History of a Crime, 1877
Original title: Histoire d'un Crime
Hugo wrote History of a Crime in 1852, with the intention to expose the true nature of Louis-Napoléon's coup d'etat on 2 December 1851. He started working on it as soon as he took refuge in Brussels, gathering information from other French exiles. But when completed, he refrained from publishing it; no company would dare to buy it and it would probably disturb the relations between Belgium and France, which in turn might be dangerous to French refugees in Belgium. Instead, he wrote the short and abusive Napoleon the Little and published it the same year.
In May 1877, MacMahon removed the republican cabinet and attempted to replace it with monarchists. But two weeks before the election in October, Hugo published History of a Crime - shelved since 1852. He also promoted the republican candidate Grévy publicly and is generally recognized for contributing to what turned out to be a great victory for the Republic and for democracy - what History of a Crime could not do in 1852, it accomplished 25 years later
