"I dreamed a dream..." actually I don't know how the writer Victor Hugo (1802-1885) would feel about one of his most famous novels being converted into a musical. I must confess that I've never read Les Misérables all the way through. I get up to the part where (spoiler alert for anyone who's unfamiliar with a 159 year old novel) Valjean as the mayor has to reveal himself as an escaped "criminal" to save a condemned man and can't go on from there. I know that drama is about sudden changes in status, but that's pushing it a bit far for me. What does this have to do with the image?

The avenue on the right is the Avenue Foch, which was discussed in the previous image. The one on the left is the Avenue Victor-Hugo which runs south west from the Arc for 1.76km. (I've seen differing distances, but the French Wikipedia seems to be very reliable in these matters (far more so zan Eeengleesh speaking barbarians, non?), so I've used that as my benchmark.) It runs out to merge with Avenue Henri-Martin at the Place Tattegrain... although there doesn't seem to be anything of much sight-seeing significance there. It's essentially just a distributor road from the centre to the south west of the city. Albeit a rather luxurious, expensively priced distributor. Liker many of the other roads radiating out from the Arc it has a width of 36 metres.

The avenue was built during the 1850s and was originally named the avenue de Saint-Cloud. It was renamed the avenue d'Eylau after the location of a Napoleonic era (naturally) battle against the Russian army, though I don't have dates on that. (An avenue by that name still exists running off the Place du Trocadero about 1.25 klicks to the south.) It was renamed Avenue Victor-Hugo on February 28, 1881, the day after the writer's seventy-ninth birthday. What do we note about that date? Yes, he still had 4 years to live at that point making this a relatively rare example of a street being named after someone who was still alive. (Avenue Foch, mentioned elsewhere in this gallery, was named after its namesake 9 days after his death, for example.)

Hugo spent his final years in a grand townhouse (or, as they say een Paree, un "hôtel particulier") on this avenue at what is today number 124 (but was number 50 in his time). The original building is no longer there, having been rebuilt by the architect Pierre Humbert (1848-1919), though the facade of the current building carries a sculpture of Hugo's face. However it is claimed (and whether this story is apocryphal, I know not) that for the 4 years prior to his death mail was sent to him as follows: "To Mr. Victor Hugo, In his avenue, in Paris".