"He set out for Toulon. He arrived there, after a journey of twenty-seven days, on a cart, with a chain on his neck. At Toulon he was clothed in the red cassock. All that had constituted his life, even to his name, was effaced; he was no longer even Jean Valjean; he was number 24,601."
Victor Hugo was a French novelist, poet, and dramatist and a central figure of French Romanticism. He is best known for Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. His work combined literary innovation with strong social and political engagement.