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Victor Hugo's powerful, poignant last words

His virtue rings through time

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The Independent Culture
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Victor Hugo by Étienne Carjat, 1876

The 155th anniversary of the publication of the final chapter of Les Miserables was marked by Google today with a Doodle of author Victor Hugo.

The Frenchman was a poet, artist and novelist by the age of 30 and also contributed The Hunchback of Notre-Dame to the literary canon, but he is remembered as a politician or even a saint as much as he is a man of words.

He was a fierce human rights activist and, after being elected to France's National Assembly in 1848, dissented from conservatives and called for universal suffrage, free education for all children, and an end to poverty.

He became such an icon and champion of the poor in France that on his 80th birthday on 27 June, 1881 paraders marched past his house, where he was sat at a window, for six hours.

Google Doodles

Google Doodles

  • 1/59 Eiko Ishioka

    Google Doodle celebrating Eiko Ishioka

    Google

  • 2/59 Eva Ekeblad

    Google Doodle celebrating Eva Ekeblad

    Google

  • 3/59 Fourth of July

    Google Doodle celebrating Fourth of July

    Google

  • 4/59 Wimbledon Championship

    Google Doodle celebrating Wimbledon

    Google

  • 5/59 Victor Hugo

    Google Doodle celebrating Victor Hugo

    Google

  • 6/59 Google Doodle celebrating Oskar Fischinger

    Google Doodle celebrating Oskar Fischinger

    Google

  • 7/59 UK General Election 2017

    Google celebrates the UK General Election

    Google

  • 8/59 Zaha Hadid

    Google celebrates the acclaimed architect for becoming the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize on this day in 2004

    Google

  • 9/59 Richard Oakes

    Google Doodle celebrating Richard Oakes' 75 birthday

    Google

  • 10/59 Google Doodle celebrating the Antikythera Mechanism

    Google Doodle celebrating the Antikythera Mechanism

    Google

  • 11/59 Ferdinand Monoyer

    The famous French ophthalmologist, who invented the eye test, would have celebrated his 181st birthday today

    Google

  • 12/59 Google Doodle celebrating Giro d'Italia's 100th Anniversary

    Google Doodle celebrating Giro d'Italia's 100th Anniversary

    Google

  • 13/59 Google Doodle celebrating Nasa's Cassini probe

    Google Doodle celebrating Nasa's Cassini probe

    Google

  • 14/59 Google Doodle celebrating Fazlur Rahman Khan

    Google Doodle celebrating Fazlur Rahman Khan

    Google

  • 15/59 Google Doodle celebrating Sergei Diaghilev

    Google Doodle celebrating Sergei Diaghilev

    Google

  • 16/59 Google Doodle celebrating St. Patrick's Day

    Google Doodle celebrating St. Patrick's Day

    Google

  • 17/59 Google Doodle celebrating Holi Festival

    Google Doodle celebrating Holi Festival

    Google

  • 18/59 Google Doodle celebrating St. David's Day

    Google Doodle celebrating St. David's Day

    Google

  • 19/59 Abdul Sattar Edhi

    Google Doodle of Abdul Sattar Edhi on February 28 2017

    Google

  • 20/59 Seven earth-sized exoplanets discovered

    Google Doodle celebrates Nasa's discovery of seven earth-sized exoplanets in new solar system

    Google

  • 21/59 Bessie Coleman

    Google Doodle honours the first African American woman to get an international pilot licence on her 125th birthday

    Google

  • 22/59 Caroling

    Google Doodle celebrates Christmas caroling

    Google

  • 23/59

    Today's Google Doodle features activist Steve Biko

    Google

  • 24/59 Walter Cronkite

    Google celebrates Walter Cronkite's 100th birthday

  • 25/59 Ladislao José Biro

    Google celebrates Ladislao José Biro 117th birthday

  • 26/59 Google

    Google celebrates its 18th birthday

  • 27/59 The history of tea in Britain

    Google celebrates the 385th anniversary of tea in the UK

  • 28/59 Autumnal equinox 2016

    Google marks the start of fall

  • 29/59 Paralympics 2016

    Google marks the start of the Paralympic Games 2016

  • 30/59 Nettie Stevens

    Google celebrates Nettie Stevens 155th birthday

  • 31/59 Father's Day 2016

    Google celebrates Father's Day

  • 32/59 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

    Google celebrates Elizabeth Garrett Anderson 180th birthday

  • 33/59 Earth Day 2016

    Google celebrates Earth Day

  • 34/59 Ravi Shankar

    Google marks Pandit Ravi Shankar's 96th birthday

  • 35/59 Olympic Games in 1896

    Google are celebrates the 120th anniversary of the modern Olympic Games in 1896

  • 36/59 World Twenty20 final

    Google celebrates the 2016 World Twenty20 cricket final between the West Indies and England with a doodle

    Google

  • 37/59 William Morris

    Google celebrates William Morris' 182 birthday with a doodle showcasing his most famous designs

    Google

  • 38/59 St Patrick's Day 2016

    Googlle celebrates St Patrick's Day on 17 March

  • 39/59 Caroline Herschel

    Google marks Caroline Herschel's 266th birthday

    Google

  • 40/59 Clara Rockmore

    Google celebrates Clara Rockmore's 105th birthday

  • 41/59 International Women's Day 2016

    #OneDayIWill video marks International Woman's Day on 8 March

  • 42/59 St David's Day 2016

    Google marks St David's Day

    Google

  • 43/59 Leap Year 2016

    Google celebrates Leap Day on 28 February 2

    Google

  • 44/59 Lantern Festival 2016

    Google celebrates the last day of the Chinese New Year celebrations with a doodle of the Lantern Festival

    Google

  • 45/59 Stethoscope Inventor, René Laennec

    Google celebrate's René Laennec's 235th birthday

  • 46/59 Valentine's Day 2016

    Google celebrates Valentine's Day with a romantic Doodle

  • 47/59 Dmitri Mendeleev

    Google celebrate Dmitri Mendeleev's 182nd birthday

  • 48/59 "The televisor" demonstartion

    Google Doodle celebrates 90 years since the first demonstration of television or "the televisor" to the public

  • 49/59 Professor Scoville

    Google marks Professor Scoville’s 151st birthday

  • 50/59 Sophie Taeuber-Arp

    Google marks Sophie Taeuber-Arp's 127th birthday

  • 51/59 Charles Perrault

    Google celebrates author Charles Perrault's 388th birthday

  • 52/59 Mountain of Butterflies discovery

    Google celebrates the 41st anniversary of the discovery of the Mountain of Butterflies

  • 53/59 Winter Solstice 2015

    Google celebrate the Winter Solstice

  • 54/59 St Andrew's Day 2015

    Google marks St Andrew's Day with doodle featuring Scotland's flag and Loch Ness monster

  • 55/59 41st anniversary of the discovery of 'Lucy'

    Google marks the 41st anniversary of the discovery of 'Lucy', the name given to a collection of fossilised bones that once made up the skeleton of a hominid from the Australopithecus afarensis species, who lived in Ethiopia 3.2 million years ago

  • 56/59 George Boole

    Google marks George Boole's 200th birthday

  • 57/59 Halloween 2015

    Google celebrates Halloween using an interactive doodle game "Global Candy Cup"

  • 58/59 Prague Astronomical Clock

    Google celebrates the 605th anniversary of the Prague Astronomical Clock, one of the oldest functioning timepieces in the world

  • 59/59 Autumnal Equinox 2015

    Google marks the autumnal equinox on 23 September

  • Read more

Why Les Misérables and Victor Hugo still matter

Avenue d'Eylau on which Hugo lived was the next day changed to Avenue Victor-Hugo, and the story goes that all future letters sent to the author were addressed: "To Mister Victor, In his avenue, Paris".

Hugo would only live four more years but was an activist to the end, requesting a pauper's funeral (though he was awarded a state funeral by decree of President Jules Grévy) and saying in his five-line will: "I leave 50,000 francs to the poor. I want to be buried in their hearse. I refuse [funeral] orations of all churches. I beg a prayer to all souls. I believe in God."

His belief in the necessity of turning one's empathy with fellow man into real change was most succinctly put in his last words however, written as a note two days before his death from pneumonia:

"To love is to act."

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