which took place in Paris in 1849. Here he declared "nations of the continent, will, without losing your distinctive qualities and glorious individuality, be blended into

14148-685: Was a Catholic, and he replied, "No. A Freethinker ." After 1872, Hugo never lost his antipathy towards the Catholic Church. He felt the Church was indifferent to the plight of the working class under the oppression of the monarchy. Perhaps he also was upset by the frequency with which his work appeared on the Church's list of banned books . Hugo counted 740 attacks on Les Misérables in the Catholic press. When Hugo's sons Charles and François-Victor died, he insisted that they be buried without

14279-428: Was a French Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. His most famous works are the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). In France, Hugo is renowned for his poetry collections, such as Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles ( The Legend of

14410-418: Was a committed royalist when young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed, and he became a passionate supporter of republicanism , serving in politics as both deputy and senator. His work touched upon most of the political and social issues and the artistic trends of his time. His opposition to absolutism , and his literary stature, established him as a national hero. Hugo died on 22 May 1885, aged 83. He

14541-676: Was a wood merchant. Léopold enlisted in the army of Revolutionary France at fourteen. He was an atheist and an ardent supporter of the Republic. Hugo's mother Sophie was loyal to the deposed dynasty but would declare her children to be Protestants. They met in Châteaubriant in 1796 and married the following year. Since Hugo's father was an officer in Napoleon's army, the family moved frequently from posting to posting. Léopold Hugo wrote to his son that he had been conceived on one of

14672-574: Was anathema. Furthermore, the prospect of capturing Spanish territories in the New World proved very attractive. France's enemies formed a Grand Alliance, led by the Holy Roman Empire's Leopold I , which included Prussia and most of the other German states, the Dutch Republic, Portugal , Savoy (in Italy ) and England . The opposing alliance was primarily France and Spain but also included

14803-519: Was attracting thousands of tourists who had read the popular novel. Hugo began planning a major novel about social misery and injustice as early as the 1830s, but a full 17 years were needed for Les Misérables to be realised and finally published in 1862. Hugo had previously used the departure of prisoners for the Bagne of Toulon in Le Dernier Jour d'un condamné . He went to Toulon to visit

14934-588: Was called to Spain to fight the Peninsular War . Madame Hugo and her children were sent back to Paris in 1808, where they moved to an old convent, 12 Impasse des Feuillantines , an isolated mansion in a deserted quarter of the left bank of the Seine. Hiding in a chapel at the back of the garden was de La Horie, who had conspired to restore the Bourbons and been condemned to death a few years earlier. He became

15065-469: Was finally elected to the Académie française in 1841, solidifying his position in the world of French arts and letters. A group of French academicians, particularly Étienne de Jouy , were fighting against the "romantic evolution" and had managed to delay Victor Hugo's election. Thereafter, he became increasingly involved in French politics. On the nomination of King Louis-Philippe , Hugo entered

15196-807: Was given a state funeral in the Panthéon of Paris , which was attended by over 2 million people, the largest in French history. Victor-Marie Hugo was born on 26 February 1802 in Besançon in Eastern France. He was the youngest son of Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1774–1828), a general in the Napoleonic army , and Sophie Trébuchet (1772–1821). The couple had two other sons: Abel Joseph (1798–1855) and Eugène (1800–1837). The Hugo family came from Nancy in Lorraine , where Hugo's grandfather

15327-407: Was gone and replaced by a small sickly child, the last Bourbon survivor. This death had the potential to throw France into another round of warfare. Louis XV lived until the 1770s. France's main foreign policy decisionmaker was Cardinal Fleury , who recognised that France's need to rebuild and so pursued a peaceful policy. France had a poorly-designed taxation system in which tax farmers kept much of

15458-1592: Was greatly curtailed. 1. Île-de-France ( Paris ) 2. Berry ( Bourges ) 3. Orléanais ( Orléans ) 4. Normandy ( Rouen ) 5. Languedoc ( Toulouse ) 6. Lyonnais ( Lyon ) 7. Dauphiné ( Grenoble ) 8. Champagne ( Troyes ) 9. Aunis ( La Rochelle ) 10. Saintonge ( Saintes ) 11. Poitou ( Poitiers ) 12. Guyenne and Gascony ( Bordeaux ) 13. Burgundy ( Dijon ) 14. Picardy ( Amiens ) 15. Anjou ( Angers ) 16. Provence ( Aix-en-Provence ) 17. Angoumois ( Angoulême ) 18. Bourbonnais ( Moulins ) 19. Marche ( Guéret ) 20. Brittany ( Rennes , parlement briefly at Nantes ) 21. Maine ( Le Mans ) 22. Touraine ( Tours ) 23. Limousin ( Limoges ) 24. Foix ( Foix ) 25. Auvergne ( Clermont-Ferrand ) 26. Béarn ( Pau ) 27. Alsace ( Strasbourg , cons. souv. in Colmar ) 28. Artois (cons provinc. in Arras ) 29. Roussillon (cons. souv. in Perpignan ) 30. Flanders and Hainaut ( Lille , parliament first in Tournai , then in Douai ) 31. Franche-Comté ( Besançon , formerly at Dole ) 32. Lorraine ( Nancy ) 33. Corsica (off map, Ajaccio , cons. souv. in Bastia ) 34. Nivernais ( Nevers ) 35. Comtat Venaissin ( Avignon ),

15589-535: Was hopeless; it was in America what it had been in Europe. Contact with a wicked man is sometimes enough to rot a good deed and cause something bad to come out of it. With Marius's money, Thénardier became a slave trader. Like most of his contemporaries, Hugo justified colonialism in terms of a civilizing mission and putting an end to the slave trade on the Barbary coast. In a speech delivered on 18 May 1879, during

15720-428: Was in very poor physical and mental health. As King Charles II had no children, the question of who would succeed to the Spanish throne unleashed a major war. The Vienna-based Habsburg family, to which Charles II belonged, proposed its own candidate for the throne. However, the Bourbons, the ruling family of France, instinctively opposed expansions of Habsburg power within Europe and had their own candidate : Philip ,

15851-607: Was incapable of self-modernization". The Nine Years' War (1688–97), between France and a coalition of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic, Spain, England and Savoy, was fought in continental Europe and on the surrounding seas, and in Ireland, North America and India. It was the first truly global war . Louis XIV emerged from the Franco-Dutch War in 1678 as the most powerful monarch in Europe and an absolute ruler with numerous military victories. Using

15982-637: Was launched simultaneously in major cities. Installments of the book sold out within hours and had an enormous impact on French society. The critical establishment was generally hostile to the novel; Taine found it insincere, Barbey d'Aurevilly complained of its vulgarity, Gustave Flaubert found within it "neither truth nor greatness", the Goncourt brothers lambasted its artificiality, and Baudelaire —despite giving favourable reviews in newspapers—castigated it in private as "repulsive and inept". However, Les Misérables proved popular enough with

16113-465: Was on vacation when Les Misérables was published. He queried the reaction to the work by sending a single-character telegram to his publisher, asking ? . The publisher replied with a single ! to indicate its success. Hugo turned away from social/political issues in his next novel, Les Travailleurs de la Mer ( Toilers of the Sea ), published in 1866. The book was well received, perhaps due to

16244-442: Was one of the major causes for French administrative and royal centralisation during the early modern period. The taille became a major source of royal income. Exempted were clergy and nobles (except for non-noble lands held in pays d'état , see below), officers of the crown, military personnel, magistrates, university professors and students, and certain cities ( villes franches ) such as Paris. The provinces were of three sorts,

16375-449: Was only fifteen. Hugo moved in with his mother to 18 rue des Petits-Augustins the following year and began attending law school. Hugo fell in love and secretly became engaged, against his mother's wishes, to his childhood friend Adèle Foucher . In June 1821, Sophie Trebuchet died, and Léopold married his long-time mistress Catherine Thomas a month later. Hugo married Adèle the following year. In 1819, Hugo and his brothers began publishing

16506-422: Was poor. Spain had to import practically all of its weapons and its large army was poorly trained and poorly equipped. Spain had a small navy since seamanship was a low priority for the elites. Local and regional governments and the local nobility, controlled most of the decisionmaking. The central government was quite weak, with a mediocre bureaucracy, and few able leaders. King Charles II reigned 1665 to 1700, but

16637-493: Was published in 1822 when he was only 20 years old and earned him a royal pension from Louis XVIII . Though the poems were admired for their spontaneous fervor and fluency, the collection that followed four years later in 1826 ( Odes et Ballades ) revealed Hugo to be a great poet, a natural master of lyric and creative song. Victor Hugo's first mature work of fiction was published in February 1829 by Charles Gosselin without

16768-488: Was reduced to "eating the unknown". During the Paris Commune —the revolutionary government that took power on 18 March 1871 and was toppled on 28 May—Victor Hugo was harshly critical of the atrocities committed on both sides. On 9 April, he wrote in his diary, "In short, this Commune is as idiotic as the National Assembly is ferocious. From both sides, folly." Yet he made a point of offering his support to members of

16899-471: Was smaller than it is today, and numerous border provinces (such as Roussillon , Cerdagne , Conflent , Vallespir , Capcir , Calais , Béarn , Navarre , County of Foix , Flanders , Artois , Lorraine , Alsace , Trois-Évêchés , Franche-Comté , Savoy , Bresse , Bugey , Gex , Nice , Provence , Dauphiné and Brittany ) were autonomous or belonged to the Holy Roman Empire , the Crown of Aragon or

17030-401: Was the political and social system of the Kingdom of France that the French Revolution overturned through its abolition in 1790 of the feudal system of the French nobility and in 1792 through its execution of the king and declaration of a republic . "Ancien régime" is now a common metaphor for "a system or mode no longer prevailing". The administrative and social structures of

17161-513: Was threatened by an unstable throne, since the Stuart pretenders, long supported by Louis XIV, threatened repeatedly to invade through Ireland or Scotland and had significant internal support from the Tory faction. However, Sir Robert Walpole was the dominant decision-maker from 1722 to 1740, in a role that would later be called prime minister. Walpole strongly rejected militaristic options and promoted

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