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Quatrevingt-Treize

4.06 of 5 stars 4.06 · rating details · 1,033 ratings · 50 reviews

Dans la production littéraire prodigieuse de Victor Hugo, Quatre-vingt-treize est la dernière œuvre de l'exil, une vaste fresque historique publiée en1874, entre la première édition des Châtiments et la dernière série de La Légende des siècles. C'est donc une œuvre de la maturité, celle d'un homme éprouvé, fort de ses combats, de ses engagements, de sa réputation, au somme...more

Paperback, 575 pages

Published May 1st 2001 by Livre de Poche (first published 1874)

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Aug 29, 2008 Monsieurouxx rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: all non-French people

An incredibly realistic Painting of the French Revolution.

Some might say "it's not realistic, it's pure fantasy, it's much too lyric an passionate, and much too orientated in favor of the revolutionnaries" - indeed, it's only a novel, BUT it's realistic because it shows every aspects of this revolution, and that's precisely because it's lyric that you can understand it. A revolution cannot be described by facts, but by presenting the storm, the hates, the men, in one word : by showing that amazi...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Rick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Ninety-Three was the last of Hugo’s novels, published in 1874, when the author was 72, eleven years before his death. The topic, the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, was one that Hugo was said, up to that time, to have avoided in his voluminous writings. A republican and a man of deep compassion, it is easy to guess why he might have avoided the challenge of writing a novel about the bloody birth of the French republic. How to do justice to ideas that gave rise to French democracy but also t...more Ninety-Three was the last of Hugo’s novels, published in 1874, when the author was 72, eleven years before his death. The topic, the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, was one that Hugo was said, up to that time, to have avoided in his voluminous writings. A republican and a man of deep compassion, it is easy to guess why he might have avoided the challenge of writing a novel about the bloody birth of the French republic. How to do justice to ideas that gave rise to French democracy but also to a feeding frenzy of intolerant state murder? Hugo begins his tale with a revolt against the Revolution in the Vendee, an area that is part of the Pays-de-la-Loire region in western France. It led to what Hugo frequently refers to as a civil war, one fought without mercy or quarter by both sides. In terms of sides, Hugo is clearly on the Republican side; in terms of sympathy, he finds it on both sides and, to a degree and prompted by circumstance, even with the most zealous and cold-hearted on either side.

Resisting the Revolution was an alliance of Royalist nobility, Catholic clergy, and local peasants. Hugo’s main characters are the Marquis de Lantenac, the assigned leader of the revolt whose mission is to clear an area of the coast so the British can land an army to aid the rebels, Gauvain, who leads the Republican army in Vendee and is a member of the local nobility, in fact, the nephew of Lantenac, and Cimourdain, a former priest and agent of Committee of Public Safety, sent to Vendee to ensure that Gauvain conducts the war with sufficient revolutionary ruthlessness. Unknown to the Committee, Cimourdain, a man who has switched one unforgiving dogma for another, is the former tutor to Gauvain and considers him a son. Lantenac and Cimourdain are on opposite sides but of similar mindset: cold, ruthless, and extreme. Lantenac is a disguised passenger on a ship when we meet him, an old soldier disguised as a peasant. Through the carelessness of the ship’s gunnery officer a cannon gets free in a stormy sea, nearly sinking the boat and wrecking most of its other cannons, leaving the vessel dangerously vulnerable and at risk of being unable to complete its mission. Complete disaster is avoided through the heroic efforts of the gunnery officer and Lantenac, whose life is saved by the gunnery officer during the event. Afterwards, Lantenac first rewards the gunnery officer for his bravery and then orders him shot for his carelessness. Later he orders a captured troop of Revolutionary soldiers to be executed, including the women with them. Cimourdain is similarly constituted and despite his love for Gauvain is prepared to execute him should he fail in his mission or deviate from the Committee’s draconian edicts.

Hugo, like Dickens, populates his novels with a greatly drawn secondary characters, some real and some fictional. Michelle Flechard is a peasant woman whose husband and father has been killed by “them” and is left with three children and no home or support. Hugo is smart not to identify whether the army that killed Flechard’s family was Royalist or Revolutionary. She is discovered by a revolutionary troop hiding in a thicket and adopted by them. Later she is among those captured by Lantenac and her children taken hostage. Halmalo is a sailor who is given the job of rowing Lantenac from the stricken ship and whose brother Lantenac had rewarded and executed. Tellmarch is a local beggar who successively saves Lantenac and Flechard. Robespierre, Danton, and Marat appear and are presented as giants but unless Hugo is winking to his readers also as woefully human, men of principles corrupted by ego and power. Perhaps they are necessary to History but they are the least admirable characters in the novel.

Hugo writes a brilliant, epigrammatic prose: “I don’t know exactly, people come and go, and things happen, but as for me, I am up among the stars.” “Because I dream, they think I know.” “Broad ideas hated by narrow ideas—this is the very struggle of progress.” “Catastrophes have a gloomy way of settling matters.” “All good luck, even good luck which is terrible, belongs to youth.” Hugo is among the champions of 19th century novelists, less subtle than Tolstoy, but despite his stark contrasts, empathetic and compassionate, committed to the humanity in all, even the blackest of characters in a world of black and white. Lantenac ends up in the hands of Gauvain, which puts him before a three person court commanded by Cimourdain, the guillotine waiting in the wings for the jury’s verdict. As Hugo writes, “For when events, which are changeable, ask us a question, justice, which is immutable, calls upon us to reply.” (less)

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Jul 16, 2012 Ayrinne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dopo I miserabili ho riscoperto un autore che avevo accantonato per varie ragioni... E questo, per ora, è il suo piccolo gioiello. In Novantatrè, Hugo esalta tutto ciò che mi era già piaciuto nei Miserabili e in molte meno pagine ci dà un affresco avvincente, affascinante, di un periodo storico, di un anno, importantissimo per la Francia, l'anno in cui, in un certo senso, la rivoluzione cominciata 6 anni prima si è ripiegata su sè stessa. Questo nella macrovisione, nello specifico, la storia di...more

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May 26, 2012 Stuart rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of Victor Hugo's lesser known works, Ninety-Three has all of the poetry and power a Hugo fan expects but in a more intimate story and setting- over one third of the book (the final and best third) takes place in and around a small country estate and focuses on a handful of characters representing the different political factions at war with one another during the French Revolution- and the innocent bystanders often caught up in the conflict. The opening third of the book takes place on the E...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Aaron Arnold rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, fiction, politics, war, favorites, read-in-2009

I've never read Les Miserables or The Hunchback of Notre Dame (all I've seen are the movies), so I have no idea how this one compares to the others in literary terms. However, this book was fantastic so I might seek out the others soon enough. It's set in the year 1793 (hence the title) during a counter-revolutionary revolt against the new French government, and it focuses on a British attempt to aid the supporters of the monarchy in a remote area of country against the revolutionary government'...more

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Feb 11, 2012 Draken12 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In the end of the French Revolution a young man, a leader of a republican army, is fighting against his granduncle, the leader of the french royalists. The grandnephew has been ordered to (and wishes to, for they both hate each other greatly) catch and kill this old man in order to, once and for all, defeat the royalists and secure a republic ruling. But a wonderfully heroic act is committed and, on one side, hate is turned to something resembling love. Will the young man, having witnessed this...more

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Sep 29, 2010 Todd Wells rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was a little difficult for me to get into because of my intermediate knowledge of the French Revolution. I knew Danton, Robespierre, and Marat; however, I was not aware of the more obscure characters from this time-frame. I think the plot was well constructed, and Hugo did a good job depicting the revolutionaries and the conservatives in an unbiased manner. I wish he would have spent a little more time discussing the Paris Commune and the National Convention and possibly skipped a litt...more

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Nov 29, 2012 Pierre E. Loignon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: litterature, histoire

Voici mon roman favori de Hugo. C’est celui qui m’a fait la plus belle impression, malgré la très vive concurrence que lui font Les Misérables et de Notre-Dame de Paris.
Je suis conscient de la singularité de ma préférence et j’aimerais tenter de vous la faire comprendre.
Tout cela tient à ma perception de Hugo. Pour moi, c’est l’homme magistral des lettres françaises. À mon avis, il a su, mieux que personne, écrire en prenant une perspective à la fois élevée et pleine d’une compréhension généreu...more

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Aug 28, 2012 Ian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I read this one after Les Miserables and while nothing can really compare to that I was still not at all disappointed. Ninety-Three was incredible, from the detailed accounts of various historical aspects of the Revolution to the fictional stories Hugo interwove into these events. I'd suggest reading up a bit on one's French Revolutionary history before, just as a foundation for the story - Hugo gets pretty carried away with historical detail sometimes, as anyone who has read Les Miserables can'...more

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Jun 18, 2009 Guillaume rated it 5 of 5 stars

"Que dire de ce livre? Pour résumer, ce roman a été écrit par Victor Hugo.
On y retrouve de grandes idées hugoliennes: le rôle de la Révolution française, la morale et la politique vues au XIXème siécle.
Cet écrivain, et ses oeuv...more Que dire de ce livre? Pour résumer, ce roman a été écrit par Victor Hugo.
On y retrouve de grandes idées hugoliennes: le rôle de la Révolution française, la morale et la politique vues au XIXème siécle.
Cet écrivain, et ses oeuvres, ont traversé les époques grâce...more

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Dec 22, 2009 Charlotte rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned, historical-fiction

The psychology in this book makes it worth the read. People simply don't write like this any more. Hugo takes us through the minds of the several characters with depth and a beauty of words that make classic authors so great. What keeps this from being perhaps one of his better known novels is that it is very contemporary to its time; if you are unfamiliar with the many referenced characters, you will easily become lost or bored. If you can focus on the beauty of the characters' development, and...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Anna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I must start by stating the obvious: Hugo's writing is sublime. He rises to the same rhetorical heights in 'Ninety-Three' as in 'Les Misérables'. His preoccupations remain liberty, personal conscience, justice, and duty. His fondness for two main characters that exemplify two sides of the same coin also persists, although in 'Ninety-Three' a level of complexity is added. Gauvain is placed in opposition on two levels; one with his great uncle Lantenac (a monarchist) and one with his tutor, friend...more I must start by stating the obvious: Hugo's writing is sublime. He rises to the same rhetorical heights in 'Ninety-Three' as in 'Les Misérables'. His preoccupations remain liberty, personal conscience, justice, and duty. His fondness for two main characters that exemplify two sides of the same coin also persists, although in 'Ninety-Three' a level of complexity is added. Gauvain is placed in opposition on two levels; one with his great uncle Lantenac (a monarchist) and one with his tutor, friend, and colleague Cimourdain (a more absolute revolutionary than he). I found these tensions very powerful, as Gauvain played out dilemmas similar to those of Valjean in Les Mis. The validity of a single injustice placed against the greater good seems to be a major theme with Hugo, as he appears very sceptical of utilitarianism. In the context of 1793, the Vendéean uprising, and the civil war such moral dilemmas abound.

The novel is largely concerned with the Vendée and very little of it takes place in Paris. Only one scene gives us a glimpse of the figures ruling at the time; an argument occurs between Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. This degenerates into threats to one another, as each of them has a different view of which threat to the revolution should be the priority. The National Convention is also described in detail, both in terms of its architecture and in a blizzard of names. This creates considerable atmosphere. It is the woods and the mediaeval tower of La Tourgue that dominate the action, however.

What most surprised me about this novel is that it isn't really about the events of the French Revolution as such. Considering I've read Les Mis, this should not have been so surprising. Hugo uses the setting of civil war to play out conflicts on a personal level. He tends to describe abstractions in giddily epic terms, then swoop right down to a single character, personifying the concept. The civil war of rural Brittany versus Paris is personified in Lantenac versus Gauvain. It is repeatedly stated that without Lantenac the Vendée is lost, reinforcing the tension as he escapes death at the last minute by capricious fate. Then latterly the conflict between Terror and moderation within the revolution takes on the face of Cimourdain versus Gauvain. In both cases, the two figures in opposition are bound by strong links. Although in historical terms, Hugo concentrates on personality without considering the wider social trends at work (something he is much less inclined to do in Les Mis), this makes for a very appealing narrative. After all, Hugo is not writing to analyse, he is writing to inspire.

I'm also inclined to compare 'Ninety-Three' to other novels of the French Revolution. It is a great deal more epic and idealistic than 'The Gods will have Blood', but has interesting similarities concerning the momentum of revolutionary justice. Like 'The Glassblowers', this novel concentrates on the countryside during the revolution, but whilst 'The Glassblowers' concentrated on a single family at the sidelines of events, Hugo prefers to follow those actually fighting the civil war.

Although I enjoyed 'Ninety-Three' less than 'Les Mis', I remain in awe of Hugo's brilliant juxtapositions. I was shocked and moved by 'Ninety-Three', albeit not verklempt. (Gauvain may be a classically beautiful and abstemious young hero combining high ideals with human compassion, but he isn't quite an Enjolras. Not doomed enough, possibly? Insufficiently blonde?) As in 'Les Mis', Hugo uses the plight of children caught up in terrible events with great effect. As in 'Les Mis', the main characters are bedecked with classical illusions (we have another Orestes and Pylades, for instance). As in 'Les Mis', lengthy descriptions of places build up tension and anticipation of battles to come. The destructiveness and savagery of the civil war are vividly depicted. Basically, I really like Hugo's style. (less)

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May 13, 2012 Teresa Esteban rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics-challenge, french-lit, favourite-books, historical-fiction

4,5
This book is just amazing, especially for me as I love everything concerning the French Revolution.
This book is set in the year 1793, a very special one for the revolution, as it is the end of the period called the Terror. Actually, Hugo planned to write a trilogy and do two more "years" but unfortunately he wasn't able to.
Anyway, the book follows many characters: Lantenac, a marquis that leads the revolt against the revolution (the Vendée), Gauvain, a young captain who leads the army agains...more 4,5
This book is just amazing, especially for me as I love everything concerning the French Revolution.
This book is set in the year 1793, a very special one for the revolution, as it is the end of the period called the Terror. Actually, Hugo planned to write a trilogy and do two more "years" but unfortunately he wasn't able to.
Anyway, the book follows many characters: Lantenac, a marquis that leads the revolt against the revolution (the Vendée), Gauvain, a young captain who leads the army against Lantenac, Cimourdain, an ancient priest who is now at the service of the Republic and of the Comité de Santé Publique, and a mother who looks for her children.
Through these different points of view we are able to see all the aspects of the young Republic, from the grandeur of the Convention to the misery and the sufferance of the people, and the crimes committed. For this, the first "scene" is just astounding, so powerful... Hugo manages very well the art of the dialogue – having also written many dramas – and some of them I would like to remember them forever. Indeed, the discussions between the opposites, not only the republican against the monarchist but also the ideal in front of the practical, and the different visions of what the revolution must be and become. For this there is an incredible episode in the novel where Hugo creates a meeting between Robespierre, Danton and Marat, which is truly breathtaking and it doesn't matter whether you know who they were or not.
And it's so beautifully written and it's so... inspiring. It is true that Hugo tries (and succeeds) to be unbiased towards the Revolution – and also towards the Terror, which is so often demonized –, and nevertheless he conveys the passion for its ideals. Indeed, in some way, it is really gripping to read the speeches written about it.
But this is not an essay, what I've been writing here is only what I've "extracted" from dialogues and description and the action. Because Hugo is not a Realist or a Naturalist, he's a Romantic but also a wonderful story-teller. (less)

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Sep 15, 2011 Nemo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book reminds me of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Iliad and The Last Days of Socrates. There're memorable adventures and battles at sea, a ferocious siege that leads to a battle to the death, and finally, in the face of death, a contemplation of meaning, duty, freedom and destiny. Echoes of these contemplations are found in Tolstoy's War and Peace, especially the Epilogue.

Introduction

If you've read Les Miserables, you would notice a year mentioned throughout the book (although i...more This book reminds me of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Iliad and The Last Days of Socrates. There're memorable adventures and battles at sea, a ferocious siege that leads to a battle to the death, and finally, in the face of death, a contemplation of meaning, duty, freedom and destiny. Echoes of these contemplations are found in Tolstoy's War and Peace, especially the Epilogue.

Introduction

If you've read Les Miserables, you would notice a year mentioned throughout the book (although in the background), 93. It was the year of Terror during the French Revolution, when "many times freshly severed heads, borne aloft on the tops of pikes, sprinkled their blood-drops" over the table of the Assembly. It's also the central point of a debate between the bishop and the conventionist: Is bloodshed inevitable in social progress?

Reading this book is like being transported in a time machine to 18th century France during the French Revolution. First on board a battleship in the midst of a raging sea, watching a bizarre yet deadly battle between the sailors and an inanimate but powerful enemy; then to Paris,and the Assembly hall of the Convention, the Olympus, witnessing the intense struggles among powerful personalities, Danton, Robespierre and Marat, the leaders of the Revolution, where orders are issued on which lives of thousands are decided; and finally, to the final battleground, where heroes are destroyed but also born, where battles of the tongue are no less fierce than those of the cannon, but much more hilarious.

How the Heroes are Born

When I read Iliad, I couldn't help but felt depressed by a sense of fatality. Why did the Greeks and the Trojans have to kill or be killed? Both sides wanted peace and attempted a truce but the gods intervened, and the heroes fought to the death. Despite the best efforts of all reasonable and intelligent people, World War II broke out, no less inexorably than the Trojan War. Why all the senseless deaths?

Hugo contemplated these questions in the wake of the French Revolution, and in this book, he re-wrote the ending of Iliad, so to speak. There're a few unexpected turns, i.e., the offspring of free will and choice. It's no less tragic and heroic, but more than that, there're also freedom, joy and hope. Despite the apparent inevitability of events, each hero/person has to make his own choice according to his conscience, and in doing so he attains to freedom, dignity and mastery of his destiny.
(less)

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Jul 14, 2012 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Lisa (Harmonybites) by: Ayn Rand

Shelves: classics, historical-fiction, fiction, novels

I got about half-way through this book set during the Reign of Terror before giving up and admitting this is not a book that in any way clicks with me. Indeed, reading this book made me decide I won't read Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I did get through his Les Miserables, with mixed feelings. I feel that Ninety-Three has some of its worst qualities, without its virtues.

I remember Jean Valjean as the best of Les Miserables--the reason to read it. He's a character with a fascinating redempt...more I got about half-way through this book set during the Reign of Terror before giving up and admitting this is not a book that in any way clicks with me. Indeed, reading this book made me decide I won't read Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I did get through his Les Miserables, with mixed feelings. I feel that Ninety-Three has some of its worst qualities, without its virtues.

I remember Jean Valjean as the best of Les Miserables--the reason to read it. He's a character with a fascinating redemptive arc. And Javert is a chilling adversary with an interesting side to him in his devotion to justice, however rigid. The two "heroes" of Ninety-Three at the half-mark on the other hand, Marquis de Lantenac and Cimourdain, leave me cold--both are rigid, fanatical, pitiless. It's as if we had Javert in conflict with Javert.

But more than that, my problem with Hugo is that he's the very epitome of tell, not show. Prolix, bombastic, Hugo will never give you one telling detail where pages can do. Let me give you one sentence about a canon that breaks from its moorings from the section, "Tormentum Belli:"

That mass speeds on its wheels, tilts when the ship rolls, plunges when it pitches, goes, comes, stops, seems to meditate, resumes its swift movement, goes from one end of the ship to the other with the speed of an arrow, spins around, slips to one side, dashes away, rears up, spins around, slips to one side, dashes away, rears up, collides, smashes, kills, exterminates.

It then goes on with this description for 41 lines. That's a smattering of his style. I was done in by "The Convention" chapter--by comparison, the inexorable chapter about the Parisian sewers in Les Miserables seems a lesser sin.

To be clear, this isn't the reaction of someone who despises the classics or 19th century literature. Books by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, E.M. Forster and other classics have secure places on my bookshelves. But Ninety-Three is going into my try-to-sell-to-the-Used-Bookstore box.(less)

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Feb 25, 2009 pony rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: teachery-lit-in-translation, traddutore-traductore

This is a special book.
Although the first sentence alone should have served as a warning, I continued to read in the hopes that I could use this translation for a literature in translation class. It contains one of the worst translated paragraphs I've ever read:

"But all human beings had disappeared. Where were they. Very far off, perhaps; perhaps quite near, hidden, blunderbuss in hand. The wood seemed deserted. Solitude-- hence distrust. They saw no one; so much the more reason for fearing some

...more

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May 24, 2010 Peter Namtvedt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: every lover of great literature

Recommended to Peter by: Ayn Rand

A new 2008 translation by James Hogarth, not listed among the 23 editions here and at Amazon.

The setting is the year ’93, the year of terror, a time of revolution and civil war. The place is France, no longer a monarchy, but with royalists struggling to reestablish the kingdom. The main characters are the Marquis de Lantenac, who is looking to get England to help, Cimourdain, a republican ex-priest and his favorite former pupil, Gauvain, who is also a republican but as an adult holds a different...more

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Jan 07, 2009 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 19th-cent-lit, frenchrev

I cannot believe I originally gave this book three out of five stars. What a humbug!! I have just listened to the audiobook again, and now starting it all over again....and I'm totally enthralled by it. I think I had expected something different from the outset. As rambling as Les Mis is in passages, yet there will never be another character such as Jean Valjean, and I think I was expecting it ~ but '93 is different, and rightly so. On first reading, certain passages (the ~ literally ~ loose can...more

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Aug 07, 2011 Cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2005

The Battle With The Cannon was my favorite. What an incredible story teller. I found the consequences of the gunman's actions both disturbing and interesting at the same time. as if Hugo was saying, "good for you, you fixed the problem, here's a medal, but your punishment is death, so the medal is mute". It made me think... "What good is it to right one mistake, when our whole life is full of sin? None at all. The only thing that could have saved him was grace.

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Jul 29, 2011 Mathieu rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Un roman pseudo-historique qui sert surtout de prétexte à Victor Hugo pour peindre des figures grandioses et superbes comme il sait si bien le faire.

La lutte entre royalistes et républicains est transcendée par l'opposition entre le vieux maître et le jeune élève, chacun à la tête d'un des camps.

Si la plume est toujours belle, il y a cependant des longueurs, pour ne pas dire des lourdeurs. Tout le passage sur l'assemblée nationale (outre qu'il est assez peu important pour l'intrigue principale),...more

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May 19, 2009 Linda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the best translation (according to an academic friend who has researched it) and this is an incredible book. I am only on the 4th chapter and already I have had at least 5 instances where I have been struck by how perfectly worded a sentence is, or a description is, and I have to stop and read it again. Historical fiction, French Revolution, and already I have encountered a mother's love, pirates, intrigue, deceit and trickery. I am loving it.
update: I finished it. I completely enjoyed...more

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Jul 19, 2010 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Victor Hugo's last novel, set in the French Revolution. Unless you are extremely interested in French history and geography, there are large parts of the book you can skim. But the book includes themes of justice vs. mercy, the individual vs. society, and Hugo's utopian ideal (expressed through the hero, Gauvain).

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Jan 16, 2009 James rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: study-group, fiction, french-lit

Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo is a glorious romantic imagining of an episode from the year 1793, during the French Revolution and the year of the Great Terror. The setting is Brittany where counter-revolutionary forces have risen up to oppose the Revolutionary leaders. The leader of this group, the aged Marquise de Lantenac, is a romantic hero in the grandest sense. His fate is seems to be determined, however the Revolutionary forces are led by his grand-nephew, Gauvain, who at the last provides t...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Iriza Medina marked it as to-read · review of another edition

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm i hate it its so bad

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Nov 12, 2010 David-alexandre rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I just start the book, but, for now, one of my great books. It's about la Révolution Française and it's a part of the history I realy love. It's less good than Les Misérables, but it still one my my favorite books.
Je viens tout juste de commencer ce livre dans le cadre de mon cours de Littérature et, pour l'instant, c'est l'un de mes livres favoris. C'est un livre sur trame de Révolution Française, qui est une période qui me passione. C,est moins bon que les Misérables, tout en étant excellent.

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Sep 10, 2012 Yves rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: xixe-siècle, france

Ce roman est une très belle oeuvre de Victor Hugo. Deux forces s'opposent, les royaliste menés pas Le Marquis de Lantenac et les républicains menés par Gauvain, son petit-neveu. Le point culminant de ce livre est la bataille de la Tourgue.

Victor Hugo explore ici tous les points de vue possible. Il parle autant des crimes des monarchistes que ceux des républicains. Il parle même de l'opposition qu'il peut y avoir entre les républicains eux-même. Le meilleur exemple serait le dialogue final entre...more

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Sep 27, 2012 Jan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is one of my favorite books.It tells about man's courage, nobility, honor and devotion. Book really impressed me.
I advise everyone to read it. You will not regret it.

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Jun 17, 2012 Gus Garcia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

Good book for learning about a part of the French Revolution. You can compare the what happened in France and United States. Two different roads.

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Feb 16, 2009 Katrina Mae marked it as to-read · review of another edition

I've been searching for this book for months, and I still can't find a single copy in the entire freakin' library system!

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May 23, 2012 K. marked it as to-read · review of another edition

I need much, much more cultural literacy to understand all of Hugo's references. This is not light reading and I've shelved it to a more convenient season (hmmm, when will that be?)

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