Two shattering political documents of the great French novelist, about the dramatic situation of the workers at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Two texts are included in this volume. The first, Ending Misery, is an excerpt from the speech given by Victor Hugo before the Legislative Assembly on July 9, 1849. The second, The Basement of Lille, is the project of another speech, which was never delivered, his impressions of a trip made on February 20, 1851 to the working-class districts of the city of Lille. Although Victor Hugo was never, politically speaking, a radical, he always felt deeply committed to the social problems of his time, showing himself especially sensitive to the terrible situation that the most disadvantaged lived, sensitivity of which gives good account of the best known of his novels, The Miserables, and which is expressed in a way more directly linked to the immediate reality in these two texts.