Colonne Victor Hugo, Memorial column in Lasne, Belgium

The Colonne Victor Hugo stands in Lasne, along the chaussée de Charleroi. The 18-metre monument rises from a square blue-stone pedestal reached by seven steps, topped by a Tuscan column of about sixty courses of sandstone rubble, a capital and a square crowning. A bronze plaque with Hugo's portrait faces the road.

The column was begun in 1912 on the initiative of historian Hector Fleischmann, painter Maurice Dubois and poet Iwan Gilkin, to mark 50 years since Victor Hugo stayed at Mont-Saint-Jean in 1860, where he finished Les Misérables. The first stone was laid in September 1912, but work was interrupted and only completed in 1954; the column was inaugurated on 24 June 1956. The Province of Walloon Brabant bought it for a symbolic euro in December 2010 and, after restoration in 2012-2013, reinaugurated it on 30 June 2015, the date Hugo completed Les Misérables in 1861.

The monument displays a bronze plaque showing Hugo's portrait alongside another bearing his words about preferring peace over war. These inscriptions reflect how the community honored the writer as a symbol of peaceful values.

The monument underwent extensive restoration work from 2012 to 2013 to repair damage to its capital and address structural cracks. These repairs secured the structural integrity and appearance of the site for future visitors.

The column was meant to be crowned by a Gallic rooster named Chanteclerc, planned to celebrate "poetry's revenge on brute courage"; it was never installed. At a quarter of its height, a blazon with a rooster shows the year 1956, the date of the inauguration.