Published in the appendix of the "Parisian Review" in July 1834, the short story "In the Face of the Guillotine" is a political denunciation, an "accusation" against the death penalty and the indifference of society towards the miserable living conditions of the masses.

Using literary form, V. Hugo chronicles the story of a man who is driven to crime due to the socio-economic conditions of the time and is ultimately sentenced to death. The focus of the narrative is such that it brings to the surface all the social pathologies of the era, so that ultimately, the reader is not concerned with the crime of the offender but with the crimes of society.