VICTOR HUGO

HIS LIFE AND WORK

BY G. BARNETT SMITH,

AUTHOR OF

'SHELLEY: A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY,' 'POETS AND NOVELISTS,' ETC.

WITH A PORTRAIT OF VICTOR HUGO.

LONDON:

WARD AND DOWNEY,

12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

1885.

[All Rights Reserved.]

I INSCRIBE THIS VOLUME TO ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE,

REJOICING THUS TO CONNECT THE GREAT BARD AND PROPHET OF FRANCE

WITH THE ENGLISH SINGER OF A YOUNGER DAY,

WHO HAS DRUNK DEEPLY OF THE MASTER'S SPIRIT.

G. B. S.

PRELIMINARY NOTE.

I began this study of Victor Hugo in December last, and arrangements

were made for its early publication. The great poet has now passed away,

and this melancholy event gives the biographical portion of the present

volume a completeness not originally anticipated. Notwithstanding the

multitude of criticisms which have appeared in our own and other

languages upon Hugo's works, this is the only book which relates the

full story of his life, and now traces to its close his literary career.

More than twenty years have elapsed since the publication of Madame

Hugo's memorials of the earlier portion of the poet's history, and since

that time M. Barbou's work (excellently translated by Miss Frewer) is

the only narrative of a biographical character which has appeared. The

writings of various French and English critics, the two works I have

named, and those valuable chroniclers, the journals of London and Paris,

have been of considerable service to me in the preparation of the

biography now offered to the public.

The writings of Victor Hugo are so varied and multifarious, and many of

them are so well known to English readers, that I have not deemed it

necessary to subject them to a detailed analysis. At the same time, the

reader unfamiliar with these powerful works will, I trust, be able to

gather something of their purport and scope from the ensuing pages. As

they have impressed all minds, moreover, by their striking originality,

I thought that it would not be without its value if, while venturing to

record my own impressions, I gave at the same time a representation of

critical contemporary opinion upon them. Finally, it has been my object

to present to the reader, within reasonable compass, a complete survey

of the life and work of the most celebrated Frenchman of the nineteenth

century.

G. BARNETT SMITH.

HIGHGATE, LONDON, N.,

June 3rd, 1885.

CHAPTER I. EARLY YEARS.

The glory of France touched its zenith at the period when our narrative

opens. Europe virtually lay at the feet of Napoleon, who had risen to a

height of authority and power which might well have satisfied the most

vaulting ambition. Nations whose records extended back into the ages of

antiquity trembled before him; and only one people, that of this

sea-girt isle of Britain, declined to bend the knee to the

all-conquering First Consul. Yet the philosophic mind, reflecting that

the stability of a nation or a throne must be measured by its growth,

must surely have distrusted the permanence of a grandeur and a greatness

thus rapidly achieved. And speedily would such prevision have been

justified, for in little more than one brief decade the sun of Napoleon

set as suddenly as it arose.

But while as yet the fame and the splendour of the conqueror were in

their noonday, there was born at Besançon another child of genius, whose

triumphs were to be won in a different and a nobler sphere. He was

destined to touch, as with Ithuriel's spear, the sleeping spirit of

French poesy, and to animate it with new life, vigour, and enthusiasm;

he was to recall the divine muse from the drear region of classicism,

and, by revivifying almost every branch of imaginative literature, he

was himself to gain the triple crown of poet, romancist, and dramatist.

And not alone for this was the child Victor Hugo to grow into manhood

and venerable age. He was to become a great apostle of liberty, and as

his life opened with the triumphs of the first Napoleon, so before its

close he was destined to behold the last of that name pass away in the

whirlwind, and France recover much of her prosperity and her power under

the ægis of the Republic, of which the poet sang and for which he

laboured.

The ancestry of Victor Hugo were not undistinguished. Documents

concerning them before the fifteenth century were lost in the pillage of

Nancy, but since that time a clear genealogy is claimed. There was one

Hugo, a soldier, who obtained in 1535 letters patent of nobility for

himself and his descendants from Cardinal Jean de Lorraine, Archbishop

of Rheims, which letters were subsequently confirmed by the Cardinal's

brother, Antoine, Duke of Lorraine. The fifth descendant from this

warrior-noble, Charles Hyacinthe Hugo, obtained new letters patent; and

his grandson, Joseph Leopold Sigisbert, was the father of the poet. In

the seventeenth century, a member of the Hugo family was known both in

the Church and in literature, and became Abbé of Estival and Bishop of

Ptolemais. Another who lived in the eighteenth century, Louis Antoine

Hugo, was a member of the Convention, and was executed for moderatism.

Thus in career, as in character, there was much variety in the Hugo

family.

Sigisbert Hugo, who entered the army as a cadet in 1788, ultimately

attained the rank of General under the First Empire. Although the

hereditary title of Count was the appanage of this rank, he never took

it up. While brave and fearless in war, he is represented as being

devotion and goodness personified, and humane to a fault. 'He set his

children a fine example of duty, being ever their instructor in the

paths of honour.' During a period of military service at Nantes, he

became acquainted with Sophie Trébuchet, the daughter of a wealthy

shipowner. An attachment soon sprang up between them, and they were

married in Paris, Hugo having been summoned thither as reporter to the

first council of war on the Seine.

Though the grandfather of Victor Hugo on the maternal side was engaged

in commerce, he belonged to an old family, and one famous in La Vendée

for its devotion to the Royalist cause. A cousin of Madame Hugo was the

Count de Chasseboeuf, better known as Volney, the author of _Les

Ruines_; and another cousin was Count Cornet, who was very prominent in

political matters both before and during the First Empire. Two sons were

born to Major Hugo and his wife, and then they looked forward with hope

to the birth of a daughter, whom it was decided to name Victorine.

Another son, however, came instead, and one so weakly and diminutive

that the accoucheur declared strongly against his chances of life. The

babe was taken to the mairie at Besançon, and registered as having been

born on the 26th of February, 1802. He received the names of Victor

Marie Hugo, and his godfather was Major Hugo's intimate friend, General

Lahorie, chief of the staff to General Moreau. It has been pointed out

that the word Hugo in old German was the equivalent of the Latin word

_spiritus_, and this fact, combined with the Christian name of Victor,

caused Dumas the elder to say that 'the name of Victor Hugo stands forth

as the conquering spirit, the triumphant soul, the breath of victory.'

But for some time there could be little presage of triumph or victory in

connection with Victor Hugo. Languid and ailing in body, he became

unusually sad for a child of such tender years, and 'was sometimes

discovered in a corner, weeping silently without any reason.' He

afterwards described his untoward childhood in the opening lines of the

_Feuilles d'Automne_. For some time the Hugo family accompanied its head

in his military journeyings; but when Major Hugo was ultimately ordered

to join the army of Italy, he settled his wife and their three young

children in Paris, in the Rue de Clichy. That the youngest scion of the

house could not really have been as feeble and frail as he looked, and

that he must have had the basis of a good, sound constitution, is proved

by his long life; but we must not forget also in this regard the great

care and assiduous attention lavished upon him by his mother. His career

furnishes another illustration of the truth that while the most glorious

promise sometimes sets in gloom and premature death, on the other hand

genius also not infrequently advances from the wavering spark to a noble

flame, and out of weakness is made strength.

Major (afterwards General) Hugo rendered conspicuous service in Italy by

the capture of the notorious bandit chief, Fra Diavolo, and the

pacification of Naples. For these acts he was made Colonel of Royal

Corsica and Governor of Avellino. When not quite five years old Victor

was taken by his mother, with his brothers, Abel and Eugène, to

Avellino, and the journey to Italy is associated with his first

observations of natural scenery. Though so young, his imagination was

fired by all he saw, and the impressions he formed were very

distinct--so much so that in after life he would discuss with Alexandre

Dumas the aspects of the country through which he had travelled in his

childhood.

In 1808 Colonel Hugo was sent to Madrid in the train of Joseph

Bonaparte; but, as Spain was disturbed by war, he would not hazard the

presence of his wife and children in that country. Madame Hugo

accordingly went to Paris, and established herself at the house No. 12,

in the Impasse des Feuillantines, where she now devoted herself to the

education of her children. Late in life, Victor Hugo described the

household in the Feuillantines. Near by there was an aged priest, who

acted as tutor to the boys, teaching them a good deal of Latin, a

smattering of Greek, and the barest outlines of history. In the gardens,

and amid the ruins of an old convent in the grounds, the Hugo boys

passed many happy days. 'Together in their work and in their play,

rough-hewing their lives regardless of destiny, they passed their time

as children of the spring, mindful only of their books, of the trees,

and of the clouds, listening to the tumultuous chorus of the birds, but

watched over incessantly by one sweet and loving smile.' 'Blessings on

thee, O my mother!' was the invocation of the poet in his later years.

Once the family received an accession in the person of General Lahorie,

who had been connected with Moreau's conspiracy, and was condemned to

death for contumacy. Madame Hugo, in her secluded dwelling, and in a

little chapel buried amongst the foliage, gave him a secure shelter for

eighteen months. Young Victor did not then know that the stranger in

whom he took so deep an interest, and in whom he begat an equal

interest, was his godfather. Lahorie took kindly to the boy, and

frequently conversed with him, saying to him on one occasion with great

impressiveness, 'Child, everything must yield to liberty!' The

precautions of Lahorie and his friends were in the end of no avail. In

1811 he was arrested at the Feuillantines, tried and condemned by

court-martial, and shot on the plain of Grenelle. Napoleon was

implacable in his revenge; his wrath might sleep, but it was never

allowed to die.

Another visitor to the Feuillantines was General Louis Hugo, uncle to

the youths. With that strong poetic imagery which characterized him,

little Victor said that the entrance of his uncle into the salon 'had on

us the effect of the Archangel Michael appearing on a beam of light.'

The visitor came at the request of his brother to hasten the departure

of the family for Spain. The boys Hugo were informed by their mother

that they must learn Spanish, and just as they would have performed much

more impossible feats under such a command, they acquired the language

in the course of a few weeks.

In the spring of 1811, Madame Hugo and her children began their journey

into Spain. At Bayonne they had to await a convoy for Madrid. Here the

travellers paid several visits to the theatre, which made a deep

impression upon Victor, yet one which, while more lasting perhaps, was

not so deep as that made by the little daughter of a widow, who seems to

have quite captivated the boy. He afterwards referred to this attachment

as bearing the same relation to love that the light of dawn bears to the

full blaze of day. But he never saw again the youthful _inamorata_ who

stirred 'the first cry of the awakening heart.'

The dilatory progress of the convoy to Madrid, though irksome to Madame

Hugo, was not so to her youngest son. He delighted in observing the

features of the scenery and the towns through which they passed. With

Ernani he was especially pleased, and subsequently gave to one of his

dramas the name of this town. After a number of adventures, some of them

of a trying character, the convoy entered Madrid, and Madame Hugo and

her family were accommodated at the palace of Prince Masserano. Their

rooms and all the appointments were very sumptuous, and there was a

great display of Bohemian and Venetian glass and magnificent China

vases. Concerning the latter, Victor Hugo said that he had 'never since

met with any so remarkable.' Victor's eldest brother, Abel, was made a

page to King Joseph, and it was intended that Victor himself should

follow his example. Meanwhile Eugène and Victor were placed in the

Seminary of Nobles, a proceeding which affected them deeply, and made

them inexpressibly miserable after the happiness they had found in the

Masserano Palace.

But great and dire events were impending in Napoleonic history. By the

beginning of the year 1812 the position of French affairs generally

became so threatening that General Hugo decided to send his wife and the

two younger children back to Paris. Not many months elapsed before his

prescience was justified. Bonaparte's army was decimated by the

inclement snows of Russia after the burning of Moscow, and the kings he

had set up in the European capitals began to tremble for the stability

of their thrones.

Madame Hugo and her two sons safely reached Paris after a tedious

journey, and once more established themselves in the Feuillantines. The

biographical work written by the poet's wife shows that Madame Hugo had

liberal ideas on the subject of education: that where religion was in

question she was averse to forcing any particular persuasion on her

sons, or to interfere with their natural tendencies; neither did she

wish to tax their intelligence any more than their consciences. In the

matter of reading she was equally liberal: the boys were allowed the

greatest freedom, and read Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, and other

authors; but the works of such writers paled in comparison with Captain

Cook's travels, which had a great fascination for the young students.

Madame Hugo judged that any errors her sons were likely to imbibe in

their wide and catholic reading would be rendered innocuous by the

influence of a good example and the purity of the home life. She

restrained them by her authority, and, while attending to their mental

and moral development, she did not neglect the physical. She desired

them to grow up healthy and complete in mind and body alike.

The troubles in Spain thickened apace, and King Joseph left Madrid,

being followed by General Hugo. The victory of the Allies at Vittoria

practically settled the fate of Joseph Bonaparte and the Spanish crown.

The King dismissed his retinue of officers and retired into private

life, and General Hugo returned to Paris with his son Abel. Madame Hugo

and the other children had moved into the Rue du Cherche-Midi. Having

herself been an invader, it was now the turn of France to be invaded.

General Hugo was no favourite with the Emperor (who had not forgotten

the Moreau conspiracy), but when his country was in danger he could not

remain inactive. So he volunteered, and went into the provinces, where

he rendered conspicuous service. He long held Thionville, keeping the

Allies at bay, and refused to open the town until he received official

despatches from his General-in-Chief announcing the cessation of

hostilities. The restoration of the Bourbons followed, and, although

this was hailed with great joy by Madame Hugo, it led to General Hugo

being deprived of his command and removed from active employment,

together with all the officers who had shared in the defence of

Thionville.

Eugène and Victor Hugo now lost the liberty they had for some time

enjoyed, and were sent to school, being placed in the Collége Cordier et

Decotte, in the Rue Ste. Marguerite. At first the removal was especially

bitter to Victor, as it separated him from Adèle Foucher, a young girl

who had completely won his youthful heart. This love continued to grow

from its inception in the Rue du Cherche-Midi till the time when Adèle

became his devoted wife, and returned Victor Hugo's affection with an

ardour equal to his own.

The Hugo boys were naturally the subject of a cross-fire in regard to

politics. Their father was devoted to the Empire, and their mother was

equally devoted to the Royalists. But as the influence of a mother

always has priority in regard to time, Victor Hugo was for a season

enthusiastic about royalty. He could not, with his warm temperament and

lively imagination, be half-hearted about anything. Nor need it surprise

us that he yielded first to the influence of his mother as regarded the

Bourbons, and then to that of his father as regarded the Bonapartes. In

youth it is the imagination which is developed; the judgment is formed

by slow stages. It would have surprised us more if Victor Hugo had not

shown himself amenable to the potent influences of his home training.

His father and mother were of no ordinary type; they had both great

latent force of nature and character, which deeply impressed itself upon

their children. In estimating the career of Victor Hugo, then, with its

later changes of opinion, the circumstances which surrounded his early

years, and greatly assisted in moulding his character, must not be

forgotten.

Early in 1815 Paris was electrified by the news that Napoleon had

returned from Elba. For a brief period the magic of his name once more

exercised a profound influence; and under this revival of Bonapartist

prospects General Hugo was again despatched to take the command of

Thionville. He exhibited the same capacity and spirit as before, but all

was of no avail. The crowning disaster of Waterloo extinguished the

hopes of the Bonapartists, and Napoleon fell, 'like Lucifer, never to

rise again.'

It is matter for regret that the differences between General and Madame

Hugo on the subject of politics and dynasties led to a separation

between them, though one that was mutually desired. Each felt too

strongly on these subjects to give way, and thereby stultify his or her

convictions. But political disagreements did not affect the deep

interest of both parents in their children. The boys made great progress

at school, and also attended courses of lectures in physics, philosophy,

and mathematics at the Collége Louis-le-Grand. Their proficiency was

especially marked in mathematics, and it obtained for both honourable

mention in the examinations.

Poetry, however, even thus early, was the real mistress of Victor Hugo.

His tentative efforts in this direction were as varied as they were

numerous, and he has left an amusing record of his first wooings of the

Muse. He alternated fights at the college (he and Eugène were the kings

of the school) with flights of the imagination. Nothing came amiss to

him, whether ode, satire, epistle, lyric, tragedy, elegy, etc.; and he

imitated Ossian and translated from Virgil, Horace, and Lucan at an age

when others only just begin to acquire an appreciation and understanding

of those authors. Nor were such writers as Martial and Ausonius unknown

to him. Then from poetry he would turn to romances, fables, stories,

epigrams, madrigals, logographs, acrostics, charades, enigmas, and

impromptus; and he even wrote a comic opera.

In one of these youthful pieces he deprecated the exercise of the

reader's satirical rage over the effusion; and certainly the chief

impression which these initial attempts at composition leave upon the

reader is not a critical one founded upon their manifest crudity and

inconsequences of thought, but one of surprise at the exuberance of

fancy and command of expression so soon and so singularly displayed.

There was more than sufficient in them to the observant eye to

foreshadow the genius which their author afterwards developed. Each of

these poems was an effort of the imagination after strength of wing. But

of all those who perused these early poetic efforts, Madame Hugo was

probably the only one able to gauge the great promise of the writer. She

could not but anticipate much from that genius which was just essaying

to unfold itself in the sun. Yet even she could not fully foresee the

magnificent, eagle-like flights of which these imaginings were but the

first faint flutterings of the eaglet's wing.

CHAPTER II. DAWNINGS OF GENIUS.

Victor Hugo was not quite thirteen when he wrote his first poetical

essay, which had for its subject _Roland and Chivalry_. This was

followed in the same year, 1815, by an intensely Royalist poem, and one

breathing indignation against the Emperor, after the disaster of

Waterloo. The poet had been thrown constantly into the midst of Royalist

influences and surroundings; not only his mother, but General Lahorie

and M. Foucher, her most intimate friends, were enemies of the Empire,

and the youth consequently imbibed at the same time hatred of the Empire

and love of the Bourbons.

His first tragedy, _Irtamène_, was written in honour of Louis XVIII.,

and though professedly dealing with Egyptian themes, it was really a

defence of the French King. There is a usurper in it, who meets with

condign chastisement, and the play ends with the coronation of the

legitimate monarch. 'Those who hate tyrants should love kings,' said the

writer, to whom at that time the restoration of the Bourbons meant

liberty. But these things must not be made too much of. The poet was at

that nebulous stage when the fact of writing poetry was more to him than

the subject-matter of his exercises. He read voluminously, but he had

not as yet begun to separate, to weigh, and to discriminate.

A course of the _Théâtre de Voltaire_ led him to begin a new tragedy,

_Athéli; or, the Scandinavians_, all in dramatic order, with its five

acts, and its due regard to narrative, scenery, etc. Before he had

completed it, however, he turned to a comic opera, _A Quelque Chose

Hasard est Bon_. Then he reverted to the drama, and wrote a play in

three acts, with two interludes, entitled _Inez de Castro_. From the

point of view of literary art, little is to be said of these things; but

there are many scattered passages in them which reveal remarkable

insight on the part of one so young. In the year 1817 he first sought

publicity for his compositions, competing for the poetical prize

annually offered by the French Academy. The subject chosen was, _The

Advantages of Study in every situation of Life_, and amongst the

competitors were Lebrun, Delavigne, Saintine, and Loyson, who all on

this occasion made their poetical debut. The first prize was divided

between Saintine and Lebrun, and Hugo received honourable mention; but

when the poems came to be declaimed in public, the warmest applause

followed that by Victor Hugo. The Academy judges were considerably

puzzled by Master Hugo's exercise. In one place he wrote as though he

had arrived at years of discretion and comparative maturity, and then

demolished this idea by the lines--

     'I, who have ever fled from courts and cities,

     Scarce three short lustres have accomplished yet.'

The judges came to the conclusion that the young poet was playing with

them, and in their report accordingly threw doubt upon his statement

that he was only fifteen years old. The production of his birth

certificate set this question at rest, and Victor's name now became

prominent in the newspapers. M. Raynouard, the cultured Secretary of the

Academy, finding that the 'most potent, grave, and reverend signors'

had not been deceived, expressed the great pleasure he had in making the

youthful competitor's acquaintance. Other distinguished men followed

suit, and Hugo was described as 'the sublime child,' either by

Chateaubriand or Soumet. The evidence points to the latter having first

made use of this phrase, but its origin matters little, for

Chateaubriand fully adopted it, remarking that anyone might naturally

have used the words, they expressed so decided a truth. Hugo was taken

by a friend to see the author of _Atala_, and the impression made upon

his mind by this man of genius found utterance in the exclamation, 'I

would be Chateaubriand or nothing.'

In 1818 Victor's brother Eugène was awarded a prize at the floral games

of Toulouse. The younger brother's ambition was touched, and in the

following year he secured two prizes from the same Academy for his poems

on _The Statue of Henry IV._, and _The Virgins of Verdun_. The former

poem gained the golden lily, and the latter the golden amaranth. It

seems that just as the writer was about to set to work on the

first-named poem, Madame Hugo was seized with inflammation of the

chest. She lamented that her son would be unable to complete his poem in

time; but he set to work, wrote it in a single night, and it was

despatched next morning in time to compete for the prize. The President

of the Toulouse Academy admitted that it was an enigma for one so young

to exhibit such remarkable talents in literature.

A poem, _Moses on the Nile_, gained him a third prize at Toulouse, and

this constituted him Master of the Floral Games, so that at the age of

eighteen he became a provincial academician. He was still Royalist in

his opinions, and on the few occasions when he was in the company of his

father, the latter did not attempt to change his views, feeling that it

would be useless to attempt to set the arguments of a few hours against

a daily and hourly influence. But he had a true apprehension of his

son's character, and on one occasion, when Victor had expressed himself

warmly in favour of the Vendeans, General Hugo turned to General

Lucotte, and said: 'Let us leave all to time. The child shares his

mother's views; the man will have the opinions of his father.'

Victor Hugo was now the subject of conflicting claims. There was the

law, which he had chosen as a profession, with its demands upon him, and

there was literature, which he loved too much to surrender; while at the

same time love and politics also claimed their share in him. He

determined to throw himself ardently into literature. Separated from the

object of his youthful affections, he wrote his _Han d'Islande_, in

which, while there are many crimes and horrors, there are also passages

of tenderness, wherein he sought to embalm and reveal his feelings of

love. His courage sustained him through many trials, but at last he was

called upon to bear one that made a profound impression upon his heart.

Madame Hugo, who was now living in the Rue Mézières, was seized with

serious illness after working in her garden, which was her favourite

occupation. For some time she struggled successfully with the disease,

but it had obtained too firm a hold upon her, and she died suddenly on

the 27th of June, 1821. On the evening of the funeral, Adèle Foucher,

unconscious of what had occurred, was dancing at a party given in

celebration of her birthday. Next morning Victor called upon her, and

the lovers, mingling their tears together, mutually renewed their old

vows of attachment. Victor, to whom life had seemed without an object on

the death of his mother, speedily found another after his betrothal to

Adèle. Her parents no longer actively opposed the union, but stipulated

for its postponement until Victor could provide a home.

In conjunction with several friends, Hugo had already founded the

_Conservateur Littéraire_, to which he contributed articles on Sir

Walter Scott, Byron, Moore, etc., and a number of political satires. He

had a sum of seven hundred francs, upon which he subsisted for a year,

and the method by which he did it will be found related in the

experiences of Marius in _Les Misérables_. Translations from Lucan and

Virgil, which appeared under the name of D'Auverney, and the Epistles

from Aristides to Brutus on _Thou_ and _You_, emanated from his pen. He

also wrote a very noticeable article on Lamartine's _Méditations

Poétiques_, which had just appeared. Then came the first instalment of

his own _Odes et Ballades_, a work in which his genius began to attain a

fuller freedom and a richer expression. The volume was received with

very wide favour, and though, as M. Barbou has observed, it presents

many ideas that would find no approval now, the poet, nevertheless,

declared that he could proudly and conscientiously place the work side

by side with the democratical books and poems of his matured manhood.

This, he said, he should be prepared to do, because in 'the fierce

strife against early prejudices imbibed with a mother's milk, and in the

slow rough ascent from the false to the true, which to a certain extent

makes up the substance of every man's life, and causes the development

of his conscience to be the type of human progress in general; each step

so taken represents some material sacrifice to moral advancement, some

interest abandoned, some vanity eschewed, some worldly benefit

renounced--nay, perhaps, some risk of home or even life incurred.' This

justification may fairly be accepted, but from another aspect also these

_Odes_ are worthy of attention. They were the first noble efforts of the

poet to emancipate French poetry from the trammels which had too long

governed it, and which had rendered it almost dead, and effete alike in

spirit and in form. At length imagination was to resume its rightful

sway, and exhibit some return to its pristine vigour.

The _Odes_ not only brought the author friends like Émile Deschamps and

Alfred de Vigny, but they were pecuniarily successful. The first edition

yielded him a profit of seven hundred francs, and a second quickly

followed. The attention of the King was called to the poems, and the

interest his Majesty took in them, together with a romantic incident in

connection with the Saumur plot, led to a pension of 1,000 francs being

conferred upon the poet from the King's privy purse. He now thought he

was entitled to press the question of his marriage. His father, who had

married again, offered no opposition; the Fouchers also gave way, and

bestowed the hand of their daughter Adèle upon the young and now

successful poet. Victor Hugo had shortly before this made the

acquaintance of the celebrated priest Lamennais, and it was from his

hands that he received the certificate of confession required before he

could get married. 'I trust with all my heart,' wrote the priest, 'that

God will bless this happy union, which He appears Himself to have

prepared by implanting in you a long and unchanged affection, and a

mutual love as pure as it is sweet.'

The Saumur plot, to which I have referred, took place in 1822, and

amongst those implicated in it was a young man named Delon, who had been

an intimate friend of Victor Hugo in his childhood. On hearing of

Delon's danger, Hugo wrote to the conspirator's mother, offering an

asylum for her son in his own house, and remarking that as the writer

was well known for his devotion to the Bourbons, he would never be

sought in such a retreat. This letter fell into the hands of the King,

but instead of its prejudicing him against Victor Hugo, he generously

said, 'That young man has a good heart as well as great genius; he is an

honourable fellow; I shall take care he has the next pension that falls

vacant.' This was the origin of the poet's pension, which was in nowise

due to an expressed wish or desire on his own part.

_Hans of Iceland_, the first published romance of Victor Hugo, appeared

anonymously in 1823. The work at once attracted attention by reason of

its graphic power and the startling nature of its contrasts. It combines

horror with tenderness, the deepest gloom with flashes of the purest

light. The author himself had a great affection for it, on the personal

ground already mentioned. But its chief features are of a different

order. In this northern romance, as one critic has observed, the

youthful novelist has turned to great account the savage wilds, gloomy

lakes, stormy seas, pathless caves, and ruined fortresses of

Scandinavia. 'A being savage as the scenery around him--human in his

birth, but more akin to the brute in his nature; diminutive, but with a

giant's strength; whose pastime is assassination, who lives literally as

well as metaphorically on blood--is the hero; and round this monster are

grouped some of the strangest, ghastliest, and yet not wholly unnatural

beings which it is possible for the imagination to conceive--Spiagudry,

the keeper of the dead-house, or _morgue_, of Drontheim, and Orugex, the

State executioner--while gentler forms, the noble and persecuted

Schumacker, and the devoted and innocent Ethel, relieve the monotony of

crime and horror.' M. Charles Nodier, one of the ablest of French

contemporary critics, in a review of the work in the _Quotidienne_,

remarked upon the fact that there were men of a certain organization, to

whom glory and distinction were temptations, just as happiness and

pleasure tempted other men. 'Precocious intellects and deep sensibility

do not take the future into consideration--they devour their future.

The passions of a young and powerful mind know no to-morrow; they look

to satiate their ambition and their hopes with the reputation and

excitement of the present moment. _Han d'Islande_ has been the result of

this kind of combination, if indeed one can describe as a combination

that which is only the thoughtless instinct of an original genius, who

obeys, without being aware of it, an impulse at variance with his true

interests, but whose fine and wide career may not improbably justify

this promise of excellence, and may hereafter redeem all the anxiety he

has caused by the excusable error he committed when he first launched

himself upon the world.' M. Nodier then discussed with much freedom, and

yet with almost as much fairness, the peculiar features of the romance,

its close and painful search into the morbidities of life, its pictures

of the scaffold and the _morgue_, etc., as well as its strong local

colouring, its historical truth, its learning, its wit, and its vigorous

and picturesque style.

The author and his critic became personally acquainted. The latter

called upon Victor Hugo, who, after other changes of abode, had now

established himself in the Rue de Vaugirard. A second pension of 2,000

francs had been awarded him by the King; hence his migration into

comparatively sumptuous quarters. Other literary friendships besides

that with M. Nodier were formed as the result of Victor Hugo's first

romance.

At this period he wrote an ode on the _Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile_, and

there were many indications that his early Royalist opinions were in

process of abandonment. He visited his father at Blois, and the General

was not slow to observe the changes taking place in his son's views.

While he could not admire Napoleon personally, he began to do justice to

those who had planted the French standard in all the capitals of Europe.

But it seemed as though the King was resolved to retain him by favours,

for there was now conferred upon him the coveted badge of the Legion of

Honour. He attended the coronation of Charles X. at Rheims, and from

thence went to pay a visit to Lamartine. A project was formed and a

treaty signed with a publisher, by which M. Lamartine, Victor Hugo, M.

Charles Nodier, and M. Taylor engaged to prepare a work detailing a

poetical and picturesque trip to Mont Blanc and the Valley of Chamouni.

For four meditations Lamartine was to receive 2,000 francs, Hugo 2,000

for four odes, Taylor 2,000 for eight drawings, and Nodier 2,250 for all

the text. The travellers set out, Hugo being accompanied by his wife and

child. On reaching Geneva--after a temporary arrest of Hugo, some time

before, on account of the delay of his passport in its journey from

Paris--the visitors found the police regulations very annoying. Each

hotel possessed a register, in which every traveller was bound to write

his name, his age, his profession, the place from whence he came, and

his object in travelling. M. Nodier was so exasperated that in reply to

the last query he wrote, 'Come to upset your Government.' For a few

moments the hotel-keeper was not unnaturally electrified. The travellers

got their jaunt, but owing to the insolvency of the publisher with whom

they had arranged, the literary scheme was never carried out.

In ascending the Alps to the Mer de Glace, Victor Hugo had a narrow

escape. His guide, who was new to the business, took the wrong path, and

landed the visitor upon a dangerous tongue of ice. From this he was

rescued with great difficulty, and for several moments, which seemed

like hours, he was suspended over a terrible abyss. Victor Hugo wrote a

description of the journey from Sallenches to Chamouni, which was

translated by Madame Hugo, and published in her sketch of the poet.

_Bug Jargal_, the second romance by Victor Hugo, but the earliest in

point of time, was published in 1826. It had been originally written for

the _Conservateur Littéraire_; but after its appearance there, it was

almost entirely remodelled and rewritten. It is a tale of the

insurrection in St. Domingo. The essential improbability of such a

character as Bug Jargal (by what means did the author get such an

uncouth name?), a negro of the noblest moral and intellectual character,

passionately in love with a white woman, has been unfavourably commented

upon. The hero is represented as not only tempering the wildest passion

with the deepest respect, but he even sacrifices life itself at last in

behalf of the woman of his love, and of her husband. It was objected

that this was too violent a call upon the imagination, but knowledge of

the negro character would tend to prove that such a devotion as Bug

Jargal's is by no means impossible. In any case, as the novelist is

allowed great license, this objection cannot be regarded as fatal to the

romance. Notwithstanding its alleged defects of plot, however, this

story has many enthralling passages. No reader is likely to forget 'the

scenes in the camp of the insurgent chief Biassou, or the death-struggle

between Habihrah and d'Auverney on the brink of the cataract. The

latter, in particular, is drawn with such intense force, that the reader

seems almost to be a witness of the changing fortunes of the fight, and

can hardly breathe freely till he comes to the close.' Whatever else

these early romances demonstrated, or failed to demonstrate, they were

at least inspired by enthusiasm, and tinged with aspirations of a noble

order.

The genius of the author had drawn towards him the admiration, and very

speedily the friendship, of such men as M. Méry, the journalist; M.

Rabbe, author of the 'History of the Popes;' M. Achille Devéria and M.

Louis Boulanger, the eminent artists; M. Sainte-Beuve, one of the most

incisive of critics, and others whose names have since occupied

considerable space in the roll of fame. Hugo was indefatigable in his

literary efforts. _La Revue Française_, a periodical which

unfortunately had but a brief existence, bore testimony to this, as well

as his poetical miscellany entitled _La Muse Française_. He also wrote a

criticism upon Voltaire, which was afterwards reprinted in his _Mélanges

de Littérature_; but this estimate did not reveal the breadth of view

which the writer manifested in later years, when he passed an eloquent

eulogium upon the philosopher of Ferney.

For a new edition of the _Odes_ issued in 1826, and now separated from

the _Ballades_, the author wrote an introduction in which he distinctly

unfolded his principles of liberty in the realm of literature. He

expressed his belief that 'in a literary production the bolder the

conception the more irreproachable should be the execution;' and he

added that liberty need not result in disorder. It was the first

occasion on which the claims of what was called, for want of a better

word, romanticism were formally promulgated by a writer eminent in that

school. We shall shortly see how Victor Hugo translated these ideas into

a concrete form in his works. Meantime, in February, 1827, an incident

occurred which led to a stirring poem by Hugo, and one which made him

friends in a new quarter, while it lost them in an old one.

It appears that at a ball given by the Austrian Ambassador in Paris, the

distinguished French marshals who attended were deliberately shorn of

their legitimate titles. Thus, the Duke of Taranto was announced as

Marshal Macdonald; the Duke of Dalmatia as Marshal Soult; the Duke of

Treviso as Marshal Mortier, and so on. The insult was studied and

deliberate on the part of the Ambassador; 'Austria, humiliated by titles

which recalled its defeats, publicly denied them. The marshals had been

invited in order to show contempt for their victories, and the Empire

was insulted in their persons. They immediately quitted the Embassy in a

body.' Victor Hugo's blood was stirred by this incident, and, without

counting the cost, he took his revenge. Throwing all the weight of his

indignation into the _Ode à la Colonne_, he hurled that effusion at the

enemies of France. He was now only anxious to show that he was a

Frenchman first, and a Vendéan afterwards.

The Ode made a great sensation, but it had a wider effect than its

author anticipated. The Opposition welcomed him as one of themselves,

for in celebrating the marshals had not the poet celebrated the Empire?

The Royalists, on the other hand, seeing this bitter attack upon the

Austrians, who were the most powerful friends of the Bourbons, naturally

thought that Victor Hugo had abandoned the Royalist cause. Neither side

could quite understand how such a burst of invective as that witnessed

in the Ode might be due alone to the outraged feelings of a Frenchman,

without being intended in the least to partake of the nature of a

political manifesto. To these fierce partisans, party was everything; to

Victor Hugo it was the nation that was everything. But his rupture with

the Royalists is naturally enough traced to this period. He and they

could never be the same again to each other. The poet passed now from

his admiration of the Bourbons to an acknowledgment of the glory and

prowess of the Empire, as at a later period he pressed still further

forward, and hailed the fuller liberty of Republican France.

CHAPTER III. VICTOR HUGO'S HUMANITARIANISM.

In 1829 Victor Hugo published anonymously his _Le Dernier Jour d'un

Condamné_ ('The Last Day of a Convict'). It thrilled the heart of Paris

by its vivid recitals. While having no pretensions to the character of a

regular tale, it was, as a writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ remarked,

one of the most perfect things the author had as yet produced. It was

the representation of one peculiar state of mind--that of a criminal

faced by the certainty of his approaching death under the guillotine.

Like Sterne, Hugo had taken a single captive, shut him up in his

dungeon, and 'then looked through the twilight of the grated door, to

take his picture.' The work is a chronicle of thoughts, a register of

sensations; and it is amazing to see what variety and dramatic movement

may be imparted to a monologue in which the scene shifts only from, the

Bicètre to the Conciergerie, the Hôtel de Ville, and the Place de Grève.

Few descriptions could be found in literature to vie with that in which

Victor Hugo places the criminal before us as he enters the court to

receive his sentence on a lovely August morning. But all the incidents

attending the trial, the condemnation, and the execution are depicted

with graphic skill and powerful energy. No one knows better than Victor

Hugo how to relieve unutterable gloom by some brilliant ray of human

affection, and so upon this condemned prisoner he causes to break a

temporary vision of youth and innocence. The intensity all through this

piece is such as to give the reader a strange realization of the

criminal, with his weight of guilt, and his terrible and conflicting

emotions.

But the critic of the _Edinburgh_ would have us believe that all this

was merely due to a desire by Victor Hugo to exhibit his literary skill.

He even calls it absurd to regard the sketch as a pleading against the

punishment of death, and roundly denies that the author had any such

esoteric purpose. Unfortunately for him, there is conclusive evidence to

prove that Victor Hugo had a deeper intent in this painful

representation than a mere literary play upon the feelings. In a preface

to the edition of 1832 he distinctly avows his purpose: 'It is the

author's aim and design that posterity should recognise in his work

_not_ a mere special pleading for any one particular criminal, which is

always easy and always transitory, but a general and permanent appeal in

behalf of all the accused, alike of the present and of the future. Its

great point is the right of humanity urged upon society.'

Moreover, there is another powerful argument to be considered. Ever

since 1820 Victor Hugo had been deeply moved on the question of capital

punishment, and resolved to labour for its abolition. It will be

convenient here to review briefly his public utterances on the subject,

both before and subsequent to the appearance of _Le Dernier Jour d'un

Condamné_. We shall thereby be enabled to keep the literary and personal

thread of our narrative intact. In the year above named Victor Hugo had

seen Louvel, the murderer of the Duke of Berry, on his way to the

scaffold. The culprit was a being for whom he had not the slightest

sympathy; but his fate begat pity, and he began to reflect on the

anomaly that society should, in cold blood, commit the same act as that

which it punished. From that time, observes Madame Hugo, he had an idea

of writing a book against the guillotine. Two executions which he

witnessed during the next few years strengthened his convictions, and

led to the work we have already discussed. Subsequently he wrote _Claude

Gueux_, founded upon the sad and miserable story of a man of that name.

Gueux was condemned to death in 1832 for a crime to which the pangs of

hunger had impelled him. The case was doubly painful from the fact that

the father of Claude, a very old man, had been sentenced to a punishment

in the prison of Clairvaux, and the son, in order to bring help to him,

committed an act whose consequences brought him within the walls of the

same prison. Strenuous exertions were made by Hugo and others to save

Gueux, but the Council of Ministers rejected the appeal. The man was

executed, and a noble protest which Victor Hugo afterwards issued

greatly moved the public conscience, and rendered society still more

familiar with the writer's views.

In May, 1839, one Barbès was condemned to death for his share in the

insurrection in the Place Royale. Victor Hugo immediately sent this

message of appeal to the King:

     'By your guardian-angel fled away like a dove,

     By your royal child, a sweet and frail reed,

     Pardon yet once more, pardon in the name of the tomb!

           Pardon in the name of the cradle!'

The King, against the advice of his Ministers, insisted on pardoning

Barbès. More than twenty years afterwards the latter figured as a

character in _Les Misérables_, and a correspondence, alike honourable to

both, ensued between him and the author. Twice as a peer of France

Victor Hugo was called upon to give verdicts in cases where capital

punishment would follow conviction, and in both instances he voted in

favour of perpetual imprisonment and against the death-penalty. When the

question of capital punishment came before the Assembly in 1848, Victor

Hugo ascended the tribune and made an impassioned speech, from which I

take these extracts:

'What is the penalty of death? It is the especial and eternal mark of

barbarism. Wherever the penalty is, death is common, barbarism

dominates; wherever the penalty of death is rare, civilization reigns

supreme. You have just acknowledged the principle that a man's private

dwelling should be inviolate; we ask you now to acknowledge a principle

much higher and more sacred still--the inviolability of human life. The

nineteenth century will abolish the penalty of death. You will not do

away with it, perhaps, at once; but be assured, either you or your

successors will abolish it. I vote for the abolition, pure, simple, and

definitive, of the penalty of death.'

In March, 1849, Victor Hugo made an unsuccessful appeal in the case of

Daix, condemned to death for the affair of Bréa; and in the following

year the poet himself appeared as an advocate in the Court of Assize. He

defended his eldest son, Charles Hugo, who had been summoned for

protesting in his journal, _L'Évènement_, against the execution, which

had been accompanied by revolting circumstances. In the course of his

eloquent pleadings, Victor Hugo said: 'The real culprit in this matter,

if there is a culprit, is not my son. It is I myself. I, who, for a

quarter of a century, have not ceased to battle against all forms of the

irreparable penalty--I, who, during all this time, have never ceased to

advocate the inviolability of human life.... Yes, I assert it, this

remains of barbarous penalties--this old and unintelligent law of

retaliation--this law of blood for blood--I have battled against it all

my life; and, so long as there remains one breath in my body, I will

continue to battle against it with all my power as an author, and with

all my acts and votes as a legislator. And I make this

declaration'--(_the pleader here stretched out his arm towards the

crucifix at the end of the hall above the tribunal_)--'before the Victim

of the penalty of death, whose effigy is now before us, who is now

looking down upon us, and who hears what I utter. I swear it, I say,

before this sacred tree, on which, nearly two thousand years ago, and

for the instruction of men to the latest generation, the laws,

instituted by men, fastened with accursed nails the Divine Son of God!'

In conclusion, the orator exclaimed, 'My son! thou wilt this day receive

a great honour. Thou art judged worthy of fighting, perhaps of

suffering, for the sacred cause of truth. From to-day thou enterest the

just and true manly life of our time, the struggle for the true. Be

proud, thou who art now admitted to the ranks of those who battle for

the human and democratic idea! Thou art seated on the bench where

Béranger and Lamennais have sat.' Notwithstanding his father's defence,

which powerfully moved the whole court, Charles Hugo was sentenced to

six months' imprisonment.

While living in exile in Jersey, in 1854, Victor Hugo made an appeal on

behalf of a man who was to be hanged in Guernsey. One of his letters was

addressed to the people of Guernsey, who petitioned, but in vain, for

the life of the convict Tapner. Another was addressed to Lord

Palmerston, who gave the usual orders for the execution; and probably no

English Minister ever received, either before or since, a communication

couched in such burning and passionate language. The writer was

literally overwhelming in his indignant rhetoric.

For John Brown, of Harper's Ferry, the anti-slavery enthusiast, Victor

Hugo put in a strong plea with the United States. He told that country

that 'Brown's executioner would neither be the Attorney Hunter, nor the

Judge Parker, nor the Governor Wyse, nor the State of Virginia; it would

be, though one shudders to think it, and still more to say it, the great

American Republic itself.... When we consider that this nation is the

glory of the whole earth; that, like France, England, and Germany, it

is one of the organs of civilization, that it has even gone beyond

Europe in certain sublime strokes of bold progress, that it is at the

summit of the whole world, that it wears on its brow the star of

liberty, we are tempted to affirm that John Brown will not die; for we

shrink back horrified at the idea of so great a crime being committed by

so great a nation!' The writer predicted that 'the murder of Brown would

make in the Union a rent, at first concealed, but which would end by

splitting it asunder.' John Brown was executed, and Hugo's prediction

was verified. The South did indeed discover that the spirit of Brown was

'marching on'; and the American Union was for a time convulsed to its

centre, ostensibly on the ground of union, but practically on account of

slavery. Brown, the martyr, was justified by the event, and slavery was

abolished in the United States.

During the year 1861, a Belgian jury pronounced, on a single occasion

only, nine sentences of death. Thereupon a writer, assuming the name of

Victor Hugo, published some verses in the Belgian journals, imploring

the King's pardon for the nine convicts. Hugo's attention was drawn to

the verses, when he replied that he was quite willing for his name to be

used, or even abused, in so good a cause. As his _alter ego_ had

addressed the King, so he now addressed the nation. He called upon it to

arrest this great sacrifice of life, and to abolish the scaffold. 'It

would be a noble thing that a small people should give a lesson to the

great, and by this fact alone should become greater than they. It would

be a fine thing that, in the face of the abominable growth of darkness,

in the presence of a growing barbarism, Belgium, taking the place of a

great Power in civilization, should communicate to the human race by one

act the full glare of light.' The sentence of seven of the condemned men

was commuted, but the two remaining convicts were executed.

When the Republic of Geneva revised its constitution in 1862, the

principal question remitted to the people was the abolition of the

punishment of death. M. Bost, a Genevese author, appealed to Victor Hugo

for his intervention in the discussion. The poet replied by a long and

exhaustive communication, in which he reviewed the leading cases in

various European countries where the scaffold had recently been called

into requisition, and he closed with this exordium: 'O people of Geneva,

your city is situate on a lake in the Garden of Eden! you live in a

blessed place! all that is most noble in creation surrounds you! the

habitual contemplation of the beautiful reveals the truth and imposes

duties on you! Your civilization ought to be in harmony with nature.

Take counsel of all these merciful marvels. Believe in your sky so

bright; and as goodness descends from the sky, abolish the scaffold. Be

not ungrateful. Let it not be said that in gratitude, and, as it were,

in exchange for this admirable corner of the earth, where God has shown

to man the sacred splendour of the Alps, the Arve and the Rhone, the

blue lake, and Mont Blanc in the glory of sunlight, man has offered to

the Deity the spectacle of the guillotine.' The question had already

been decided by the retention of the scaffold when this letter reached

Geneva, but Victor Hugo now addressed the people. His second letter had

an immense effect, and secured the rejection of the constitution

proposed by the Conservatives. It also brought over a great number of

adherents to the cause of abolition, which ultimately triumphed.

On many subsequent occasions, and notably in connection with Italy and

Portugal, Victor Hugo wrote and strove for the abolition of capital

punishment. In France his pressing personal appeals more than once

availed to procure a commutation of the death-punishment. To his _Last

Day of a Convict_ was due the introduction of extenuating circumstances

in the criminal laws of France, and he projected a work to be entitled

_Le Dossier de la Peine de Mort_.

It is not my intention here, nor, indeed, is it necessary, to discuss

the arguments which may be advanced for or against capital punishment.

It has been simply my object to present Victor Hugo in a light which,

while it may divide men in their judgments, will unite them in their

sympathies. The cases I have cited will be more than sufficient to

demonstrate that noble enthusiasm of humanity which forms so conspicuous

a feature in Victor Hugo's character.

CHAPTER IV. THE TRIUMPH OF ROMANTICISM.

The war between the two great schools of French poetry, the classic and

the romantic, passed into an acute stage shortly before the publication

of Victor Hugo's _Cromwell_. Romanticism meant more than was implied in

the definition of Madame de Staël, viz., the transference to French

literature of 'the poetry originating in the songs of the troubadours,

the offspring of chivalry and Christianity.' Victor Hugo, and men of a

kindred if not an equal genius, were engaged in a struggle for the very

life and soul of poetry. Poetic genius in France was wrapped in the

grave-clothes of classicism; it was a corpse that needed galvanizing

into life; and it was practically Victor Hugo who rose and said, 'Loose

her, and let her go.'

Goethe had already fought the battle of literary freedom from old

superstitions in Germany, and Byron had done the same in England. It was

now the turn of France to feel the new gush of life, and to gather

strength and lustre in the revival. As M. Asselineau has observed of the

French romanticists, 'to their sincerity, their detestation of

tediousness, their sympathy with life and joy and freshness, as well as

to their youthful audacity, that was not abashed either by ridicule or

insult, belongs the honour of securing to the nineteenth century the

triumph of liberty, invaluable for its preciousness in the world of

art.' And in enumerating the leaders of the movement, he cites as the

most prominent and influential, Chateaubriand, Victor Hugo, Madame de

Staël, Lamartine, Dumas, Alfred de Vigny, Balzac, George Sand, Théophile

Gautier, Mérimée, Philarète Chasles, Alfred de Musset, and Jules Janin.

Certainly the influence that developed the talents of such a galaxy of

genius, so far from being despised, should be acclaimed as a force

worthy of all admiration. It was one, in fact, that practically saved

French literature from expiring of inanition.

But the romantics were fiercely assailed; so fiercely that Victor Hugo

said, if they had been thieves, murderers, and monsters of crime, they

could not have been exposed to severer condemnation. Duvergier de

Hauranne treated romanticism as a brain disease, and recommended a

careful diagnosis of those suffering from it, in order to recover for

them gradually their lost senses. But pleasantries such as these were

not likely to affect a man in severe earnest. The literary

revolutionaries of the Cénacle Club, whose leading spirit was Victor

Hugo, laughed at the denunciations hurled against them, knowing that

their opportunity had come. There was only one writer who, having put

his hand to the plough, turned backward. This was Sainte-Beuve. The

temper of his mind was critical, and after the first burst of enthusiasm

with which he hailed the new school, and under whose influence he for a

time joined it, had spent itself, he threw off his allegiance to the

movement, and vowed that he had never really belonged to the reforming

band.

Victor Hugo soon gave a pledge, though not in some respects a successful

one, of the sincerity of his own convictions. M. Taylor, Commissaire

Royal at the Comédie Française, and afterwards widely known in the world

of art, asked the poet on one occasion why he never wrote for the

theatre. Hugo replied that he was thinking of doing so, and had already

commenced a drama on the subject of Cromwell. 'A Cromwell of your

writing should only be acted by Talma,' said Taylor; and he forthwith

arranged a meeting between the famous tragedian and the dramatist. Talma

was at that time greatly depressed, taking gloomy views of the stage,

and asserting that his own career had been a failure--had never

fulfilled its ends. No one knew what he might have been, he confided to

Hugo, but now he expected to die without having really acted once.

Nevertheless, from the genius of Hugo he did look for something

original, and he had always longed to act Cromwell. In response, the

author explained his intentions with regard to the proposed play, and

also his views upon the drama generally. These views he afterwards

enlarged upon in the preface to the play. He asserted that there were

three epochs in poetry, each corresponding to an era in society; and

these were the ode, the epic, and the drama. 'Primitive ages are the

lyric, ancient times the heroic, and modern times the dramatic. The ode

sings of eternity, the epic records history, the drama depicts life....

The characters of the ode are colossal--Adam, Cain, Noah; those of the

epic are gigantic--Achilles, Atreus, Orestes; those of the drama are

human--Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth. The ode contemplates the ideal; the

epic, the sublime; the drama, the real. And, to sum up the whole, this

poetical triad emanates from three fountain-heads--the Bible, Homer, and

Shakespeare.'

In _Cromwell_, urged Hugo, he intended to substitute a drama for a

tragedy, a real man for an ideal personage, reality for conventionalism;

the piece was to pass from the heroic to the positive; the style was to

include all varieties, epic, lyric, satiric, grave, comic; and there

were to be no verses for effect. The author repeated his first line,

'_Demain, vingt-cinq juin, mil six cent cinquante-sept_,' which was

certainly ludicrously matter-of-fact. Talma was delighted with the whole

idea, and begged the poet to complete his work at once. Unfortunately

the actor died soon afterwards, and the dramatist now went leisurely on

with his play. While engaged upon the preface he saw some Shakespearean

dramas performed in English at the Odéon, and the representations

affected him deeply, and tinged his dramatic views. At the close of

1827 _Cromwell_ was published, and great indeed was the controversy to

which it gave rise. The period dealt with was not what would be

considered one of the most dramatic in the career of the Protector. It

was that 'when his ambition made him eager to realize the benefits of

the King's death,' when, having attained what any other man would have

reckoned the summit of fortune, being not only master of England, but by

his army, his navy, and his diplomacy, master of Europe too, he was

urged onwards to fulfil the visions of his youth, and to make himself a

king. Cromwell's final relinquishment of the kingly idea, with the

preliminary stages which led up to his resolution, were delineated with

subtle power and psychological skill.

But it was not the play so much as its preface--which the author put

forward as the manifesto of himself and his literary friends--that

stirred the gall of the critics. A writer in the _Gazette de France_,

referring to Hugo's avowed aim to break 'all those threads of spiders'

web with which the army of Liliput have undertaken to chain the drama

whilst slumbering,' reminded him that in this liliputian army there

were some dwarfs to be found not so despicable after all; and amongst

others stood out those men who had written for the stage from _Le Cid_

down to _Cromwell_. 'But what would these men be worth in the eyes of

him who calls Shakespeare the god of the Theatre? It is necessary to

possess some strength to venture to attack giants; and when one

undertakes to dethrone writers whom whole generations have united in

admiring, it would be advisable to fight them with weapons which, if not

equal to theirs, are at least so constructed as to have some chance.' M.

de Rémusat in _Le Globe_ endeavoured to hold the scales of justice

between the contending parties, while the famous Preface acted as a

rallying-cry for the supporters of the new principles. M. Soumet, Hugo's

old friend, wrote concerning the drama: 'It seems to me full of new and

daring beauties; and although in your preface you spoke mercilessly of

mosses and climbing ivy, I cannot do less than acknowledge your

admirable talent, and I shall speak of your work--grand in the style of

Michael Angelo--as I formerly spoke of your odes.'

About the time of the publication of _Cromwell_, Victor Hugo was

severely visited in his domestic relations. Madame Foucher, his wife's

mother, and a woman of many and great virtues, passed away; and on the

28th of January, 1828, the poet's father died suddenly of apoplexy. The

General and his second wife had been quite reconciled to Victor and his

brothers, and the Government had once more recognised the title of the

old soldier as General of Division. He was happy in the affection of his

sons, his daughter-in-law, and Victor Hugo's two children--Léopoldine

and Charles. On the evening of his death he had spent several happy

hours with the poet, but in the night the apoplexy struck him with the

rapidity of a shot, and he immediately expired. The incident, as may be

imagined, profoundly affected the sensitive and impressionable spirit of

Victor Hugo.

Some years before these events, Victor Hugo had, in conjunction with M.

Soumet, written a play entitled _Amy Robsart_, founded upon Scott's

_Kenilworth_. Not being able to agree as to the value of each other's

contributions, the two authors separated, each bearing away his own

dramatic goods. Hugo afterwards handed over his play to his

brother-in-law, Paul Foucher, who produced the piece in his own name at

the Odéon. It was loudly hissed. There were passages in it that

unmistakably bore the impress of Victor Hugo, and the latter

chivalrously wrote to the newspapers to say that those parts which had

been hissed were his own work. This acknowledgment drew a number of

young men to the theatre, who were as loud in their applause as a large

portion of the audience were in their condemnation. Altogether, matters

became so lively that the Government interfered, and, to allay the

tumult, interdicted the play.

In the Rue Notre-Dame des Champs there were some rare meetings of poets

and wits, when Victor Hugo and Alfred de Musset would recite poems

composed during the day, and Mérimée and Sainte-Beuve would engage in

arguments. M. Henri Beyle, M. Louis Boulanger, and M. Eugène Delacroix

were also to be seen there; and once the venerable Benjamin Constant was

a guest. When Béranger was condemned to three months' imprisonment for

one of his songs, Victor Hugo visited him in his cell. He found that the

French Burns, though obnoxious to the authorities, was the idol of the

populace. His cell was generally full of visitors, and he was inundated

with pâtés, game, fruit, and wine.

Another great stride in romanticism was made by the publication of

Victor Hugo's _Orientales_, which appeared in 1828. These lyrical poems

were full of energy and inspiration, and it was clear that the very

antithesis of the classical style had now been reached. They enhanced

the reputation of the writer, while they charmed all readers by their

freshness, simplicity, and vigour.

In July, 1829, a brilliant company assembled at Hugo's house to listen

to the reading of a new play by the poet, the famous _Marion de Lorme_,

originally called _A Duel under Richelieu_. The writer, it was soon

seen, had avoided the faults which marked the construction of

_Cromwell_, and had produced a real drama, and one well adapted for

stage representation. The company present at the reading included

Balzac, Delacroix, Alfred de Musset, Mérimée, Sainte-Beuve, Alfred de

Vigny, Dumas, Deschamps, and Taylor. Dumas, with the generous frankness

which always characterized him, afterwards wrote respecting the play: 'I

listened with admiration the most intense, but yet an admiration that

was tinged with sadness, for I felt that I could never attain to such a

powerful style. I congratulated Hugo very heartily, telling him that I,

deficient in style as I was, had been quite overwhelmed by the

magnificence of his.' But there was one point upon which Dumas,

supported by Sainte-Beuve and Mérimée, pleaded, and pleaded

successfully. Not feeling satisfied that Didier should meet his death

without forgiving Marion, Hugo yielded to the pressure put upon him, and

altered the drama accordingly. The news of a new play by Victor Hugo

brought forward the managers at once, but it had already been promised

to M. Taylor for the Théâtre Français. However, there was the ordeal of

the censors yet to pass through, and fears were entertained as to the

fourth act, in which Louis XIII. was described as a hunter, and

represented as governed by a priest--points in which everybody would see

a resemblance to Charles X. Permission to perform the play was refused.

Victor Hugo appealed to the King, who removed from office the Minister

of the Interior (M. de Martignac), the dramatist's chief enemy, and

promised to read the offending act himself. Having done so, his Majesty

declined to give his sanction to the representation of the drama, but

by way of a solatium granted the poet a fresh pension of 4,000 francs.

Hugo was indignant, and at once wrote declining the pension, upon which

the _Constitutionnel_ remarked, 'Youth is less easily corrupted than the

Ministers think.' With regard to the drama itself, it has been well

remarked that 'had Marion, in spite of her heroism and her repentance,

been adequately chastised for her lapse from virtue, probably much of

the sentimentality would have been avoided, which, although now

exploded, at the time caused a great depravity of taste, and invested

the "Dames aux Camellias" and the "Mimis" of Bohemian life with an

interest that they did not deserve.'

Undismayed by what had occurred, Victor Hugo now devoted himself to the

composition of another drama, and his _Hernani_ was shortly in the hands

of M. Taylor for production. The censors again interfered, and in the

course of a very impertinent report, observed that the play was 'a

tissue of extravagances, generally trivial, and often coarse, to which

the author has failed to give anything of an elevated character. Yet

while we animadvert upon its flagrant faults, we are of opinion that

not only is there no harm in sanctioning the representation of the

piece, but that it would be inadvisable to curtail it by a single word.

It will be for the benefit of the public to see to what extremes the

human mind will go, when freed from all restraint.' These literary

censors did, however, require the alteration or removal of certain

passages in which the kingly state and dignity were handled with too

much freedom; and they forbade the name of Jesus to be used throughout

the piece.

The supporters of the classical drama strenuously exerted themselves to

prevent the play from being produced, but in vain. Of course, this

creation of a new style meant the decline of the old one. The play went

into rehearsal, and the author had a passage of arms with Mademoiselle

Mars, who took the part of Doña Sol. This lady, whose power had made her

imperious, found her master in Hugo, and when threatened with the loss

of her part, she consented to deliver a disputed phrase as written. The

time for production came, and when the author was asked to name his

systematic applauders, according to custom, he declined to do so,

stating that there would be no systematic applause. The play excited

the liveliest curiosity. Benjamin Constant was amongst those who

earnestly begged for seats, and M. Thiers wrote personally to the author

for a box. The literary friends of Victor Hugo attended in great

numbers, including Gautier, Borel, and Balzac. The theatre was crowded,

and the feeling of all parties intense. As the play progressed from act

to act, nevertheless, it gained in its hold upon the audience. When the

fourth act closed, M. Maine, a publisher, sought out Victor Hugo, and

offered him 6,000 francs for the play, but the matter, he said, must be

decided at once. The author protested, remarking that the success of the

piece might be less complete at the end. 'Ah, that's true, but it may be

much greater,' replied the publisher. 'At the second act I thought of

offering 2,000 francs; at the third act I got up to 4,000; I now at the

fourth act offer 6,000; and after the fifth I am afraid I should have to

offer 10,000.' Hugo laughingly concluded the bargain for 6,000 francs,

and went with the eager publisher into a tobacco shop to sign a roughly

improvised agreement. The play concluded brilliantly, Mademoiselle Mars

securing a great triumph in the last act. The whole house applauded

vociferously, and the triumph of romanticism was complete.

The literary war which ensued was very fierce. In the provinces, as in

Paris, it divided the public into hostile camps, and so deep were the

feelings which it excited that in Toulouse a duel was fought over the

play, and one of the antagonists was killed. Armand Carrel was

especially bitter in his assaults upon _Hernani_, but Hugo was more than

consoled for this and other attacks by the following letter from

Chateaubriand: 'I was present, sir, at the first representation of

_Hernani_. You know how much I admire you. My vanity attaches itself to

your lyre, and you know the reason. I am going--you are coming. I

commend myself to the remembrance of your muse. A pious glory ought to

pray for the dead.' As an amusing pendant to this, it may be mentioned

in connection with the poet and _Hernani_, that a provincial Frenchman

(in making his will) ordered the following inscription to be placed on

his tombstone: 'Here lies one who believed in Victor Hugo.'

In spite of the attacks in the press, also of personal threats and of

the deliberate and almost unparalleled attempts to stifle the play in

the theatre itself, _Hernani_ held its own, and continued to be played

with great pecuniary success until the enforced absence of Mademoiselle

Mars, when it was withdrawn from the stage, and not acted again for some

years. But the play had practically established the new drama. It was

the herald of the renaissance, and for this reason must continue to

occupy a conspicuous position whenever an attempt is made to estimate

the dramatic work and influence of Victor Hugo.

CHAPTER V. 'NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS.'

There is a natural desire to know something of the personal aspect of

men who have become great. What would the world give, for example, for a

faithful account of the character, the appearance, the sayings, the

habits of Shakespeare, written by a friend and a contemporary? In the

case of Victor Hugo we fortunately have such a description from the pen

of one of his most enthusiastic admirers, Théophile Gautier. The sketch

represents the poet as he appeared at the time which we have now reached

in his history, that is when he was about twenty-eight years of age.

Gautier was exceedingly nervous over his contemplated interview with

Victor Hugo, and twice failed to summon up the necessary courage for the

meeting. On the third occasion he found himself in the poet's study.

All his prepared eloquence, we are told, at once vanished away; the long

apostrophe of praise which he had spent whole evenings in composing came

to nothing. He felt like Heine, who, when he was going to have an

interview with Goethe, prepared an elaborate speech beforehand, but at

the crucial moment could find nothing better to say to the author of

_Faust_ than that the plum-trees on the road between Jena and Weimar

bore plums that were very nice when one was thirsty. But the Jupiter of

German poetry was probably more flattered by his visitor's bewilderment

than he would have been by the most glowing eulogium. Passing over

Gautier's panegyrics, here is what he wrote concerning the person of

Hugo: 'He was then twenty-eight years of age, and nothing about him was

more striking than his forehead, that like a marble monument rose above

his calm and earnest countenance: the beauty of that forehead was

well-nigh superhuman; the deepest of thoughts might be written within,

but it was capable of bearing the coronet of gold or the chaplet of

laurel with all the dignity of a divinity or a Cæsar. This splendid brow

was set in a frame of rich chestnut hair that was allowed to grow to

considerable length behind. His face was closely shaven, its peculiar

paleness being relieved by the lustre of a pair of hazel eyes, keen as

an eagle's. The curved lips betokened a firm determination, and when

half opened in a smile, displayed a set of teeth of charming whiteness.

His attire was neat and faultless, consisting of black frock-coat, grey

trousers, and a small lay-down collar. Nothing in his appearance could

ever have led anyone to suspect that this perfect gentleman was the

leader of the rough-bearded, dishevelled set that was the terror of the

smooth-faced _bourgeoisie_. Such was Victor Hugo. His image, as we saw

it in that first interview, has never faded from our memory. It is a

portrait that we cherish tenderly; its smiles, beaming with talent,

continue with us, ever diffusing a clear and phosphorescent glory!'

In the year 1831 Victor Hugo published a work which, if he had written

nothing else, would have given him a place amongst the immortal writers

of France. This was his _Notre-Dame de Paris_, undertaken and produced

under extraordinary circumstances. It was received with mixed favour by

the critics, but at once made its way to the heart of the people. Any

number of hostile reviews would have been insufficient to check the

progress of so singular and powerful a work. The author had made an

engagement to write this book for a publisher named Gosselin, and the

latter now claimed the execution of the contract. The work was

originally to have been ready by the close of 1829, but in July, 1830,

it was not yet begun, and a new contract was prepared, under which it

was to be completed by the ensuing December. Political events greatly

disturbed the progress of the romance, and a further difficulty was

created by the loss of manuscript notes which had taken two months to

collect. In the removal of Hugo's books and manuscripts from the house

in the Rue Jean Goujon to the Rue du Cherche-Midi, these valuable notes

went astray. They were not recovered till some years afterwards, when

they were incorporated in a later edition of the novel. A still further

delay was granted by the publisher, in accordance with which the author

was to complete the story by February, 1831, having just five months in

which to accomplish the task.

Hugo set to work with marvellous energy, and some amusing details are

given of the way in which he laboured with his romance. 'He bought a

bottle of ink, and a thick piece of grey worsted knitting which

enveloped him from the neck to the heels; he locked up his clothes, in

order not to be tempted to go out, and worked at his novel as if in a

prison. He was very melancholy.' It appears that he never left the

writing-table except to eat and to sleep, and occasionally to read over

some chapters to his friends. The book was finished on the 14th of

January, and as the writer concluded his last line and his last drop of

ink at the same moment, he thought of changing the title of the novel,

and calling it 'The Contents of a Bottle of Ink.' This title, which was

not thus used, however, was subsequently adopted by Alphonse Karr.

On being asked by his publisher for some descriptive notes upon the

work, which might be useful in advertising it, Victor Hugo wrote: 'It is

a representation of Paris in the fifteenth century, and of the fifteenth

century in its relations to Paris. Louis XI. appears in one chapter, and

the King is associated with, or practically decides, the _dénouement_.

The book has no historical pretensions, unless they be those of painting

with some care and accuracy--but entirely by sketches, and

incidentally--the state of morals, creeds, laws, arts, and even

civilization, in the fifteenth century. This is, however, not the most

important part of the work. If it has a merit, it is in its being purely

a work of imagination, caprice, and fancy.' Nevertheless, the author has

underrated in certain respects the value of his own work. Powerful as it

is from the imaginative point of view, it is no less remarkable for the

way in which the writer has brought together a mass of historical and

antiquarian lore. Its thoroughness and careful construction in regard to

such details may be recommended to less accurate writers in the field of

historical romance. Paris, with its myriad interests, is vividly

represented by one to whom it had given up its past as well as its

present. Whether we see life beneath the shadow of Notre-Dame, in the

Cour des Miracles, the Place de Grève, the Palais de Justice, the

Bastille or the Louvre, it is all the same--the master-hand has given

life and vitality to all it has touched.

The gipsy girl Esmeralda, a fascinating creation, has been compared with

the Fenella of Scott, the La Gitanilla of Cervantes, and the Mignon of

Goethe. But she has a character of her own distinct from all of these.

In her history the power of love is once more exemplified, and if round

her centres the finest pathos of the work, so also is she its noblest

gleam of light and grace and beauty. It has been said that love makes

the learned archdeacon forget his studies, his clerical character, his

reputation for sanctity, to court the favours of a volatile Bohemian.

'Love for this same Parisian Fenella softens the human savage Quasimodo,

the dumb one-eyed bell-ringer of Notre-Dame, and transforms him into a

delicate monster, a devoted humble worshipper of the Bohemian. While

she, who is the cynosure of neighbouring eyes, the object of adoration

to these singular lovers, is herself hopelessly attached in turn to a

giddy-pated captain of the guard, who can afford to love no one but

himself.' In his grand and startling effects, the writer has been

compared with the painter Martin. There is an almost unparalleled

breadth, which gives the work a Rembrandtish effect in all the chief

scenes. The siege of the cathedral by the banded beggars and vagabonds

of Paris in the night is one not readily effaced from the memory; and

this is equally true of the terrible interview between the infatuated

monk and his victim in the filthy dungeons of the Palais de Justice; of

the weird scene of the Fête de Fous in the Hall of the Palace; of the

Alsatian picture of the examination and projected hanging of Gringoire

among the thieves in the Cour des Miracles; of the execution of

Esmeralda; and of the fearful fate of the impassioned monk.

The strange fatality attending upon mere passion is insisted on all

through; it binds together in one miserable chain the priest who is

prepared to sacrifice all that is sacred in duty for love, the heartless

soldier, and the trusting maiden. As to the _dramatis personæ_, the

_Athenæum_, observed, 'No character can be more intimately identified

with the genius of Victor Hugo than the interesting, generous, and

high-minded gipsy girl Esmeralda. The character of Phoebus de

Chateaupers, the bold, reckless, gay, gallant, good-tempered,

light-hearted, and faithless captain of gendarmerie, is also original,

and wrought out with great skill. The Archdeacon Claude Frollo is a

striking specimen of those churchmen of the fifteenth century who united

the grossest superstition to the most consummate hypocrisy, and applied

the influences of religion to acts of the blackest perfidy. There are

many historical characters in this work, and, among others, our old

acquaintances in Quentin Durward, Louis XI., Olivier-le-Daim, and the

squinting Provost, Tristan l'Hermite.' In eloquence, in vigour, in

animation, and in all the masterly pageantry of a bygone age, this work

will continue to hold a unique position amongst symbolical and

historical romances.

_Notre-Dame_ was assailed by the majority of the Parisian journals, but

in the minority warmly in its favour were to be found some of the first

writers of the age. Touching the style of the work, Sainte-Beuve said,

'There is a magical facility and freedom in saying all that should be

said; there is a striking keenness of observation, especially is there a

profound knowledge of the populace, and a deep insight into man in his

vanity, his emptiness, and his glory, whether he be mendicant, vagabond,

_savant_, or sensualist. Moreover, there is an unexampled comprehension

of form; an unrivalled expression of grace, material beauty, and

greatness; and altogether a worthy presentment of an abiding and

gigantic monument. Alike in the pretty prattlings of the nymph-like

child, in the cravings of the she-wolf mother, and in the surging

passion, almost reaching to delirium, that rages in a man's brain, there

is the moulding and wielding of everything just at the author's will.'

Alfred de Musset, while unable to take in the scope of the work,

acknowledged that it was colossal. Jules Janin remarked that 'of all the

works of the author it is pre-eminently that in which his fire of

genius, his inflexible calmness, and his indomitable will are most

conspicuous. What accumulation of misfortunes is piled up in these

mournful pages! What a gathering together there is of ruinous passion

and bewildering incident! All the foulness as well as all the faith of

the Middle Ages are kneaded together with a trowel of gold and of iron.

At the sound of the poet's voice all that was in ruins has risen to its

fullest height, reanimated by his breath.... Victor Hugo has followed

his vocation as poet and architect, as writer of history and romance;

his pen has been guided alike by ancient chronicle and by his own

personal genius; he has made all the bells of the great city to clang

out their notes; and he has made every heart of the population, except

that of Louis XI., to beat with life! Such is the book; it is a

brilliant page of our history, which cannot fail to be a crowning glory

in the career of its author.' Finally, Eugène Sue wrote: 'If the useless

admiration of a barbarian like myself had the power to express and

interpret itself in a manner worthy of the book which has inspired it, I

should tell you, sir, that you are a great spendthrift; that your

critics resemble those poor people on the fifth story, who, whilst

gazing on the prodigalities of the great nobleman, would say to each

other, with anger in their hearts, "I could live during my whole life on

the money spent in a single day."'

The publisher had some doubts of the pecuniary success of the novel, but

these speedily disappeared, as edition after edition was called for. In

the course of a year only, eight large editions had been disposed of,

and the number of editions which have been issued since that time may be

described as legion. From thinking, as he did originally, that he had

made a bad bargain, M. Gosselin soon had reason to arrive at the

conclusion that he had made a remarkably good one. Together with other

publishers, he now pestered the author continually for more novels.

Hugo protested that he had none to give them; but wearied at length by

their importunities he furnished the titles of two stories he proposed

to write, which were to be called the _Fils de la Bossue_ and _La

Quinquengrogne_. The latter name was the popular designation of one of

the towers of Bourbon l'Aschembault, and in the novel the author

intended to complete the account of his views concerning the art of the

Middle Ages. Notre-Dame was the cathedral, La Quinquengrogne was to be

the dungeon.

Victor Hugo wrote at this time his admirable descriptive work _Le

Rhin_--a work full of learning, vivacity, and humour--but he never

proceeded with the two projected novels. _Notre-Dame_ remained for many

years the only romance in which the author revealed his marvellous power

of moulding human sympathies, of throwing into imaginative conceptions

the very form and substance of being, and of realizing a dead-past age

as though it were that of the actual and the living.

CHAPTER VI. 'MARION DE LORME' AND OTHER DRAMAS.

That despotic monarch, Charles X., having been driven from his throne by

the Revolution of July, 1830, there naturally followed the removal of

the interdict from the theatres. Victor Hugo was at once applied to by

the Comédie Française for his drama of _Marion de Lorme_, which had been

in enforced abeyance. But when the political reaction was an absolute

certainty, the sensitive mind of Hugo shrank from a demonstrative

triumph. It is true that he was now in the full tide of masculine

judgment, and that his ideas of progress and liberty were crystallized

and matured; but he could not forget his early opinions. Though crudely

formed, and based upon sentiment and not upon reason, they had been

genuine and disinterested, and his chief feeling at this later period

was not one of hatred of the King, but rather of rejoicing with the

people.

However, after a year had elapsed from Charles's fall, there was no

reason why a drama should be lost to the stage simply because it

contained an historical presentment of Louis XIII. After declining many

offers, the author resolved to give the play to M. Crosnier, for the

theatre of the Porte St. Martin; and he also entered into an agreement

to write yearly two works of importance for this theatre. Dumas's

_Antony_ was being performed at the Porte St. Martin, but on the

conclusion of its run _Marion de Lorme_ was produced, with Madame Dorval

in the part of Marion, and M. Bocage in that of Didier. Difficulties as

usual were thrown in the way of the new play, but it eventually

triumphed over them. The journals, nevertheless, were hostile, the

_Moniteur_ especially so, affirming that the author had never yet

conceived anything more meagre and commonplace, and more full of

eccentricities, than this piece. One critic asserted that the character

of Didier was taken from that of Antony, although Hugo's play had been

written first. Those friends who formerly applauded Hugo and Dumas

conjointly, now divided themselves into two parties, one of which

persistently assailed the writer of _Marion de Lorme_. From a variety of

causes the play was only performed four nights on its first production,

but the performances were afterwards resumed. It may be added that the

_Revue des Deux Mondes_, whose judgment was better worth having than

that of most of its contemporaries, remarked that Victor Hugo had never

so truly shown himself a poet, nor attained to so high a range of

vision, nor so wide a field of judgment, as in this piece.

A tragic incident which occurred not long after the representation of

this play affected the poet deeply. Amongst the warmest of his band of

admirers was M. Ernest de Saxe-Coburg, whose race and origin are

indicated by his name. He and his mother lived in Paris, on a pension

granted them by the Duke. Ernest was taken seriously ill, and the

distracted parent rushed to the house of Victor Hugo, exclaiming, 'You

alone can save him! Come at once!' But the unfortunate young man was

already dead; and a painful scene took place in the chamber of death on

the arrival of Victor Hugo and the mother. 'The unhappy woman, who had

but this only child in the world to love, would not believe that he was

dead. He was but cold, she said; and she threw herself on his bed,

encircling him in her arms in order to impart warmth to the corpse. She

frantically kissed his marble face, which was already cold. Suddenly she

felt within herself that it was all over; she raised herself, and

haggard and wild as she was, though still beautiful, she exclaimed, "He

is dead!" M. Victor Hugo spent the night by the side of the mother and

the corpse.' It was the lot of Hugo to awaken by his genius many

personal attachments and enthusiasms such as that felt for him by this

ill-fated youth; and these attachments were invariably strengthened and

deepened by subsequent friendship.

In 1832 the poet wrote his _Le Roi s'Amuse_. It has been charged against

this play that it presents an unredeemed picture of vice and

licentiousness. It has 'overstepped all bounds,' wrote one critic;

'history, reason, morality, artistic dignity, and refinement, are all

trampled under foot. The whole piece is monstrous; history is set at

nought, and the most noble characters are slandered and vilified. The

play is entirely void of interest, and the horrible, the mean, and the

immoral are all jumbled together into a kind of chaos.' As we shall

see, Victor Hugo traversed the whole of these and similar judgments.

Baron Taylor secured the play for the Théâtre Français, Triboulet being

assigned to M. Ligier, Saint-Vallier to M. Joanny, Blanche to

Mademoiselle Anaïs, and Francis I. to M. Perrier. A preliminary flourish

occurred between Hugo and M. d'Argout, the Minister of Public Works, in

whose department the theatres lay. The Minister first demanded the

manuscript, then sent for the author, and finally wrote that the

Monarchical principle in France must suffer from the author's attacks on

Francis I., which would be taken as being levelled against Louis

Philippe. The poet replied that the interests of history were to be

consulted before those of royalty, but he denied that there was anything

in the piece reflecting on Louis Philippe. The play was produced on the

22nd of November, and met with a very mixed reception, the hisses

predominating. It was partly damned by the defects of the actors. When

the curtain fell upon the last act, and it was felt that the play had

failed, the leading performer said to the author, 'Shall I mention your

name?' Hugo answered haughtily, 'Sir, I have a rather higher opinion of

my play now it is a failure.'

Next day the play was suspended, the reason given being that it was an

offence against public morality. It appears that a number of devotees of

the classical school had persuaded the Minister that a drama which had

for its subject the assassination of a king was not to be tolerated on

the very day after the existing monarch had himself escaped

assassination; that the play was an apology for regicides, etc. Victor

Hugo was not the man to be thus crushed without an effort to save his

drama. In the first place he issued a manifesto to the public, briefly

summarizing the plot of the piece, and denying that it was immoral. Then

he entered a civil suit before the Board of Trade to compel the Théâtre

Français to perform _Le Roi s'Amuse_, and likewise to compel the

Government to sanction the performance. The trial opened in a densely

crowded court, many celebrities being amongst the audience. They had

been attracted by the announcement that the author would plead his own

case. Hugo's speech was applauded by a band of very sympathetic

listeners, and on its conclusion M. de Montalembert assured him that he

was as great an orator as he was a writer, and that if the doors of the

theatre were closed against him, the tribune was still available.

Judgment was given against the poet, and for the Minister. M. Paul

Foucher, describing the scene on the night of the first performance of

_Le Roi s'Amuse_, observed that while the whole theatre was in an

uproar, and Hugo's name was drowned in the sea of roaring voices, 'the

author's face exhibited no sign of despondency at the failure any more

than it had shown passion or excitement during the struggle. His

Olympian brow had withstood the tempest with the firmness of a rock, and

after the curtain fell, he went to offer his thanks and encouragements

to the actors and actresses, saying, "You are a little discomposed

to-night; but you will find it different the day after to-morrow!" In

spite of the hissing, he was sanguine about his play; nevertheless, it

was not destined to be repeated.'

The poet's enemies now caused him considerable annoyance on the subject

of his pension. He had ceased to receive the 1,000 francs granted him by

Louis XVIII. out of his privy purse, but still received the 2,000 francs

allowed him by the Home Minister. In reply to the recriminations of the

Ministerial journals, he wrote a letter to M. d'Argout, showing that

this pension was clearly granted to him on literary grounds, quite apart

from political opinions. But he had decided to accept it no longer, and

thus stated his reasons: 'Now that the Government appears to regard what

are called literary pensions as proceeding from itself, and not from the

country, and as this kind of grant takes from an author's independence;

now that this strange pretension of the Government serves as the basis

to the somewhat shameful attacks of certain journals, the management of

which is, unfortunately, though no doubt incorrectly, imagined to be in

your hands; as it is also of importance to me to maintain my relations

with the Government in a higher region than that in which this kind of

warfare goes on--without discussing whether your pretensions relating to

this indemnity have the smallest foundation, I hasten to inform you that

I entirely relinquish it.' The Minister replied, taking the poet's view,

that the pension was a debt due from the country, and stating that it

should still be reserved for him; but Victor Hugo never took it up from

this time forward.

For a brief period managers held aloof from the dramatist, and when he

wrote _Le Souper à Ferrare_, which title was afterwards changed to that

of _Lucrèce Borgia_, no one was eager for it. But this attitude changed

after his speech at the tribunal, and M. Harel, director of the Porte

St. Martin, sought for and obtained the play. Admirable representatives

were found for the chief parts, Frédérick Lemaître taking that of

Grennaro, Delafosse that of Don Alphonse d'Esté, Mademoiselle Georges

that of Lucretia, and Mademoiselle Juliette that of the Princess

Negroni. Meyerbeer and Berlioz composed the music for the song which was

sung at the supper given by the Princess Negroni. Only one person was

allowed to be present at the final rehearsal, and that was Sainte-Beuve.

The critic was playing a double part towards the dramatist, with whom he

had been out of sympathy for some time past, and it is recorded that at

the close of the rehearsal of _Lucrèce Borgia_ he warmly congratulated

the author upon his drama, and went away circulating reports everywhere

that the piece was an utter absurdity! 'It was solely due to his

treachery and infamous gossip that on the morning of the day on which

the piece was to be performed in the evening, several newspapers

announced that they were in possession of the plot, and that the whole

production was in the highest degree obscene, depicting orgies terrible

and indecent beyond conception.'

Great interest, notwithstanding, was manifested in the play, and amongst

those who implored the author for first-night seats was General

Lafayette. The representation was a triumphant success, and for awhile

nothing was talked about in Paris but the new play. The monetary success

was equal to the literary and dramatic. The receipts for the first three

performances amounted to 84,769 francs--a sum which no other work had

equalled or approached during M. Harel's management. Referring to two of

his most widely known dramas, Victor Hugo predicted that _Le Roi

s'Amuse_ would one day prove to be the principal political era, and

_Lucrèce Borgia_ the principal literary era of his life. He had

purposely presented deformities in both, but he believed that by uniting

monsters to humanity, one could not fail to excite interest and perhaps

sympathy. 'Physical deformity, sanctified by paternal love, this is what

you have in _Le Roi s'Amuse_; moral deformity, purified by maternal

love, this is what you find in _Lucrèce Borgia_.'

Hugo was fated to be the victim of misunderstanding with regard to

almost all his dramas, and he found no exception in _Lucrèce Borgia_.

From an attitude of delight and complacency, M. Harel, the director of

the theatre, passed to one of studious neglect and insolence. He took

off the play, and then demanded a new one, which he averred the poet had

agreed to write for him. A quarrel ensued, and the manager challenged

the dramatist to a duel. It would have taken place, but M. Harel thought

better of the affair, and apologized, whereupon Hugo agreed to give him

his next piece. M. Harel remarked upon the whole incident, 'You are

probably the first author to whom a manager has said, "Your play or your

life!"'

_Marie Tudor_, produced in November, 1833, was the next play by Victor

Hugo. It was concerned with a queen, a favourite, and an executioner, a

trio as common in history as upon the mimic stage. The dramatist had now

two difficulties to contend with. In the first place, the partisans of

Dumas sowed dissension between the two authors, and spread lying

reports respecting Hugo and his attitude towards Dumas; and in the

second place, the writer's own friends grew alarmed at various reports

which gained currency. 'I hear on all sides,' wrote one of them, 'that

your play is more than ever a tissue of horrors--that your Mary is a

bloodthirsty creature, that the executioner is perpetually on the stage,

and several other reproaches all equally well founded.' Hugo remained

calm and unmoved, though he was warned that the presence of the

executioner on the stage had been given as the watchword to those who

intended to hiss the play. The piece was produced in due course, and

Mademoiselle Georges looked superbly and acted well. But the author's

enemies kept up a persistent hissing, and there was a strong contest

between those who formed a genuine judgment upon the play and greatly

admired it, and those who were resolved upon its ruin. The first night

left the result dubious, but the piece continued to be played beyond the

time generally regarded as constituting an average success. On its

withdrawal, all the relations between the author and the Porte St.

Martin naturally ceased, and the treaty with M. Harel for a third drama

was destroyed by mutual consent.

Hugo's dramatic work was now interrupted by the composition of his

_L'Étude sur Mirabeau_, which may be taken as an apology for his

advanced political and social views. He felt it necessary to review his

past career, and to make known to the world the processes of education

through which his mind had passed since his early days of Royalist

fervour. This study, which appeared in his _Littérature et Philosophie

Mêlées_, is a defence of conscience, and illustrates the power of

growing convictions to emancipate the mind from prejudice and error,

regarding the matter, of course, from the standpoint of the writer

himself.

In 1835 the Théâtre Français applied to Victor Hugo for a new drama, and

in response he gave to it his _Angelo_, one of his best pieces for

construction and for rapid and vigorous effects. It was the author's

intention in this drama, as he has himself stated, 'to depict two sad

but contrasted characters--the woman in society, and the woman out of

society; the one he has endeavoured to deliver from despotism, the other

he has striven to defend from contempt; he has shown the temptations

resisted by the virtue of the one, and the tears shed over her guilt by

the other; he has cast blame where blame is due, upon man in his

strength and upon society in its absurdity; in contrariety to the two

women, he has delineated two men--the husband and the lover, one a

sovereign and one an outlaw, and, by various subordinate methods, has

given a sort of summary of the relations, regular and irregular, in

which a man can stand with a woman on the one hand, and with society in

general on the other.' There is nothing more characteristic of the

author's dramas than this exhibition of striking contrasts; and, indeed,

in all his poetic work is to be traced this juxtaposition of the

strongest lights and shades of which human life and human emotion are

capable.

The two leading stars in _Angelo_ were Mademoiselle Mars and Madame

Dorval. Unfortunately, a serious feud arose in consequence of the former

discovering that the part she had chosen was not the most forcible and

picturesque; and it required all the strong will of Victor Hugo to bring

the actress to reason. The two ladies had their partisans in the theatre

when the play came to be acted, but the representation passed over

without mishap, and it was conceded that a fair success had been

achieved.

Whatever might be Victor Hugo's defects as a dramatist, and however he

might divide in opinion the theatre-going public of Paris upon the

general claims of his plays, he had certainly infused life into the

dramatic literature of the time. He had attained a commanding position,

and although his genius was marred by some eccentricities, it was also

as unquestionably distinguished for its grand conceptions, its dramatic

felicities, and its splendours of diction.

CHAPTER VII. LAST DRAMATIC WRITINGS.

In some respects, no man of equal genius was ever so unfortunate as

Victor Hugo in his relations with the stage. I refer, of course, to the

earlier part of his career, for there came a time when the appreciation

of him as a dramatist was as high and universal as was the admiration of

his literary excellence. But during the long struggle between the old

and the new drama there were always enemies ready to denounce and hiss

whatsoever he produced; and had he given them a _Romeo and Juliet_ or a

_Hamlet_, the result would have been precisely the same.

We have seen the alternations of failure and success which attended the

plays already passed in review; and the same mixed reception was awarded

to those final efforts in connection with the drama which led him to

adopt the resolution to quit the stage for ever. An operatic venture

into which the poet was drawn in 1836 resulted in the same ill-fortune

which had marked more regular dramatic compositions. Meyerbeer and other

celebrated musicians had begged Victor Hugo to make an opera of

_Notre-Dame de Paris_, but he had steadfastly declined all such

proposals. At length he yielded to friendship, and wrote the libretto of

an opera called _La Esmeralda_, the music being composed by Mademoiselle

Bertin, daughter of the conductor of the _Journal des Débats_. Curiously

enough, the libretto ended with the word 'fatality,' and this

represented the misfortune of the piece and its performers. Though

boasting a singular array of talent in its production and

representation, it was hissed. Mademoiselle Falcon, the leading singer,

lost her voice; M. Nourrit, the tenor, subsequently went to Italy, and

killed himself; the Duke of Orleans gave the name of _Esmeralda_ to a

valuable mare, which was killed at a steeplechase; and finally, a ship

called the Esmeralda was lost in crossing from England to Ireland, and

every soul on board perished.

A domestic grief visited the poet in the following year, when his

brother Eugène died. For some time before his death he had been insane,

and towards the end his one favourite relative, Victor, even could not

visit him, as the sight of his brother conjured up illusions which made

him dangerously violent. Though of strong constitution naturally, when

the sufferer's mind gave way his physical health began to fail also, and

he gradually wasted away until death released him in February, 1837.

This was the brother who had been Victor Hugo's constant companion in

early life, and the news of his death deeply agitated the survivor,

keenly awakening the slumbering recollections of childhood.

Louis Philippe gave a grand fête at Versailles in the summer of 1837, on

the occasion of the marriage of the Duke of Orleans. Victor Hugo, Dumas,

Balzac, and other men of letters were invited, and were obliged to

appear in fancy dress, the result being ludicrous in some cases, as in

that of Balzac, who had on the dress of a marquis, which, it was

jokingly said, fitted him as badly as the title itself would. Hugo was

an object of special distinction by the Royal family. The King conversed

with him, and the Duchess of Orleans paid him marked attention. There

were two people, she said, with whom she wished to become acquainted--M.

Cousin and himself. She had often spoken of him to Monsieur de Goethe;

she had read all his works, and knew his poems by heart. Her favourite

book was the _Chants du Crépuscule_; and she added, 'I have visited

_your_ Notre-Dame.' Hugo was promoted to the rank of Officer of the

Legion of Honour, and he received from the Duchess a painting by M.

Saint-Evre representing Inez de Castro. It was a valuable work, and on

the gilding of the frame was inscribed, '_Le Duc et la Duchesse

d'Orléans à M. Victor Hugo, 27 Juin, 1837_.'

At this juncture the poet brought a second action before the Board of

Trade, to compel the Comédie Française to fulfil its agreement with him

by producing his plays. He also claimed compensation for past neglect.

Hugo's advocate, M. Paillard de Villeneuve, in an effective speech,

demonstrated the injustice of a theatre supported by the State becoming

the monopoly of a clique; showed how the existing state of things

pressed heavily upon such men of genius as his client; and asserted that

not only had no pieces ever realized greater profits, but that actually

at that moment, while they were prohibited in France, they were drawing

large and appreciative audiences in London, Vienna, Madrid, Moscow, and

other important cities. Victor Hugo himself also spoke, complaining that

the manager of the French theatre had deceived him, and that he wore two

masks--one of which was intended to deceive authors, and the other to

elude justice. The Board gave judgment in the poet's favour, sentencing

the Comédie Française to pay 6,000 francs damages, and to perform

_Hernani_, _Marion de Lorme_, and _Angelo_ without delay. An appeal was

entered against this judgment, and when it came on for hearing Hugo

pleaded his cause in person, asserting that there was an organized

effort to close the stage against the new and rising school of

literature. The appeal was dismissed, and justice was at length done to

the dramatist. In conformity with the judgment, _Hernani_ was first

produced, and the play was brilliantly successful.

I must refer in this place to some of Victor Hugo's lyrical efforts. Not

without reason has the volume entitled _Feuilles d'Automne_ held a high

place in the regard of his admirers. It is the poetry of the emotions

expressed in such graceful lyric verse as has rarely been penned. In

these tender and exquisite poems, as M. Alfred Nettement observed, the

poet's 'lay is of what he has seen, of what he has felt, of what he has

loved: he sings of his wife, the ornament of his home; of his children,

fascinating in their fair-haired beauty; of landscapes ever widening in

their horizon; of trees under which he has enjoyed a grateful shade.'

Nature and personal experiences--from the opening thoughts of the child

to the greater aspirations of the man--are blended in beautiful harmony

in these poems, which may be turned to again and again for their

sweetness and melody. In 1835 appeared _Les Chants du Crépuscule_, which

truly represent a kind of twilight of the soul. 'As compared with what

had gone before, the book exhibits the same ideas; the poet is

identically the same poet, but his brow is furrowed by deeper lines, and

maturity is more stamped upon his years; he laments that he cannot

comprehend the semi-darkness that is gathering around; his hope seems

damped by hesitation; his love-songs die away in sighs of misgiving; and

when he sees the people enveloped in doubt, he begins to be conscious of

faltering too. But from all this temper of despondency he quickly

rallies, and returns to a bright assurance of a grand development of

the human race.' The volume has tones of gentleness and also tones of

lofty scorn. To the suffering and the unfortunate the poet was ever

tender and pitiful; but to the mean, the base, and the vicious he was as

a whip and a scourge. He always endeavoured to separate the worthy from

the unworthy, and wherever the latter were to be found, whether in the

ranks of friends or foes, they were never suffered to escape the lash of

his indignation.

Another volume of poems, _Les Voix Intérieures_, was published in 1837.

'The poet in this production,' says one of his biographers, 'regards

life under its threefold aspect, at home, abroad, and at work; he

maintains that it is the mission of the poet not to suffer the past to

become an illusion to blind him in the present, but to survey all things

calmly, to be ever staunch yet kind, to be impartial, and equally free

from petty wrath and petty vanity; in everything to be sincere and

disinterested. Such was his ideal, and in accordance with it Victor Hugo

spared no effort to improve the minds and morals of men in general, and

by his poetry, as well as by his romances and his plays, he desired to

constitute himself the champion of amelioration.' This same desire for

the elevation of the race ran through all his efforts--social, literary,

and political. He may have been mistaken in his means sometimes, never

in the honesty and purity of his intent.

Returning to the stage, Victor Hugo had become so impressed with the

idea that the French nation had a right to have a theatre in which the

higher drama should be performed, that he was brought to consent to

several interviews on the subject with M. Guizot. The latter admitted

that there never was a more legitimate request; he agreed with the poet

that a new style of art required a new style of theatre; that the

Comédie Française, which was the seat of Tradition and Conservatism, was

not the proper arena for original literature of the day; and that the

Government would only be doing its duty in creating a theatre for those

who had created a department of art. A scheme was perfected for a new

theatre, and M. Anténor Joly was named as manager. No building but a

very old one was to be had, however, and this--which was in a bad

situation--was transformed into the Théâtre de la Renaissance. For this

theatre Hugo wrote his _Ruy Blas_, a drama which, as is well known,

deals with the love of a queen for a valet who subsequently becomes a

minister. The play was in five acts, and the leading character was

sustained by Lemaître. The actor strongly approved the first three acts,

but was more than dubious about the fourth and fifth. During the final

rehearsals of this piece Victor Hugo had a marvellous escape of his

life. Two of the actors happening to station themselves awkwardly, he

got up in order to indicate their right positions. Scarcely had he left

his chair when a great bar of iron fell upon it from an arch above,

smashing it to atoms. The author would undoubtedly have been killed on

the spot but for this momentary rising to correct the mistake of the

actors.

The body of the theatre being incomplete when the play came to be

produced, difficulties beset the representation. It was winter, and many

of the audience were chilled by violent draughts. But the play soon

warmed them into enthusiasm. In the fifth act, we are told by one who

was present, Lemaître rivalled the greatest comedians, and success was

more decided than ever. 'The way in which he tore off his livery, drew

the bolt, and struck his sword on the table, the way in which he said to

Don Sallustre:

                                 '"_Tenez_,

     Pour un homme d'esprit, vraiment vous m'étonnez!"

--the way in which he came back to entreat the Queen's pardon, and

finally drank off the poison--everything had so much greatness, truth,

depth, and splendour, that the poet had the rare joy of seeing the ideal

of which he had dreamt become a living soul.'

The play was successful with that part of the public which was

unprejudiced, and the press generally was in its favour. But it appears

that the theatre was wanted by the co-manager for comic opera, so the

fourth act of Hugo's play was persistently hissed at every

representation by interested persons. The _claqueurs_ were detected and

instantly recognised. _Ruy Blas_ ran for fifty nights, the same

programme of hissing being carried through to the end. The manuscript of

the piece was sold to the manager of a publishing company, M. Delboye.

The company also purchased the right of publication of the whole of the

poet's works for eleven years, for which they agreed to pay 240,000

francs; and the poet on his part agreed to add two unpublished volumes.

Victor Hugo produced no drama after this for several years; but in 1840

he issued his work _Les Rayons et les Ombres_, consisting of poems which

had previously been read to his friends Lamartine, Deschamps, De

Lacretelle, and others. Here again he sought expression for his

ever-widening aspirations after human perfectibility. Once more in this

work 'he claims the right of expressing his goodwill for all who labour,

his aversion to all who oppress; his love for all who serve the good

cause, and his pity for all who suffer in its behalf; he declares

himself free to bow down to every misery, and to pay homage to all

self-sacrifice.' In the poetical alternations and contrasts in this

volume will be discovered a profound love and appreciation of Nature, as

well as an undercurrent of affection for the human. The poet himself,

looking back upon what he had accomplished, and forward towards what he

hoped to do, at the transition period before he went into exile,

asserted his thesis that 'a poet ought to have in him the worship of

conscience, the worship of thought, and the worship of Nature; he should

be like Juvenal, who felt that day and night were perpetual witnesses

within him; he should be like Dante, who defined the lost to be those

who could no longer think; he should be like St. Augustine, who,

heedless of any accusation of Pantheism, declared the sky to be an

intelligent creation.' And it is under such inspiration that 'he has

attempted to write the poem of humanity. He loves brightness and

sunshine. The Bible has been his Book; Virgil and Dante have been his

masters; he has laboured to reconcile truth and poetry, knowing that

knowledge must precede thought, and thought must precede imagination,

while knowledge, thought, and imagination combined are the secret of

power.' It would be impossible for a poet with any vigour of

imagination, and any perception of the soul of beauty in all things, to

fail with these sublime ideals before him.

I now come to the last of Victor Hugo's writings for the stage, and in

_Les Burgraves_ we have in some respects the best of his dramatic works.

It was written towards the close of 1842, and produced (like its

predecessors) in the midst of difficulties in March, 1843, at the

Comédie Française. At the time of its production, the author's

political opinions had arrived at a stage of compromise. Though he was a

Republican in theory, he had no strong objection to such a monarchy as

that of Louis Philippe, which was liberty itself compared with that

which it overthrew. For a sovereign who refrained from tyranny, and was

not inimical to progress, he had some sympathy, and he was willing to

wait until the time became ripe for the advent of the Republic. Writing

to M. Thiers, indeed, to beg for some amelioration in the lot of an

imprisoned editor, he said of himself, 'I do not at the present time

take any definite political part. I regard all parties as acting with

impartiality, full of affection for France, and anxious for progress. I

applaud sometimes those in power, sometimes the opposition, according as

those in power or in opposition seem to me to act best for the country.'

The catholic spirit in which he looked upon public affairs was

manifested in his study upon Mirabeau. Defining the position of the wise

politician, he remarked that 'he must give credit to the moderate party

for the way in which they smooth over transitions; to the extreme

parties for the activity with which they advance the circulation of

ideas, which are the very life-blood of civilization; to lovers of the

past for the care which they bestow on roots in which there is still

life; to people zealous for the future, for their love of those

beautiful flowers which will some day produce fine fruits; to mature men

for their moderation, to young men for their patience; to those for what

they do, to those for what they desire to do; to all the difficulty of

everything.' So, some years later he stated that the aim he had in view

was 'to agree with all parties in what is liberal and generous, but with

none in what is illiberal and mischievous.' The form of government he

regarded as a secondary affair; liberty and progress demanded the first

and most urgent thought. Herein, of course, he differed from the

professional politician, who has ever looked at great questions not from

the poet's point of view, but from the immediately personal and

practical. Many of his humanitarian ideas appeared Quixotic and

chimerical to those who viewed politics as a matter of party, or as a

means of personal triumph; while unjust and illiberal men were not also

wanting in the ranks of the Republicans.

Then there were some who, like Armand Carrel, were prepared to go with

Victor Hugo in politics, but rejected his new literary ideas. They clung

to the old form of the drama, and found a new star in Ponsard, the

author of _Lucrèce_, a tragedy which had for its subject the expulsion

of the Tarquins and the establishment of a Republic in Rome. So the

Parisians were beguiled by the name of Ponsard, who found a great and

useful ally in Rachel; and Hugo was contemned, in spite of such

strictures as those of Thierry in _Le Messager_, who drew a comparison

between the ostracism with which his countrymen visited such brilliant

writers as Hugo, and that of the Athenians, who punished people whose

renown lasted too long.

It was at this juncture that _Les Burgraves_ was produced, and even the

genius of the writer himself added to the difficulties by which he was

beset. He had conceived three stupendous characters, Job, Otbert, and

Barbarossa; and although the actors who sustained these characters, MM.

Beauvallet, Geffroy, and Ligier, were undoubtedly men of dramatic

instinct and ability, neither they nor any other living tragedians could

adequately set forth these epic creations. In the matter of this

magnificent trilogy, the author has been not inaptly compared with

Æschylus. 'The first of Greek tragedians, Æschylus, after he had long

stirred the emotions of the Athenians, was finally deserted by them;

they preferred Sophocles to him, and full of dejection he went into

exile, saying, 'I dedicate my works to Time;' and Time at last did him

ample justice, though he did not live to enjoy his triumph. But in this,

Hugo differed from the glorious Greek, for he lived to witness the

repentance of the people.

_Les Burgraves_ was ill received on the first night, but this was

nothing compared with the opposition subsequently manifested. At every

representation, sneers and hissing interrupted the progress of the

piece; but the manager and the actors struggled on and played the drama

for thirty nights. Some of the most influential journals joined

themselves to the enemy, and the time was marked by the defection of

Lamartine to the side of Ponsard. Théophile Gautier was one of the small

band who boldly applauded Hugo's drama in the press. 'In our day,' he

asserted, 'there is no one except M. Hugo who is capable of giving the

epic tone to three great acts, or of maintaining their lyric swing.

Every moment seems to produce a magnificent verse that resounds like

the stroke of an eagle's wing, and exalts us to the supremest height of

lyric poetry. The play is diversified in tone, and displays a singular

flexibility of rhythm, making its transitions from the tender to the

terrible, from the smile to the tear, with a happy facility that no

other author has attained.'

With the production of this play dates Victor Hugo's final abandonment

of the stage. Strange fate this for a writer for whom Charles Nodier

claimed the honour of being, after Rabelais and Molière, one of the most

original geniuses that French literature ever saw. But the dramatist was

disgusted with the literary hostility, the political insincerity, and

the personal antipathy which abounded, and although he had a play, _Les

Jumeaux_, which had never been produced, he resolved to give no more of

his writings to the stage. He was repeatedly pressed in after years to

depart from this resolution, but in vain. 'My decision is final,' he

said on one occasion. 'Under no pretext shall any more of my plays

appear on the stage during my life.'

The poet wrote several plays not for publication after this time, and

one of them, _Torquemada_, has been published. Others, named

respectively _L'Épée_, _La Grand'mère_, and _Peut-être Frère de

Gavoche_, will only appear posthumously. That there will be in them

characters which will live, and that the plays themselves are such as to

enhance the public view of Victor Hugo's dramatic talents, are points

upon which we have explicit assurances from those who have had the

privilege of listening to the pieces as read by the late venerable

author himself.

CHAPTER VIII. THE FRENCH ACADEMY.

A seat amongst the 'forty Immortals' is the high and honourable aim of

every distinguished Frenchman. But the chequered history of the Academy

since its formation by Richelieu two centuries and a half ago, furnishes

another evidence of the truth that merit does not always secure its just

reward. Again and again have men illustrious in letters been passed

over, whilst those who had no claim upon the nation's regard have

snatched fortuitous honours by unworthy means. Amongst those who knocked

on more than one occasion at the doors of the French Academy in vain,

was Victor Hugo. That such a man must be ultimately successful was

beyond a doubt; but it says little for the Academy that it failed to

recognise his claims until its hostile attitude had become a scandal to

literature.

As a kind of apology for, or defence of his career, in 1834 Hugo

published his _Littérature et Philosophie Mêlées_. For those who could

see nothing but tergiversation in the development of his views, as

regarded from the Royalist standpoint of 1819 and the Revolutionary

standpoint of 1834, these collected papers presented a series of

progressive arguments well worthy of study. Nor was it merely from the

personal point of view that the author issued this work; he believed

that the gradual changes of thought which they revealed, all tending

towards a fuller liberty in art, politics, and literature, were but

typical of the states of mind through which a very large moiety of the

young thinkers of his generation had passed. That he did not spare the

crudities and defects which marked his own period of literary

adolescence will be apparent from this passage, in which he frankly

discusses his early compositions: 'There were historical sketches and

miscellaneous essays, there were criticism and poetry; but the criticism

was weak, the poetry weaker still; the verses were some of them light

and frivolous, some of them tragically grand; the declamations against

regicides were as furious as they were honest; the men of 1793 were

lampooned with epigrams of 1754, a species of satire now obsolete, but

very fashionable at the date at which they were published; next came

visions of regeneration for the stage, and vows of loyalty to the State;

every variety of style is represented; every branch of classical

knowledge made subordinate to literary reform; finally, there are

schemes of government and studies of tragedies, all conceived in college

or at school.'

The time had now come in which he demanded a larger scope. His ideas had

expanded, and while not abandoning the life contemplative, he desired to

become in some way the man of action, and to mingle in the literary and

political conflicts going forward around him. Taxed with forsaking the

study of Nature, the poet replied that he still loved that holy mother,

but in this century of adventure a man must be the servant of all.

Reviewing his political position, he felt that he had more than paid his

debt to the fallen monarchy, while he could at the same time

conscientiously acknowledge Louis Philippe. The recollection of a

pension was balanced by the confiscation of a drama, observes Madame

Hugo, and he was now his own master to follow out his convictions. In

the adoption of a public career there were two courses nominally open to

him. But with respect to one of these, that of entering the Chamber of

Deputies, he was met by an obstacle which completely disbarred him. He

was not a wealthy man, and by the electoral law of that day only wealthy

men could become deputies. Moreover, if he could have secured by some

means a nominal qualification, the electors looked askance upon literary

men. They regarded them as more fitted for the quietude of the study

than the bustling activity of the tribune. Lamartine was a deputy, it is

true, but he was a rare exception.

Abandoning all idea of the Chamber of Deputies at that time, Victor Hugo

next thought of the Chamber of Peers. But here again he was met by a

practical difficulty. In the selection of peers the King could only

choose men who had attained to certain dignities; and in Hugo's case

election to the Academy was the only qualifying dignity that was open to

him. To the Academy accordingly he appealed. The first vacancy occurred

in 1836. But Victor Hugo had enemies, and amongst these was Casimir

Delavigne, who had considerable weight amongst the Forty. M. Barbou

states that 'the poet of the imperial era was sickly and asthmatic, and

he detested Victor Hugo simply for his robustness and power.' When Dumas

canvassed Delavigne in the interest of his friend, the author of

_Notre-Dame_, Delavigne replied with warmth that he would vote for Dumas

with all his heart, but for Hugo never. The Academicians elected M.

Dupaty, probably on the principle that his fame was of such a restricted

character that it could not in the least detract from their own lustre.

Commenting upon his defeat, Hugo said, 'I always thought the way to the

Académie was across the Pont des Arts; I find that it is across the Pont

Neuf.'

Three years later there was another vacancy, and Hugo canvassed the

Academicians in turn. But the whole nature of his work was opposed in

spirit to the exclusives of the Academy, and it is not to be wondered

at, from this standpoint, that he failed to meet with a favourable

appreciation. However brilliant a candidate might be, most of the

members were unable to take a large and liberal view. Alexandre Duval

was especially bitter against Hugo, and when the poet was asked what he

had done to offend him, he replied, 'I had written _Hernani_.' Though in

a dying condition, Duval insisted upon being taken from his bed to vote

against Hugo. M. Molé was elected. In 1840 a third vacancy occurred, and

although Hugo was again a candidate, the Academicians elected M.

Flourens.

At length, in 1841, on the occasion of his fourth candidature, Victor

Hugo was successful. Amongst the distinguished men who voted for him

were Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Villemain, Mignet, Cousin, and Thiers. In

the list of those who opposed him were the names of only two men of real

note, Delavigne and Scribe. One, M. Viennet, voted for Hugo, though the

amusing anecdote is told concerning him that when the poet was made a

Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, he said he should like to claim 'the

cross of a chevalier for everyone who had the courage to read right

through any work of a romantic, and the cross of an officer for everyone

who had the wit to understand it!' Amidst much that is paltry in the

jealousies of literary men, it deserves to be stated to the honour of

Balzac that this eminent writer declined to become a candidate against

Victor Hugo.

The new Academician, who was by no means universally congratulated upon

his success, was received on the 3rd of June, 1841. According to custom

he was called on to pronounce a eulogium upon his predecessor, M.

Népomucène Lemercier. His oration began with a description of the

splendour and power of Napoleon. Before his greatness, said the speaker,

the whole universe bowed down, with the exception of six contemplative

poets. 'Those poets were Ducis, Delille, Madame de Staël, Benjamin

Constant, Chateaubriand, and Lemercier. But what did their resistance

mean? Europe was dazzled, and lay, as it were, vanquished and absorbed

in the glory of France. What did these six resentful spirits represent?

Why, they represented for Europe the only thing in which Europe had

failed--they represented independence; and they represented for France

the only thing in which France was wanting--they represented liberty.'

Alluding still more directly to M. Lemercier, Hugo related that he was

on brotherly terms with Bonaparte the consul, but that when the consul

became an emperor he was no longer his friend. Finally, the orator

declared with much eloquence that it was the mission of every author to

diffuse civilization; and avowed that for his own part it had ever been

his aim to devote his abilities to the development of good fellowship,

feeling it his duty to be unawed by the mob, but to respect the people;

and although he could not always sympathize with every form of liberty

which was advocated, he was yet ever ready to hold out the hand of

encouragement to all who were languishing through want of air and space,

and whose future seemed to promise only gloom and despair. To ameliorate

the condition of the masses he would have every generous and thinking

mind lay itself out by devising fresh schemes of improvement; and

libraries, studies, and schools should be multiplied, as all tending to

the advancement of the human race, and to the propagation of the love of

law and liberty.

Victor Hugo's address was enthusiastically received by the bulk of the

members of the Academy, and the press generally commented upon it in

flattering terms. Times had changed since the poet had first called upon

M. Royer-Collard to solicit his vote, when the latter professed his

entire ignorance of Victor Hugo's name, and the following conversation

took place:

'I am the author of _Notre-Dame de Paris_, _Bug Jargal_, _Le Dernier

Jour dun Condamné_, _Marion Delorme_, etc.'

'I never heard of any of them.'

'Will you do me the honour of accepting a copy of my works?'

'I never read new books.'

The later relations of Hugo with the Academy are of considerable

interest. A generous forgetfulness of offence characterized him. When

Casimir Delavigne died, and it fell upon Hugo to deliver the funeral

oration over one who had been his enemy, he testified to the fine

talents of Delavigne, and magnanimously exclaimed: 'Let all the petty

jealousies that follow high renown, let all disputes of the conflicting

schools, let all the turmoil of party feeling and literary rivalry be

forgotten. Let them pass into the silence into which the departed poet

has gone to take his long repose!' In January, 1845, Hugo had to reply

to the speech of M. Saint Marc Girardin, and shortly afterwards--which

was a much more difficult and delicate matter--to the opening address

of M. Sainte-Beuve. In the early stage of the poet's career,

Sainte-Beuve, as we have seen, warmly hailed his advent, but he

afterwards became his enemy, turning his back upon all his old literary

beliefs. By way of covering his retreat, he advocated in the _Revue des

Deux Mondes_ a union between the classics and romanticists; and while he

did justice to every other writer whom he named, he arrested his praise

when he came to the name of Victor Hugo. He remarked that all signs of

magnificent promise were forgotten, 'as soon as we think of his numerous

stubborn relapses, or consider the way in which he holds to theories

which public opinion has already condemned. Sentiments of humanizing

art, which might easily enough be praised, are utterly ignored, and M.

Hugo clings with a steadfast persistence to his own peculiar style.' The

public were naturally curious to know how Hugo would speak of one who

had acted treacherously towards him, but with his usual high-minded

courtesy, the speaker uttered not one word of a personal character

against the man who had been so unjust towards himself.

The Academy had few members who were so regular in attendance, or were

so useful to that august body, as Victor Hugo. He brought into all his

relations with it the same energy and conscientiousness which marked his

course in connection with literature and the drama. His association with

the Academy was virtually the first stage of a new departure in his

career.

CHAPTER IX. PERSONAL AND POLITICAL.

Amongst all Victor Hugo's contemporaries there was no greater admirer of

the poet than Balzac. There mingled with his admiration a feeling which

amounted almost to reverence; and probably the proudest moment in the

novelist's life was that in which he received Hugo at the Jardies. Léon

Grozlan tells us that he awaited his arrival with eagerness; indeed, so

great was his anxiety that he could not remain for an instant in one

place.

These distinguished men of letters were noticeable in their attire,

which was certainly far from Solomon-like in its splendour. 'Balzac was

picturesque in rags. His pantaloons, without braces, receded from his

ample waistcoat _à la financière_; his shoes, trodden down, receded from

his pantaloons; the knot of his cravat darted its points close to his

ear; his beard was in a state of four days' high vegetation. As to

Victor Hugo, he wore a grey hat of a rather doubtful shade; a faded blue

coat with gilt buttons, and a frayed black cravat, the whole set off by

green spectacles of a shape and form to rejoice a rural bailiff.' During

breakfast, in speaking of literature and the drama, Hugo incidentally

mentioned his large profits as a dramatist. 'Balzac listened with the

air of a martyr listening to an angel, while he heard Hugo recount the

enormous sums which had accrued to him from his magnificent dramas. This

_coup de soleil_ was likely to excite Balzac's brain for a long time to

come.' At that period the author of the _Comédie Humaine_ was a personal

authority on the bitterness of poverty. The talk proceeded to royalty,

to the patronage of talent, and such like matters. Balzac spoke

eloquently upon the lustre which men of genius have shed upon their own

times. 'The pen alone,' he said, 'can save kings and their reigns from

oblivion. Without Virgil, Horace, Livy, Ovid, who would recognise

Augustus in the midst of so many of his name?... Without Shakespeare the

reign of Elizabeth would gradually disappear from the history of

England. Without Boileau, without Racine, without Corneille, without

Pascal, without La Bruyère, without Molière, Louis XIV., reduced to his

mistresses and his wigs, is but a crowned goat, like the sign of an inn.

Without the pen, Philippe le Roi would leave behind him a name less

known than that of Philippe the eating-house keeper of the Rue

Montorgueil, or of Philippe the famous pilferer and juggler. Some day it

will be said (at least, I hope so, for his Majesty's sake), "Once upon a

time there lived a king called Louis Philippe, who, by the grace of

Victor Hugo, Lamartine, etc."' French rulers were emphatically destined

to live in the pages of Victor Hugo, but in the case of at least one

sovereign it was to be by the immortality of contempt.

At the residence of Hugo in the Place Royale, whither he had moved on

leaving the Rue Jean Goujon, there was a frequent visitor in the person

of one Auguste Vacquerie. This young poetic enthusiast was born at

Villequier, in La Seine Inférieure, in the year 1820. He was educated

first at Rouen, but having an unconquerable longing to see and be near

Victor Hugo, he went to complete his studies at the Pension Favart,

Paris, within a few doors of Hugo's house. In one of his poems he

confessed that though he ardently sighed for Paris, that city meant to

him Hugo and nothing beside--it was the shrine of the poet's fame. Like

his friend Paul Meurice, he lived in the inspiration of Victor Hugo's

name, and the two youths became constant and intimate visitors at the

house in the Place Royale. Vacquerie fell seriously ill, and he was

nursed with all the devotion of a mother by Madame Hugo. After his

recovery, and in acknowledgment of the care bestowed on his son, M.

Vacquerie, senior, invited Madame Hugo to occupy his château at

Villequier during the summer vacation. The offer was gladly accepted,

and Madame Hugo and her four children left Paris for Normandy on this

pleasurable excursion. In the course of this visit, Auguste Vacquerie's

brother Charles was introduced to Léopoldine Hugo, and these

impressionable natures at once fell in love. An engagement of no long

duration followed, for the young couple were married in the following

spring of 1843. The wedded life of the poet's daughter was unfortunately

as brief as it was happy and joyous. After a period of five months only

it came to a sad and tragic termination. The catastrophe with which it

closed is thus described: 'The Vacquerie family property at Yillequier

is on the banks of the Seine, which is tidal as far as Rouen; but the

periodical rising of the water was a matter of no uneasiness to the

family, who were accustomed to make excursions almost daily from

Villequier to Caudebec. One of these excursions was arranged for the 4th

of September, when M. Charles Vacquerie, with his wife, his uncle, and

cousin, started to make a trial trip in a large new boat. They all set

out in high spirits upon what was quite an ordinary outing; but a sudden

squall came on, and the boat capsized. Léopoldine had always been taught

that in the event of being upset, the safest thing to do was to cling to

the boat, and accordingly she now instinctively grasped its side amidst

convulsions of alarm; her husband was a good swimmer, and, anxious to

carry her off, did his utmost to make her relax her hold. But all his

efforts were unavailing; in her agony she seemed to have embedded her

finger-nails in the wood; his very attempt to break her fingers proved

ineffectual. He was but a few yards from the shore, but finding it was

impossible to save her, he determined not to survive her, and, taking

her into his embrace, sank with her in the stream. The two bodies were

recovered a few hours afterwards.'

One can well understand the accession of melancholy which would come

over the poet and his wife in consequence of such a disaster as this.

Gloom fell upon the house in the Place Royale, but Victor Hugo found

consolation in the affection of the partner of his youth, whose devotion

had seemed thus far to increase with the lapse of years. Again and again

she animated his lyre, and gave his verse much of its sweetest and

noblest inspiration. She entered fully into his high aspirations, and

received with grace and _bonhomie_ visitors like Lamartine and Madame de

Girardin, who came to exchange the courtesies of friendship and genius.

Victor Hugo was given to silent wanderings by night in the Champs

Élysées and the vicinity, and he has stated that many of his finest

thoughts occurred to him during these midnight walks. On one occasion

this habit nearly proved of serious import to him, for as he was passing

along near the Rue des Tournelles, wrapped in meditation, he was

attacked and knocked down by a band of pickpockets, and would in all

probability have suffered severe injury had not some passers-by caused

his assailants to take precipitate flight. The incident caused no

modification in the poet's custom, for of physical or moral fear he had

scant knowledge.

Notwithstanding his advanced political views in later life, Victor Hugo,

as I have already had occasion to observe, moved forward towards a

republic by gradual stages. He had no faith in the stability of a

government which was merely the result of revolt, and in 1832, when

there appeared considerable danger of insurrectionary bloodshed, he

wrote: 'Some day we shall have a republic, and it will be a good one.

But we must not gather in May the fruit which will only be ripe in

August. We must learn to be patient, and the republic proclaimed by

France will be the crown of our hoary heads.' His political honesty

impressed his contemporaries. Louis Blanc saw a noble unity in his

political progressiveness; and another critic, M. Spuller, in eulogizing

the three great French poets of the nineteenth century, Chateaubriand,

Lamartine, and Hugo, observed that although they were all born outside

the pale of the Revolution, they proved to be the very men to help

forward and to glorify the democracy, Hugo especially being a noble

exponent of the new social truths.

There naturally came a time, therefore, when Hugo desired actual contact

with political life. At first, as I have remarked, he formed the design

of getting returned for the Chamber of Deputies, but this idea had to be

abandoned. Then he was sent for by Louis Philippe. This monarch, though

generally immovable on social and literary questions, and caring little

for the conciliation of the democracy, was much impressed by the power

he recognised in Victor Hugo. Stories are told of interviews, prolonged

into the night, between the King and the poet. The result was that on

the 13th of April, 1845, Hugo was created a peer--an event which was

warmly applauded by the bulk of the people. In taking his seat in the

Upper Chamber the new peer was by profession an independent

Conservative, but there was in him already a large Republican leaven.

His maiden speech was delivered in defence of artists and their

copyright, and this was followed in March, 1846, by a vigorous address

on Poland. As was the case with many other literary men, Victor Hugo

sympathized deeply with the Poles. He denounced the avowed policy of M.

Guizot, that France could do nothing towards re-establishing the Polish

nationality. 'He maintained that it was not a material but a moral

intervention that was required, and that such intervention ought to be

made in the name of European civilization, of which the French were the

missionaries and the Poles the champions. He reminded his audience how

Sobieski had been to Poland what Leonidas had been to Greece, and he

claimed the gratitude and moral support of France for a people who had

done their part in the noble defence of freedom.' But, apart from the

fact that Poland had few friends, the ideas of freedom expounded by Hugo

excited little sympathy in the breasts of the French aristocracy.

In 1847 the new peer showed his catholicity of spirit by supporting the

petition of Prince Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, praying that his family

might be allowed to return to France. His chief arguments were: that the

Chamber would evidence its strength by its generosity; that it was

repugnant to his feelings for any Frenchman to be an exile or an outlaw;

that any pretender must be harmless in the midst of a nation where

there was freedom of work and of thought; and that by mercifulness the

Chamber would consolidate its power with the people. Louis Philippe was

so impressed by these views that he allowed the Bonapartes to return.

That momentous revolutionary year, 1848, did not come upon Victor Hugo

altogether as a surprise. That which astonished him was not the

character, but the strength of the new movement. He had long before seen

that the stability of any French Government would depend upon its

attitude towards the people and the pressing social and political

questions of the time. If a Government ignored, or attempted to crush

the forces which were at work in society, then it was inevitably doomed

to fall before them. He had indulged some hope that the Government of

Louis Philippe would inaugurate an enlightened policy; but it failed to

do this, while it perpetuated abuses which had long been obnoxious. That

which the far-seeing predicted actually occurred; the monarchy was swept

away. Hugo thought for a moment that a compromise might be effected by

constituting the Duchess of Orleans regent; but he speedily saw that

the popular movement was against all Royalty and its forms, and he gave

in his adhesion to the Republic. The Provisional Government having fixed

the elections for the 23rd of April, Hugo was nominated as a candidate

for Paris; but he was unsuccessful. Shortly afterwards, however, he was

returned to the National Assembly, on the occasion of the supplementary

elections rendered necessary in Paris. He took an independent part in

the debates in the Assembly, voting now with the Right and now with the

Left. His socialistic views found expression during the discussion upon

the national factories, which had borne such lamentable results.

'Admitting the necessity which might seem to justify their

establishment, he insisted that practically they had had a most

disastrous influence upon business, and pointed out the serious danger

which they threatened, not alone to the finances, but to the population

of Paris. As a socialist, he addressed himself to socialists, and

invoked them to labour in behalf of the perishing, but to labour without

causing alarm to the world at large; he implored them to bestow upon the

disendowed classes, as they were called, all the benefits of

civilization, to provide them with education, with the means of cheap

living; and, in short, to put them in the way of accumulating wealth

instead of multiplying misery.' From the point of view of the social

reformer, his utterances were wise and conciliatory. During the

sanguinary days of June he went from place to place, striving to avert

bloodshed; and after the outbreak he was instrumental in saving the

lives of several of the insurgents. He advocated mercy, and in the

Assembly proposed that an entire amnesty should be proclaimed. A deputy

rose and embraced him, and with this deputy, who was none other than

Victor Schoelcher, a close friendship was formed. Hugo would have no

part in the proceedings against Louis Blanc, and he declined to assent

to the vote that Cavaignac deserved the gratitude of his country. He

opposed the project of having but one Chamber, and it has been pointed

out that the existence of a second Chamber would in all probability have

saved France from the _Coup d'État_. From his place in the Assembly he

spoke strongly in favour of the liberty of the press and of the

abolition of capital punishment. In April, 1848, he started the journal

_L'Évènement_, which had for its motto 'Intense hatred to anarchy,

tender love for the people,' and which included amongst its contributors

Charles Hugo, Paul Meurice, Auguste Vitu, Théophile Gautier, and Auguste

Vacquerie. This journal, which supported the cause of the Revolution,

was for a time, but a brief one only, successful.

In January, 1849, the Constituent Assembly was dissolved, and a

Legislative Assembly summoned in its stead a few months afterwards. Hugo

was elected one of the twenty-eight deputies for Paris, his name

standing tenth on the list. He has left it on record in _Le Droit et la

Loi_ that this year formed an epoch in his life. He became at this time

a thorough Republican. 'An inanimate body was lying on the ground; he

was told that that lifeless thing was the Republic; he drew near and

gazed, and lo! it was Liberty; he bent over it and raised it to his

bosom. Before him might be ruin, insult, banishment, and scorn, but he

took it unto him as a wife! From that moment there existed within his

very soul the union between Liberty and the Republic.' The

uncompromising attitude he now assumed seems to have alarmed some

persons, who charged him with apostasy; but they must have been

superficial students of his career. The poet had long been drifting

towards this end. With the advance in his political views there seems to

have come an expansion in his eloquence; and the tribune witnessed many

impassioned speeches from the deputy--speeches which moved his auditors

to the utmost depths of emotion. When he defended Italy at the time the

French entered Rome--and in doing so strongly attacked the abuses

attendant upon ecclesiastical domination--he incurred the anger of his

former friend Montalembert. Replying to the Comte he said: 'There was a

time when he employed his noble talents better. He defended Poland as

now I defend Italy. I was with him then; he is against me now. The

explanation is not far to seek. He has gone over to the side of the

oppressors: I have remained on the side of the oppressed.'

Presiding at the Peace Congress of Paris, held on the 21st of August,

1849, and addressing Richard Cobden and his fellow-delegates from

various parts of the world, Hugo gave expression to his sanguine

humanitarian sentiments. 'You have come,' he observed to these

representatives of peace, 'to turn over, if it may be, the last and

most august page of the Gospel, the page that ordains peace amongst the

children of the one Creator; and here in this city, which has rejoiced

to proclaim fraternity to its own citizens, you have assembled to

proclaim fraternity to all men.' The orator expressed his conviction

that universal peace was attainable, and at the closing sitting of the

Congress, held on the 24th, the anniversary of St. Bartholomew, he spoke

in this impassioned strain: 'On this very day, 277 years ago, this city

of Paris was aroused in terror amidst the darkness of the night. The

bell, known as the silver bell, chimed from the Palais de Justice, and a

bloody deed, unprecedented in the annals of crime, was perpetrated; and

now, on that self-same date, in that self-same city, God has brought

together into one general concourse the representatives of that old

antagonism, and has bidden them transform their sentiments into

sentiments of love. The sad significance of this mournful anniversary is

removed; each drop of blood is replaced by a ray of light. Well-nigh

beneath the shadow of that tower whence tolled the fatal vespers of St.

Bartholomew, not only Englishmen and Frenchmen, Germans and Italians,

Europeans and Americans, but actually Papists and Huguenots have been

content to meet, happy, nay proud, to unite themselves together in an

embrace alike honourable and indissoluble.' These words excited a

strange fervour and enthusiasm in the audience, and amidst the waving of

hats and handkerchiefs, and other demonstrations of applause, a Roman

Catholic abbé and a Protestant pastor might have been seen embracing,

overcome by the power of the orator's language.

During the debate on the new Education Bill, introduced by M. de Falloux

in January, 1850, Victor Hugo adversely criticized the measure as

placing too much power in the hands of the clergy. He announced that he

should oppose any scheme which entrusted the education of youth to the

clerical party, who were always seeking to fetter the human mind. Church

and State must pursue independent courses. 'Your law,' he exclaimed,

directly addressing the Minister, 'is a law with a mask. It says one

thing, it does another. It may bear the aspect of liberty, but it means

thraldom. It is practically confiscation under the name of a deed of

gift. But it is all one with your usual policy. Every time that you

forge a new chain you cry, "See, here is freedom!"' During the same

session Hugo appealed for mercy for the political criminals, and

condemned the law of transportation, by which they were not only

banished but liable to be shut up in citadels. His speech on this

occasion created such a profound impression that it was afterwards

printed and distributed throughout the country, and a medal was struck

in honour of the orator.

Troublous times were again looming over France. The protestations of

Louis Napoleon that he desired to rank as a patriot only, and not as a

Bonaparte, had been accepted by Victor Hugo, Louis Blanc, and others, in

good faith. In his prison at Ham, he had been visited by several staunch

Republicans, who believed his asseverations that he had no other end in

view than the welfare of France and the consolidation of her liberties.

Indeed, when the exile returned to Paris he sought out Victor Hugo, and

in the most frank and unambiguous language said to him, 'What would it

be for me to be Napoleon over again? Why, it would not simply be an

ambition, it would be a crime. Why should you suppose me a fool? I am

not a great man, and when the Republic is made I shall never follow the

steps of Napoleon. As for me, I am honest; and I shall follow in the way

of Washington.' It never struck the poet that his visitor protested too

much. Upright and sincere himself, he liked to believe in the integrity

of others, and he little dreamt that Louis Napoleon, who had sworn

fidelity to the Constitution, and again and again declared himself bound

by his oath, would in a short time strangle the Republic with his own

hands.

But, alas! it was not long before the poet and his friends were

disillusioned, for, as Proudhon remarked, 'Citizen Bonaparte, who but

yesterday was a mere speck in the fiery heavens, has become an ominous

cloud, bearing storm and tempest in its bosom.' Hugo, seeing what was

advancing, bore himself courageously, and from his place in the tribune

never ceased to advocate the cause of freedom, while he bade the people

repose securely in their own strength. The reactionary policy began with

the curtailment of the liberty of the press, and culminated in the _Coup

d'État_ of the 2nd December, 1851. On that date the Legislative Assembly

was dissolved; universal suffrage was established, and Paris was

declared to be in a state of siege. Thiers, Cavaignac, and others were

arrested and sent to the Castle of Vincennes. About 180 members of the

Assembly, with M. Berryer at their head, on endeavouring to meet, were

also arrested, and Paris was occupied by troops. Sanguinary conflicts

ensued between the people and the soldiery, but the troops were

victorious. Napoleon put a pistol at the head of Paris, and ultimately,

by means which will be condemned in history to all ages, the Empire was

established.

Victor Hugo did all in his power for the maintenance of the rights of

the people, but in vain. In the tribune he indignantly inveighed against

the tyranny of Napoleon, and was in consequence placed at the head of

the list of the proscribed. He supported the Committee of Resistance in

their efforts to depose the Prince; but the people were paralyzed by the

display of power, and he was obliged to fly from Paris. A sum of 25,000

francs was offered to anyone who would either kill or arrest him, and so

great was the terror of the populace that no one could be found who

would give the friend of freedom an asylum. At length he secured

temporary shelter beneath the roof of a relation, remaining here until

the 12th of December, when he left Paris, completely disguised, by the

Northern Railway Station. The expatriated poet reached Brussels in

safety, but his sons and the rest of the staff of _L'Évènement_ had been

cast into prison. It was a momentous time for the friends of Victor

Hugo, who were naturally anxious for his safety when so many of the

friends of the Republic had been seized and incarcerated.

In his retreat the great patriot found himself confronted by a new task.

He resolved to compile a history of the infamous events which had driven

him into exile. 'His lashes should reach to the faces of Napoleon and

his acolytes at the Tuileries; he became at once the Tacitus and Juvenal

of his time, only his accents were mightier than theirs, because his

indignation was greater and his wrath more just.' Napoleon had

triumphed, but the scourge was soon to descend which should leave him

exposed to the derision and contempt of the world to the end of time.

The sword is powerful; but the pen, which is the stronger weapon, has

always overtaken it, and adjusted the historical balance in the

interests of humanity.

CHAPTER X. THE POET IN EXILE.

In Brussels Victor Hugo came upon friends, amongst them being the

novelist, Alexandre Dumas. The latter was living in this city because he

was the better able to pursue his literary work there, undistracted by

the myriad claims which such a centre as Paris presents. He had never

mixed ardently in politics, but he was so chagrined at the banishment of

Hugo that he chivalrously resolved never to visit Louis Napoleon or the

Tuileries again; and he resolutely adhered to this decision. Victor

Schoelcher followed Hugo to Brussels, having escaped from his pursuers

in the disguise of a priest. Towards the close of December, 1851, the

poet began to write his stirring narrative, _L'Histoire d'un Crime_, and

the work was completed by the following May. It was not published until

1877, and I shall make some references to it in a later chapter. Amongst

other exiles in Brussels were the ill-assorted couple Émile de Girardin

and General Lamoricière. But Belgium also sheltered in this hour of

peril Ledru Rollin, the sculptor David, Barbès, Louis Blanc, Edgar

Quinet, and Eugène Sue. Indeed, many of the finest and choicest spirits

of France had been driven from their native soil.

The sons of Victor Hugo joined their father in January, 1852, and the

poet determined to remain in Brussels so long as Napoleon III. reigned

at the Tuileries. Fate, nevertheless, decreed otherwise. The Belgian

Government, though favourable to Hugo, was still more anxious to

maintain friendly relations with the new French Empire. Victor Hugo soon

made it impossible, however, for the Belgian rulers to run with the hare

and hunt with the hounds. The publication of his _Napoléon le Petit_

fell like a thunderbolt over both Paris and Brussels. That scathing work

made the Dictator writhe amid the splendours of his palace. It was

charged with wit, pathos, sarcasm, and invective. Amongst the many

personal passages denunciatory of Louis Napoleon was the following: 'He

will never be other than the nocturnal strangler of liberty; he will

never be other than the man who has intoxicated his soldiers, not with

glory, like the first Napoleon, but with wine; he will never be other

than the pigmy tyrant of a great people. Grandeur, even in infamy, is

utterly inconsistent with the character and calibre of the man. As

Dictator, he is a buffoon; let him make himself Emperor, he would be

grotesque. That would at once put an end to him. His destiny is to make

mankind shrug their shoulders. Will he be less severely punished for

that reason? Not at all: contempt does not in his case mitigate anger.

He will be hideous, and he will remain ridiculous. That's all. History

laughs, and crushes. What would you have the historian do with this

fellow? He can only lead him to posterity by the ear. The man once

stripped of success, the pedestal removed, the dust fallen, the lace and

spangles and the great sabre taken away, the poor little skeleton laid

bare and shivering--can anyone imagine anything meaner and more

miserable?' This powerful satire closed with a vision of vengeance: 'You

do not perceive that the 2nd of December is nothing but an immense

illusion, a pause, a stop, a sort of working curtain, behind which the

Deity, that marvellous machinist, is preparing and constructing the last

act, the final and triumphant scene of the French Revolution! You look

stupefied upon the curtain, upon the things painted upon the coarse

canvas, this one's nose, that one's epaulettes, the great sabre of a

third, those embroidered vendors of _eau-de-Cologne_ whom you call

generals, those _poussahs_ that you call magistrates, those worthy men

that you call senators, this mixture of caricatures and spectres--and

you take them all for realities. You do not hear yonder in the shade

that hollow sound! You do not hear some one going backwards and

forwards! You do not see that curtain shaken by the breath of Him who is

behind!'

The excitement caused by this work proved too much for the Belgian

Government, and, desirous of keeping well with Napoleon III., it

reluctantly decided that the author must be expelled. As there was no

law bearing upon Hugo's case, the Belgian Chamber passed one to meet it,

and Hugo was cast out from what he deemed to be a secure asylum. He

embarked for England, but only on his way to Jersey, which he had

decided upon as his next place of habitation. He landed at St. Helier on

the 5th of August, 1852, and was received by a body of French

compatriots and exiles.

Hugo was now somewhat straitened in means, as he derived nothing from

his dramas and his various works. From his very ability and genius, he

was singled out as a special object of disapprobation on the part of the

French rulers. The poet first settled down in a small house on the

Marine Terrace, and the money he received from the sale of his effects

in Paris was a very welcome addition to his small store. But he had

passed through too many periods of hardship and vicissitude to repine

over these altered circumstances--he rather rejoiced to suffer for

conscience' sake. He now gave himself up to intellectual labour, and

found much happiness in his leisure hours in the bosom of his family,

every member of which was deeply attached to him; and in the interchange

of affectionate confidences with his intimate friends, Vacquerie, Paul

Meurice, and others. He was treated with great distinction by the

islanders, not (as he himself said) because he was Victor Hugo the poet,

but because he was a peer of France. In consequence of his rank,

observes one writer, 'he enjoyed certain privileges, one of which was

that he was exempt from the obligation of sweeping his doorstep and

clearing away the grass from the front of his house!' But he was obliged

to supply the suzerain of the Duchy of Normandy with two fowls every

year, a tax that was religiously exacted from 'his lordship.'

Yet even in the little island home of their adoption the exiles were not

permitted to rest in peace. Spies were sent amongst them, who

endeavoured to gather evidence of sedition, and although Jersey had its

own laws, as Napoleon was now the ally of England the situation was not

without its dangers. One Imperial spy, named Hubert, was discovered; and

when the exiles determined that he should die for his treachery, Hugo,

with his usual large-hearted magnanimity, came forward and saved his

life.

Another terrible denunciation of Napoleon and his satellites was penned

by Hugo during his stay in Jersey. _Les Châtiments_, this new satire,

was even more powerful and telling than _Napoléon le Petit_. Its verse

burned with indignation. The poet spared no one who was in any degree

responsible for the crime of the 2nd December. 'Sometimes he is full of

pity for the victims of the dastardly aggression, pouring out his

sympathy for those whom the convict-ships were conveying to the deadly

climates of Cayenne and Lambessa, to receive for political offences the

fate of the worst of felons; sometimes he sounds forth their virtues in

brilliant strophes; and sometimes he rises into grandeur as he scourges

the great men of the Second Empire, whilst at others he uses the lash of

satire, and depicts them all as circus grooms and mountebanks. Page

after page seems to bind his victim to an eternal pillory.' The work

showed, in its various divisions, how society was 'saved,' order

re-established, the dynasty restored, religion glorified, authority

consecrated, stability assured, and the deliverers themselves delivered.

It was first published in Brussels, but only in a mutilated form, the

Belgian Government dreading the effects of some of its bitter attacks

upon the ruler of France. In vain the poet protested against this

infringement of liberty. A complete edition of the work, however, soon

appeared at St. Helier, and it speedily got into circulation in all the

European capitals, ingeniously defying every effort to suppress it. 'The

more it was hunted down the more thoroughly it penetrated France. It

had as many disguises as an outlaw. Sometimes it was enclosed in a

sardine-box, or rolled up in a hank of wool; sometimes it crossed the

frontier entire, sometimes in fragments; concealed occasionally in

plaster busts or clocks, laid in the folds of ladies' dresses, or even

sewn in between the double soles of men's boots.'

Matters were thus rendered righteously unpleasant for Napoleon, who

dreaded these attacks upon his person and power. A man of genius

fighting for liberty is sometimes stronger than a throne; and it was

possible that this might be the issue between the poet and the Dictator.

The work brought no profit to its author, but he had the far higher

reward of seeing it carry terror into the midst of the Tuileries, while

it at the same time stirred the slumbering conscience of the French

nation. For two or three years the Jersey exiles remained unmolested,

but Napoleon, feeling insecure, determined that they should 'move on.'

Victor Hugo on several occasions delivered funeral orations over

departed patriots. He never spared the French rulers, and invariably

expressed sympathy with 'the heartrending cry of humanity which made

the crowned criminal turn pale upon his throne.'

At the obsequies of one Félix Bony, who had been a victim of Imperial

tyranny, the poet referred to the British alliance with the Emperor of

the French as a degradation to England. Upon this, Sir Robert Peel

intimated in the House of Commons that he should feel it his duty to put

an end to this kind of language on the part of French refugees as soon

as possible. Ribeyrolles, the editor of _L'Homme_, the French newspaper

in Jersey, retorted that England was England no longer, and Victor Hugo