Les Miserables

Les Misérables is set in France between 1815 and 1832, with its climax taking place during the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris. This was an important period for France, and Hugo’s frequent asides commenting on the era’s political and social dynamics are an acknowledgement of how much this context matters to the novel.

The fraught politics of this age were rooted in the French Revolution beginning in 1789, which led to the abolition of the monarchy and the execution of King Louis XVI. In place of the monarchy, the French formed a Republic in 1792, though the new government struggled to cope with the food shortages and riots that continued to plague the French people. Politically, these early years of the Republic were chaotic and deadly, as the left-leaning Jacobin Club and its allies murdered tens of thousands of perceived enemies to the Republic. Dubbed the Reign of Terror, this period came to an end in 1794, when more conservative factions violently suppressed the Jacobins and other groups associated with the Left. The years between 1795 and 1799, though somewhat stable relative to previous years, were wracked by economic turmoil including hyperinflation, leading to a military coup that installed Napoleon as France’s head of state. By 1804, the Republic had given way to a military dictatorship, as Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor of the French, thus ending the Revolutionary era.

1815, the first year Les Misérables takes place, was arguably the most transformative year in French history since 1789. In June 1815, the Battle of Waterloo capped off over a decade of fighting between Napoleon’s French Empire and a British-led coalition of other European powers. The battle was a decisive defeat for Napoleon, leading to the permanent dissolution of the dictator’s French Empire and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, led by Louis XVI’s brothers Louis XVIII and Charles X. Although this marked a return to the monarchy that the Revolutionaries fought so hard to abolish, many social and economic reforms ushered in by the Revolution remained. Moreover, the Restoration was a constitutional monarchy, meaning that the king’s powers were not unlimited as they were under the Old Regime prior to 1789.

For roughly the next two decades, France enjoyed relative peace and prosperity despite the retrenchment of many of the old power structures. However, severe economic downturns beginning around 1827 led to widespread dissatisfaction with the reign of Charles X. This unrest culminated in the 1830 July Revolution, which led to the overthrow of Charles X and the ascent of Louis Philippe I, Charles’s cousin.

To many French people, the July Revolution, though successful, amounted to trading one constitutional monarchy in for another, and revolutionaries and other supporters of republican government remained deeply dissatisfied with the result. What’s more, two separate coalitions—one loyal to the Bourbon monarchy, and the other loyal to Napoleon’s descendants—shared the revolutionaries’ deep antipathy toward Louis Philippe, albeit for different reasons. Meanwhile, the economic problems of the past few years persisted, and by 1832 this widespread discontent was exacerbated by a devastating cholera outbreak. Throughout the book, Hugo depicts the profound human cost of these national crises, which inevitably fell on the poorest and most desperate segments of society.

All of these factors were catalysts for the June Revolution of 1932, the setting of the climax of Les Misérables. During the uprising, some 3,000 workers, youths, and international refugees took to the streets of Paris, building barricades and seizing control of much of the city. However, unlike during the July Revolution, the most committed insurgents were not joined by more moderate Parisians, who despite their dissatisfaction with the new regime had perhaps tired of revolution. In less than a week, the revolutionaries were put down by 60,000 army and Paris National Guard troops.

France would not adopt a republican form of government again until 1848. That republic was short-lived, falling in 1851 to the proto-fascist rule of Napoleon’s nephew, Napoleon III. Only in 1870 would France adopt a stable republic that would last until the Fall of France to the Nazis in 1940.