Addressing his exiled French compatriots in Great Britain, Victor Hugo delivers a magnificent anti-war text, a brilliant indictment against monarchy and absolutism, while simultaneously composing the anthem of a United Europe, a vision strikingly relevant today.

Condemning the devastating consequences of the successive European military conflicts, he draws inspiration from a politics that speaks of the necessity of a United Europe! A Europe where “... there would be no borders, no customs officers, no tariffs ... transactions would be free ... a gigantic flood and ebb of money and goods...”, a Europe with “... a common currency, in two forms, metallic and paper, which would be supported by the capital 'Europe' and driven by the free labor of two hundred million people...”, a Europe where “... brotherhood would give birth to solidarity; the profit of all would be the wealth of each, the work of each would be the guarantee of all”.

From Victor Hugo's opening speech at the Peace Conference on August 21, 1849. “There will come a day when you France, you Russia, you Italy, you England, you Germany, you nations of the continent, without losing your peculiarities and greatness, will unite and create European brotherhood... There will come a day when there will be no more battlefields but the markets that will open to trade and the minds that will open to ideas... There will come a day when bombs will be replaced by the universal suffrage of the peoples and by the respected governance of a great sovereign European assembly...”