I must be going through a bit of a phase with french novelists because today’s quote comes from another one – Monsieur Victor Hugo (1802-1885); a poet, novelist and dramatist considered one of the greatest and best-known French writers ever. He is perhaps best known for his novels Les Misérables, Toilers of the Sea, and Notre-Dame de Paris, known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. (What hump?)

Victor was very involved in politics and elected to the Parliament in 1848. When Louis Napoleon seized power in 1851, Hugo openly called him a bunch of names and a traitor to France. And then he bravely ran away very quickly to live in exile, eventually winding up on the beautiful island of Guernsey, where he lived for fifteen years with his wife, five children, and secretary/mistress in a large house with panoramic views of the sea. I guess if you’re forced to live in exile, that’s the way to do it – except, of course, for the mistress part. (Naughty boy.)

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