Hugo, Victor

The French author Victor Hugo (Victor-Marie Hugo) was born in Besançon. His father was of one of Napoleon's generals. As a small child the family moved from one garrison town to the next in Spain and Italy. His parents separated when he was seven years old, and he was brought up by his royalist mother who gave him a conservative, Catholic upbringing. Hugo began to write poetry when he was very young, and when he was fourteen Hugo knew he wanted to be a poet. He published a small collection of Romantic poems, Odes et poésies diverses, in 1822.