Victor Hugo in Europe's best & worst of times

As it is well known, Victor Hugo (1802-1885) authored Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Hugo's childhood was spent in the historic period set in motion by the storming of the Bastille. As Hugo matured, his view changed from being a conservative to progressive. In Les Miserables, the character named Fantine, a loving but pitiable woman who became a prostitute, appeared in Heaven after she died. Les Miserables reflects the French writer's' nuanced understanding of the times and environment in which he grew up, thought and worked. Like Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo had never made any 'prediction' on the exact date and precise time of the end of the world in a 'Rapture'.