Part 4 (1/2)

'I am the author of _Notre-Dame de Paris_, _Bug Jargal_, _Le Dernier Jour dun Cond.a.m.ne_, _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 pa.s.s 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 cla.s.sics 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 a.s.sociation 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. Leon 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 _a la financiere_; 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 b.u.t.tons, 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 _Comedie 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 l.u.s.tre 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 Bruyere, without Moliere, 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 Inferieure, 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 chateau 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 Leopoldine 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. Leopoldine 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 n.o.blest 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 friends.h.i.+p and genius.

Victor Hugo was given to silent wanderings by night in the Champs elysees 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sers-by caused his a.s.sailants 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 h.o.a.ry heads.' His political honesty impressed his contemporaries. Louis Blanc saw a n.o.ble 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 n.o.ble 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-establis.h.i.+ng 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 grat.i.tude and moral support of France for a people who had done their part in the n.o.ble 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the French aristocracy.

In 1847 the new peer showed his catholicity of spirit by supporting the pet.i.tion 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 att.i.tude 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 const.i.tuting the d.u.c.h.ess 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 a.s.sembly, on the occasion of the supplementary elections rendered necessary in Paris. He took an independent part in the debates in the a.s.sembly, 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 peris.h.i.+ng, but to labour without causing alarm to the world at large; he implored them to bestow upon the disendowed cla.s.ses, 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 acc.u.mulating 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 a.s.sembly 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 friends.h.i.+p was formed. Hugo would have no part in the proceedings against Louis Blanc, and he declined to a.s.sent to the vote that Cavaignac deserved the grat.i.tude 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'etat_. From his place in the a.s.sembly 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'evenement_, 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, Theophile 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 Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly was dissolved, and a Legislative a.s.sembly 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 att.i.tude he now a.s.sumed 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 impa.s.sioned 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sembled 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 impa.s.sioned 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 b.l.o.o.d.y deed, unprecedented in the annals of crime, was perpetrated; and now, on that self-same date, in that self-same city, G.o.d 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 abbe and a Protestant pastor might have been seen embracing, overcome by the power of the orator's language.