The Man Who Laughs
As a victim of royal despotism, the character of the deformed Triboulet is a precursor of the disfigured Gwynplaine in Hugo's 1869 novel "The Man Who Laughs" ("L'Homme qui rit"); in Act 2 Scene 1, Triboulet says « Je suis l'homme qui rit, il est l'homme qui tue ». ("I am the man who laughs, he [Saltabadil] is the man who kills.")