Part 4 (1/2)

'I aal_, _Le Dernier Jour dun Condamne_, _Marion Delorme_, etc'

'I never heard of any of the a copy of my works?'

'I never read new books'

The later relations of Hugo with the Acadeetfulness of offence characterized hio to deliver the funeral oration over one who had been his enenanimously exclaih renown, let all disputes of the conflicting schools, let all the turotten Let theone 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 aaddress 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 beca 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 cans of otten, '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 condeh be praised, are utterly ignored, and M

Hugo clings with a steadfast persistence to his own peculiar style' The public were naturally curious to kno Hugo would speak of one who had acted treacherously towards hih-minded courtesy, the speaker uttered not one word of a personal character against the man who had been so unjust towards hiular in attendance, or were so useful to that august body, as Victor Hugo He brought into all his relations with it the say and conscientiousness which marked his course in connection with literature and the drama His association with the Acadee of a new departure in his career

CHAPTER IX

PERSONAL AND POLITICAL

Areater adled with his ad which amounted almost to reverence; and probably the proudest moo at the Jardies Leon Grozlan tells us that he awaited his arrival with eagerness; indeed, so great was his anxiety that he could not reuished men of letters were noticeable in their attire, which was certainly far from Solos 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 buttons, and a frayed black cravat, the whole set off by green spectacles of a shape and for of literature and the drae profits as a dra to an angel, while he heard Hugo recount the enornificent 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 lustre which enius have shed upon their own tins froil, Horace, Livy, Ovid, ould recognise Augustus in the n of Elizabeth would gradually disappear froland Without Boileau, without Racine, without Corneille, without Pascal, without La Bruyere, without Moliere, Louis XIV, reduced to his n of an inn

Without the pen, Philippe le Roi would leave behind hi-house keeper of the Rue Montorgueil, or of Philippe the faler Some day it will be said (at least, I hope so, for his Majesty's sake), ”Once upon a tirace of Victor Hugo, Lamartine, etc”' French rulers were eo, but in the case of at least one sovereign it was to be by the io in the Place Royale, whither he hadthe 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 poehed for Paris, that citybeside--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 ment of the care bestowed on his son, M

Vacquerie, senior, invited Mada the suo 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 ie couple wereof 1843 The wedded life of the poet's daughter was unfortunately as brief as it was happy and joyous After a period of five ic termination The catastrophe hich 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, ere accustomed to make excursions almost daily froed for the 4th of September, when M Charles Vacquerie, with his wife, his uncle, and cousin, started to h spirits upon as quite an ordinary outing; but a sudden squall caht 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 aood swimmer, and, anxious to carry her off, did his utmost to ; in her agony she seeer-nails in the wood; his very atteers proved ineffectual He was but a few yards fro it was impossible to save her, he deter 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

Glooo found consolation in the affection of the partner of his youth, whose devotion had seeain she aniave his verse much of its sweetest and noblest inspiration She entered fully into his high aspirations, and received with grace and _bonhomie_ visitors like Lae the courtesies of friendshi+p and genius

Victor Hugo was given to silent wanderings by night in the Champs elysees and the vicinity, and he has stated thatthese ht walks On one occasion this habit nearly proved of serious i 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 custoe

Notwithstanding his advanced political views in later life, Victor Hugo, as I have already had occasion to observe, es 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: 'Soood one

But we ather 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, Lah they were all born outside the pale of the Revolution, they proved to be the very o especially being a noble exponent of the new social truths

There naturally cao desired actual contact with political life At first, as I have re returned for the Chamber of Deputies, but this idea had to be abandoned Then he was sent for by Louis Philippe This enerally i little for the conciliation of the denised 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 ar his seat in the Upper Chamber the new peer was by profession an independent Conservative, but there was in hie 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 o sympathized deeply with the Poles He denounced the avowed policy of M

Guizot, that France could do nothing towards re-establishi+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 clairatitude 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 freedoo 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 Jeroht be allowed to return to France His chief arguth 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 ht; and that by mercifulness the Chamber would consolidate its poith the people Louis Philippe was so impressed by these views that he allowed the Bonapartes to return

That moo altogether as a surprise That which astonished hith of the newbefore 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 tinored, or attempted to crush the forces which were at work in society, then it was inevitably dooed sourate 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 ht for athe duchess of Orleans regent; but he speedily saw that the popular ave in his adhesion to the Republic The Provisional Governo 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 asseht and noith the Left His socialistic views found expression during the discussion upon the national factories, which had borne such laht 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 the, but to labour without causing alare; he implored them to bestow upon the disendowed classes, as they were called, all the benefits of civilization, to provide the; and, in short, to put the misery' From the point of view of the social refor the sanguinary days of June he went fro to avert bloodshed; and after the outbreak he was instruents 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, as none other than Victor Schoelcher, a close friendshi+p was forainst 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'etat_ Froly 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 auste 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 Constituent asseislative asseo was elected one of the twenty-eight deputies for Paris, his na tenth on the list He has left it on record in _Le Droit et la Loi_ that this year forh Republican 'An inaniround; 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 bosoht 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 unco attitude he now assued 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 tily attacked the abuses attendant upon ecclesiastical doer of his for 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 ith hiainst one over to the side of the oppressors: I have re at the Peace Congress of Paris, held on the 21st of August, 1849, and addressing Richard Cobden and his fellow-delegates frouine humanitarian sentiments 'You have come,' he observed to these representatives of peace, 'to turn over, if it e that ordains peace ast 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 io, this city of Paris was aroused in terror aht 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-saether into one general concourse the representatives of that old antagonism, and has bidden them transfornificance of this mournful anniversary is reht Well-nigh beneath the shadow of that tohence tolled the fatal vespers of St