French Third Republic

The French Third Republic is the republican regime proclaimed on 4 September 1870, following the Franco-Prussian War and the fall of the Second Empire. In the book’s historical frame, it belongs to the later political history surrounding Victor Hugo, rather than to the principal events in the lives of Jean Valjean and the other characters: the novel’s episodes include Jean Valjean’s conviction in 1795 and the June 1832 uprising in Paris, decades before the Republic’s establishment.

Establishment and Political Context

The chronology places the Republic’s proclamation amid a decisive change of regime. The Franco-Prussian War and the collapse of the Second Empire are associated with 1870; on 4 September, the Third Republic was proclaimed. The following year, the Paris Commune insurrection became another major rupture in the country’s political history. The sequence situates the new Republic in a period of upheaval, rather than presenting its establishment as an isolated constitutional date.

Hugo and the Republic

The Republic’s early years coincide with Hugo’s return from exile. After the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, he could return to France. He was elected deputy in 1871 and senator in 1875, and came to be regarded as a defender of republican values and institutions. His public position therefore appears in the account as a historical change: the writer who had opposed an increasingly personal imperial government became a prominent advocate of republican institutions.

Later Commemoration and Narrative Time

Hugo’s death in 1885 and the national funeral organized in his honor extend the chronology beyond the Republic’s founding. His coffin was carried from the Arc de Triomphe to the Panthéon, linking his public legacy to national commemoration. These later dates frame the political and biographical history around the novel, while the central fictional episodes remain set earlier: Jean Valjean’s bread theft and conviction belong to 1795, and the uprising in which Marius’s companions take part occurs in 1832. The Third Republic thus provides a retrospective historical horizon for the book, not the political setting of those events.