General Lamarque, whose death sparks the action from the student revolutionaries which forms much of the novel’s final three volumes, was very much a real-life figure.Ī distinguished French commander during the Napoleonic Wars, in his later life he became an outspoken critic of the monarchy whose relative sympathy towards commoners made him a popular figure. So readers are treated to lengthy, in-depth digressions on everything from religious orders of the period to the construction of the Parisian sewer system.īeyond this attention to background historical detail, there are more explicit references to real-life events in the plot of Les Miserables. Indeed, much of Hugo’s five-volume book, which spans around 1,500 pages in the English translation, uses the author’s meticulous research explicitly, without providing any advancement of the main story. However, while the individual characters are not directly historical figures, the novel’s broader setting has solid basis in fact. Author Victor Hugo’s real-life experiences inspired many of the novel’s events (Getty Images) Lamarque and the June Rebellion These include the author witnessing a police officer apprehending a man who had stolen a loaf of bread in 1829, and Hugo apparently saving a prostitute from arrest for assault in 1841. More loosely, significant moments in the story are thought to be based on Hugo’s own experiences.

Victor hugo's miserables