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'Les Miserables' sequel protected Court rejects bid by Hugo family to halt book's sale By Verena Von Derschau, Associated Press, 9/13/2001 PARIS - A French court yesterday turned down a request by descendants of Victor Hugo to have a newly published sequel to ''Les Miserables'' pulled from bookstores on grounds that it betrayed the spirit of the 19th-century classic. The author's descendants argued the new book, Francois Ceresa's ''Cosette ou le temps des illusions'' (''Cosette or the Time of Illusions''), was a mere moneymaking operation that violated Hugo's intellectual property rights. They sought $594,000 in damages from the book's publishing house, Plon, saying they would donate the money to charities. In its ruling, the Paris court said that Hugo, in his lifetime, had not wanted his descendants to exercise control over his literary legacy - an argument advanced by the publishing house at a hearing in June. At a literary conference in 1878, Hugo said he did not believe that descendants should have a say in an author's literary legacy because they ''didn't write the book, didn't have the author's rights,'' the court said. The court cited Hugo as once saying he did not agree with the premise that ''descendants by blood were also the heirs of the spirit.'' It also said that Pierre Hugo, the descendant who filed the complaint, failed to establish his legal authority in the case, ''which prevents him from the right to claim he is an heir.'' Pierre Hugo, the author's great-great-grandson, said at the hearing that he was angry that the ''Les Miserables'' characters ''had been kidnapped.'' He also said Ceresa made unacceptable changes to Hugo's characters. One character, Javert, an obsessive police inspector, reappears in Ceresa's new novel - even though he drowned himself in the Seine River at the close of Victor Hugo's 1862 classic. The new novel, which costs $20, has been in bookstores in France since May; there is no English translation now available. The publishing house plans to release a second installment, ''Marius ou le fugitif'' (''Marius or the Fugitive''), this fall. A similar legal battle played out in the United States this year. When Alice Randall retold the novel ''Gone With the Wind'' from the point of view of slaves, her book prompted protests from Margaret Mitchell's estate. In April, an Atlanta judge blocked publication of the ''The Wind Done Gone,'' ruling that it violated the copyright of Mitchell's 1936 work. But the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the injunction. This story ran on page A23 of the Boston Globe on 9/13/2001. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.