The son of a general, Victor Hugo was confronted from his childhood with the violent events of his time. This gave rise in him to the determination that men of the spirit should succeed men of the sword, that is why as a simple citizen, peer of France, deputy, proscribed, or senator, he was always profoundly a man of peace. This struggle had for him a purpose to link men to each other, as he writes in Philosophical Prose: "Man is a people, it is freedom; people is a man, it is brotherhood. Freedom and fraternity combined is harmony. Harmony; more than peace. Men in peace is the passive state; men in harmony is the active state.” The exhibition aims to highlight the different facets of the peaceful action of the great man, by presenting original editions, engravings, objects, letters and manuscripts on the subject, some exceptional since they have been classified “National Treasures as Historic Monuments”.