Han der Isländer

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was a French writer. He wrote poems as well as novels and plays, and he was active as a literary and also political publicist. From the book: "The reader knows that we are in Drontheim, one of the four largest cities in Norway, although not the residence of the viceroy. At the time this story took place - in the year 1699 - the Kingdom of Norway still belonged to Denmark and was governed by viceroys, whose seat was in Bergen, a larger, more beautiful, and more southerly located city than Drontheim. Schuhmacher, a man of low birth, had first been showered with favors by his king, then suddenly brought from his position as Chancellor of Denmark and Norway to the bench of traitors, immediately dragged to the scaffold, and finally, out of mercy, taken to a solitary dungeon at the farthest edge of the two kingdoms. His own creatures had overthrown him, and he did not even have the right to complain of ingratitude. Could he complain when he saw the rungs of the ladder he had merely raised to climb up break beneath his feet?".