Victor Hugo
1802 – 1885 French novelist, poet
France's national writer, author of Les Miserables.
- Religion
- Raised Catholic, he became a freethinking deist and spiritualist who believed in God but rejected the church.
- Affiliations
- Member of the French Academy; senator. No secret society, though he was sympathetic to its ideals.
Hugo wrote Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, novels of vast scope and deep social conscience. A leader of French Romanticism, he championed the poor and opposed tyranny, spending years in political exile. He became a symbol of the republic and human dignity.