Excerpt from The Novels and Poems of Victor Marie Hugo, Vol. 13: History of a Crime Tms book was written twenty-six years ago, at Brussels, during the first months of exile. It was begun on the fourteenth of December, 1851, the day after the author reached Belgium, and it was completed on the fifth of May, 1852, as if chance would commemorate the anniversary of the death of the first Bonaparte with the condemnation of the second. Chance also, by an accumulation of labor, care, and sorrow, has delayed the publication of this history till the present eventful year of 187 7 Had chance also something to do with the coincidence that brings the affairs of the past and the affairs of today in juxtaposition We trust not. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.