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Les Miserables by Victor Hugo begins in 1815 as the peasant Jean Valjean, just released from 19 years' imprisonment in the galleys  — 5 for stealing bread for his starving sister and her family and 14 more for numerous escape attempts — is turned away by innkeepers because his yellow passport marks him as a former convict. He sleeps on the street, angry and bitter, but is then shown kindness.  Eventually, he succeeds in business and tries to make the world a better place.  French writers like Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas appreciated the evils of incarceration in prisons or ship galleys.    We see the theme of incarceration in the literature of most Western nations.  Some great Russian, English and French authors have either experienced some form of incarceration themselves, in connection with their families, or read about people who were embittered by years in prison.   

General Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, also known as Alexandre Dumas, (25 March 1762 – 26 February 1806) was the famous African European general in French history and remains the highest-ranking person of color of all time in a continental European army. [1] He was the first person of color in the French military to become brigadier general , the first to become divisional general , and the first to become general-in-chief of a French army. [2] Dumas shared the status of the highest-ranking black officer in the Western world only with Toussaint Louverture (who in May 1797 became the second black general-in-chief in the French military [3] ) until 1989, when the American Colin Powell became a four-star general , the closest United States equivalent of Général d'Armée , Dumas's highest rank. Born in Saint-Domingue , Alexandre Dumas was of mixed race , the son of a white French nobleman and a black slave mother. He was born into slavery because of his mother...