Victor Hugo's Tomb

This room holds the tombs of three writers who made their names in 19th-century France. Victor Hugo and Émile Zola lie on either side, with Alexandre Dumas straight ahead. Hugo and Zola were novelists who, after the turmoil of the Revolutionary era, wrote about the brutal lives of the lower classes, while Dumas wrote a work that stands among the great French historical novels. The three now lie together, but two of them didn't get along: Hugo and Zola, whose tombs face each other. When Hugo was laid to rest in the Panthéon, he ended up facing Zola, a man he had so little love for.

Of the three, Victor Hugo is the name you know best. What comes to mind is Les Misérables, familiar from films and the musical. The novel is as thick as a brick, yet it is said to be the most-read book in France after the Bible. Even if you've never read it or seen the film or stage show, you've probably heard the story of Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread.

The story is set in revolutionary France, from the 1780s to the 1830s. Hugo set out to write about the poor and suffering in that chaotic era, and gave the book a French title meaning "The Wretched." Jean Valjean, desperately poor, steals a piece of bread for his fatherless nephews and is arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. He keeps trying to escape and getting caught, and his sentence stretches from five years to nineteen. Only after nineteen years behind bars does he walk free. After his release, the story follows him through the July Revolution of 1830, mentioned earlier, as he meets people from every walk of life. One of them is Fantine, an orphan who worked in a factory from the age of ten and became an unwed mother. In the film, Anne Hathaway played Fantine and Hugh Jackman played Jean Valjean.

So what did Hugo want to say through Les Misérables? He always said, "Art is made for the people, and everything comes from God and goes to the people." He wanted to put the lives of ordinary people into literature and expose the problems of French society.