Celebrity Graveland

February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885

Most widely known as one of the greatest French writers of all time, Victor Hugo was so much more than a teller of stories. A true Renaissance Man, Hugo was a novelist, of course, but also a poet, a statesman, a dramatist, an activist, an artist…the list is lengthy. The son of a general in the Napoleonic army, Hugo moved around a lot in his youth. The stress of the constant moving led to his parents separating and he and his brother landing in a boarding school in Paris. He wrote from an early age. His first poem was submitted to a competition when he was 15. The words kept coming. In all he published more than 30 novels, 21 collections of poetry, 11 plays and countless essays as well as thousands of drawings.

In 1839, Hugo visited the Bagne of Toulon, an infamous prison. His interest in the conditions and the societal injustice the prisoners experienced – coupled with a documentary short story he had written about a real-life prison a few years earlier – planted the seed for what would become his greatest work: 1862’s Les Misérables. His other novels included classics like Toilers of the Sea and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. The latter of which was written in part to shame the city of Paris into restoring and taking care of the titular cathedral…which was already a popular tourist attraction by that time.

Hugo was an outspoken proponent of republicanism. He was eventually elected to the National Assembly where he was a strong voice for social justice issues and spoke out against capital punishment and slavery. After Napoleon III seized power, Hugo left France and lived in exile for the better part of 2 decades. When he returned, he again was elected to the National Assembly, and then The Senate.

By the time he died at the age of 83, Victor Hugo was considered a national hero in France. His literary reputation was second to none and his very public life in politics cast his celebrity even broader. His death triggered national mourning. He requested on his deathbed to be buried in a pauper’s ceremony. Instead, his funeral was held at the Panthéon – the national temple of France – and over 2 million mourners attended his procession. He was laid to rest in the crypt below the monument.

Burial

The Panthéon – Paris, FRANCE

Specific Location

Crypt XXIV; Victor is interred within the same crypt as Alexandre Dumas and Émile Zola. He is on the left-hand side as you enter.

This entry was posted on July 31, 2023 at 8:06 am and is filed under The Pantheon with tags The Pantheon, Writers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.