Victor Hugo: 2/26/1802

"God is behind everything, but everything hides God," wrote Victor Hugo in his classic Les Miserables, Book 5, Chapter 4.

Born FEBRUARY 26, 1802, Victor Marie Hugo was hailed as the greatest of the Romanticists poets. He is best know for writing Cromwell, 1827, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1831, and Les Miserables, 1862, an epic story of redemption set in Paris during the French Revolution.

Hugo's father was a general in Napoleon's army and Hugo supported his heir, until he turned out to be a tyrant. Hugo opposed him and was forced into exiled for 19 years. Over 3 million people attended Hugo's funeral in Paris.

In his Preface to Cromwell, 1827, Victor Hugo wrote: "Lastly, this threefold poetry flows from three great sources-The Bible, Homer, Shakespeare...The Bible before the Iliad, the Iliad before Shakespeare." Victor Hugo stated: "England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England."

George H.W. Bush stated at the Dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Dallas, Texas, November 11, 1989: "Victor Hugo said 'Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come.' Well, my fellow veterans, the idea is democracy."

American Minute with Bill Federer