Victor Hugo was the son of one of Napoleon's officers who had originally been a violent revolutionist, and as such had exchanged his Christian name, Joseph, for that of Brutus, which, however, he dropped again when the Revolution was at an end. Joseph Hugo was at Besançon, in command of a battalion, when his famous son was born. A few weeks later he was sent to Corsica. From Corsica he was transferred to Elba, thence to Genoa and the Italian army. He entered the service of Napoleon's brother Joseph when Joseph became King of Naples, and at Naples his wife and children joined him in October 1807. When in 1808 Joseph was made King of Spain, Colonel Hugo followed him to that country, sending his wife and three little sons to Paris, where they lived from 1808 till 1811. In the spring of 1811 they accompanied a strong detachment of troops to Madrid, but Hugo thought it prudent to send them back to Paris in the following year, while he himself, who had been promoted with extraordinary rapidity to be aide-de-camp to the King, major-domo of the palace, general, Count of Cisuentes, inspector-general of the Peninsular army, and governor of three provinces, took part in the war until the defeat of Vittoria, in June 1813, obliged Joseph to abdicate. Napoleon, who could not bear General Hugo, and always treated him badly, refused to confirm his appointment as general and his title as count (his other preferments he had lost), and ordered him to enter the French army again with the rank of major. In 1814 and 1815 Joseph Hugo distinguished himself by his able defence of the fortress of Thionville. His son writes of him as if he had been an ardent votary of Napoleon. This he most certainly was not, and when the Bourbons returned they at once gained his complete allegiance by restoring him to his rank of general, with promotion dating from 1809, the year in which he had received it from King Joseph. Thus it was not only Victor Hugo's mother, the daughter of a loyal shipowner of the Breton town of Nantes, who was a devoted royalist; his father, too, was strongly attached to the restored royal house. Causes entirely unconnected with politics produced a misunderstanding between the parents, and they separated. The sons, Abel, Eugène, and Victor, remained with their mother in Paris. All three possessed literary ability, though only the youngest lived long enough to display his full power and win fame. All three were, to begin with, champions of royalty and the church. Victor said as a boy: "I will be Chateaubriand, or no one."