Victor Hugo drew more than two million mourners to the streets of Paris for his funeral, is worshipped as a saint in a Vietnamese religion, and wrote the defining novel of human suffering. He also kept a coded diary of his affairs, used his political immunity to walk away from an adultery arrest while his lover went to prison, and survived a siege by eating zoo animals. This episode goes past the musicals and school reading lists to map the contradictory human being behind the myth.

We trace his childhood in a household split between a Napoleonic general father and a royalist Catholic mother, the teenage vow to rival Chateaubriand, the riot-sparking premiere of Hernani, the public shaming that saved Notre-Dame, and the drowning of his daughter Leopoldine. Then come the coup of 1851, nearly two decades of exile on Guernsey, the blockbuster-style launch of Les Miserables, his 4,000 ink drawings, his seances, and the state funeral that overruled his request for a pauper’s hearse.

• How a childhood in a home at ideological war forged Hugo’s ability to hold opposing worldviews at once
• Why the 1830 premiere of Hernani sparked physical brawls between traditionalists and young romantics
• The 1845 adultery scandal with Leonie and the double standard shielded by his peerage
• The coordinated multi-city launch of Les Miserables and the legendary question-mark telegram
• Juliette’s 20,000 letters over a 50-year relationship, the cipher diary, and the Prussian siege of Paris