Part 6 (1/2)

CHAPTER XIII

PARIS AND THE SIEGE

Having vowed never again to visit the land that was 'the resting-place of his ancestors and the birthplace of his love' until she had been restored to liberty, it is not surprising that Victor Hugo rejected the renewed amnesty offered hiht in hied by his friend M Felix Pyat to accept this new offer of a truce, he replied, '_S'il n'en reste qu'un, je serai celui-la_' ('If there remain only one, I will be that one') When the Republican journal _Le Rappel_ was started, with Charles and Francois Hugo, Auguste Vacquerie, and Paul Meurice as its principal contributors (joined subsequently by M

Rochefort), he wrote for the opening nuratulatory manifesto addressed to the editors By every means in his power, indeed, he endeavoured to advance Republican principles

Early in 1870 Napoleon was so i that he resolved to test the stability of his power and the ic of his nao, who asked why the people should be invited to participate in another electoral crination at the proposal: 'While the author of the _Coup d'etat_ wants to put a question to the people, ould ask hiht I, Napoleon, to quit the Tuileries for the Conciergerie, and to put myself at the disposal of justice?” ”Yes!”' This bold and stinging retort led to the prosecution of the journal and the writer for inciting to hatred and contempt of the Imperial Governed in writing his study of _Shakespeare_, and now in responding to the appealsthose froents of Cuba, the Irish Fenians who had just been convicted, and the friends of peace at the Lausanne Congress

He had suffered another do syles, and other sorroere i

The ith Prussia in 1870 led to the disaster of Sedan, and the collapse of the Eo at once hastened to France, where he elcomed with heartfelt enthusiasm by his friends of the Revolutionary Government formed on the 4th of September M Jules Claretie, who accompanied the poet on the journey froraphic account of his return to the beloved city At Landrecies Hugo saw evidences of the rout and the ruin which had overtaken France 'In the presence of the great disaster, whereby the whole French army seemed vanquished and dispersed, tears rolled down his cheeks, and his whole fraht up all the bread that could be secured, and distributed it ao's arrival was a h the midst of the vast populace,' continues the narrator, 'I followed hiaze I looked with ad in years, but faithful still in vindicating right, and never now do I behold hirateful people without recalling the scene of thateyes he returned to see his country as she lay soiled and dishonoured and well-nigh dead'

Concerning this scene, M Alphonse Daudet also wrote: 'He arrived just as the circle of invest in around the city; he ca with him the last breath of the air of freedouardian of Paris; and what an ovation was that which he received outside the station fros already revolutionized, ere prepared to do great things, and infinitely ained than terrified by the cannon that were thundering against their rae passed along the Rue Lafayette, Victor Hugo standing up, and being literally borne along by the tee his enthusiastic reception, Hugo said: 'I thank you for your acclauish that is rending all hearts, and to the peril that is threatening our land I have but one thing to demand of you I invite you to union By union you will conquer Subdue all ill-will; check all resentment Be united, and you shall be invincible

Rally round the Republic Hold fast, brother to brother Victory is in our keeping Fraternity is the saviour of liberty!' Addressing also the crowd assembled in the Avenue Frochot, the place of his destination, the poet assured thele hour had compensated him for all his nineteen years of exile

Installed at the house of his friend Paul Meurice, Hugo re fallen, the cause of strife had ceased, and Hugo addressed a manifesto to the Germans, in which he said: 'This war does not proceed from us It was the Empire that willed the war; it was the Empire that prosecuted it But now the E to do with its corpse; it is all the past, we are the future The Empire was hatred, we are sympathy; that was treason, we are loyalty The Empire was Capua, nay, it was Gomorrha; we are France Our motto is ”Liberty, Equality, Fraternity;” on our banner we inscribe, ”The United States of Europe” Whence, then, this onslaught? Pause a while before you present to the world the spectacle of Ger civilization' But the victorious Germans did not share the peaceful sentione ill with him if, like his manifesto, he had fallen into the hands of the Prussian Generals

The siege went on, and the poet laid the funds froiven of _Les Chatiments_, and other poems, and the proceeds expended in ale on the part of the Parisians Gao to thank him for his services to the country, when the latter replied: 'Make use of ood Distribute me as you would dispense water My books are even as myself; they are all the property of France

With them, with me, do just as you think best' The poet kept up a brave heart during the privations of hunger, and cheered er spirits at his table by his pleasantry and hich relieved the glooreat and terrible ti was past, he left it on record: 'Never did city exhibit such fortitude Not a soul gave way to despair, and courage increased in proportion as rew deeper Not a crime was cole was noble, and she would not give in Her women were as brave as her men

Surrendered and betrayed she was; but she was not conquered' One can scarcely wonder that et the huh

In the list of the Committee of Public Safety, which was responsible for the insurrectionary o appeared; but he disavowed its use, and on the ensuing 5th of Noveeneral election of the es were accorded him in the 15th arrondissement In the elections of February, 1871, he was returned second on the list with 214,000 votes, Louis Blanc co first with 216,000, and Garibaldi third with 200,000 votes Speaking on the 1st of March in the National assely denounced the preliminaries of peace The treaty, however, was ratified Interposing in the debate which subsequently took place on the election of Garibaldi, he said: 'France hasbut cowardice fro rose to assist us

One man alone intervened in our favour; that man had an idea and a sword With his idea he delivered one people; with his sword he delivered another Of all the Generals who fought for France, Garibaldi is the only one as not beaten' A strange scene of tuesticulating and threatening violently Rising in the o announced that he should send in his resignation

This he accordingly did, and re the earnest entreaties to withdraw it on the part of the President, M Grevy Next day, in consequence, there was nothing for the President to do but to announce the resignation, which was couched in these tero the assembly refused to hear Garibaldi; now it refuses to hear rief at the resignation; it was, he said, adding another drop of sorrow to a cup that seerieved that a voice so powerful should be hushed just at an eratitude to all its benefactors Garibaldi thus wrote to Hugo: 'It needs no writing to show that we are of one accord; we understand each other; the deeds that you have done, and the affection that I have borne for you make a bond of union between us What you have testified for e of a life devoted to humanity'

It was at this juncture that the poet was called upon to estion of the brain

There had been an unusually close bond between the two, and the shock careat force upon the father The body of the deceased was brought to Paris for inter the hearse on foot to the family vault at Pere la Chaise Funeral orations were delivered by Auguste Vacquerie and Louis Mie

Froone after his son's death, the poet protested against the horrors of the Commune He also vainly tried to preserve the column in the Place Vendome from destruction He wrote his poe to the colu the hands of the destroyers, but the mad ent forward Nevertheless, it was characteristic of him that after the insurrection was at an end, he pleaded for itives found shelter, until the Belgian Government banished theo published an article in _L'Independance_ He declared that although Belgiuees, his own conscience could not approve that law The Church of the Middle Ages had offered sanctuary even to parricides, and such sanctuary the fugitives should find at his hoe to open his door if he would to his foe, and it ought to be Belgiuland did not surrender the refugees, and why should Belgiuuians A few of the more ruffianly spirits of Brussels actually made an attack upon the poet's house, which they assaulted with stones, to the great danger of Madao and her children Defeated in their attempts to break in the door or to scale the house, the assailants at length ranted to Hugo for this outrageous assault, or any punish meted out to the offenders, the poet hidom immediately, and forbidden to return under penalties of the law of 1865 A debate took place in the Chamber, and as the result of this debate and various protests, the Government did not order the indiscriminate expulsion of all exiles, as they had conteo by ordering a judicial inquiry into the attack upon his residence In the end a son of the Minister of the Interior was fined a noe

Hugo now , and afterwards visited London, returning to Paris at the close of the year 1871 After the trial of the Communists he pleaded earnestly, but in vain, for the lives of Rossel, Lullier, Ferre, Creot into a difficulty with the Radicals of Paris in consequence of his refusal to accept the _mandat imperatif_ This, he explained, was contrary to his principles, for conscienceto accept a _mandat contractuel_, by which there could be a o was defeated, receiving only 95,900 votes, as against 122,435 given to his opponent, M Vautrain, a result partly accounted for by Hugo's amnesty proposals The poet published, in September, 1873, _La Liberation du Territoire_, a poem which was sold for the benefit of the inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine In it the writer strongly condemned the adulation poured upon the Shah of Persia, then on a visit to France, and respecting whose cruelty and barbaris Christreat loss by the death of his only re son, Francois Victor At the funeral Louis Blanc delivered a short address, in which he extolled the literary ability, the integrity, and the virtues of the deceased To the shouts of '_Vive Victor Hugo! Vive la Republique!_' the weeping poet was led away froo kept a diary of this lurid history, and upon this he constructed his poeust, 1870, to July, 1871 Speaking of this work, a writer whoe at once demand and defy commentary; they should be studied in their order as parts of one tragic sylory of Ger to France with a cry of inarticulate love, to the sad ue which seals up the sorrowful record of the days of capitulation, the various and continuous harht and shadoith bursts of thunder and tempest, and interludes of sunshi+ne and sweet air' The variety of note in these tragic poems has also been well insisted upon 'There is an echo of all ereat spirit of a patriot and a poet could suffer and express by translation of suffering into song; the bitter cry of invective and satire, the clear trumpet-call to defence, the triumphal wail for those who fell for France, the passionate sob of a son on the stricken bosoht that slowly opens into flower of speech; and through all and after all, the sweet unspeakable music of natural and simple love After the voice which reproaches the priest-like soldier, we hear the voice which rebukes the militant priest; and a fire, as the fire of Juvenal, is outshone by a light as the light of Lucretius' Mr Dowden sees in these poehout, not a man of the Commune, nor a man of Versailles 'The most precious poems of the book are those which keep close to facts rather than concern themselves with ideas The sunset seen fro bodies of the Prussians borne onward by the Seine, caressed and kissed and still swayed on by the eddying water; the bomb which fell near the old man's feet while he sat where had been the Convent of the Feuillantines, and where he had walked in under the trees in Aprils long ago, holding his ed like a chained beast through the scorching streets of Paris; the gallant boy who came to confront death by the side of his friends--memories of these it is which haunt us e have closed the book--of these, and of the little liers, and baby-sed frorandchild, too soon to beco the force of the writing and the noble aspirations of the author, place the work on a considerably lower level as a whole Yet no one who knows the work can surely deny that the poet has thrown a halo of glory round the concrete facts of a disastrous and e of despair was held by many of his friends at this dark crisis in French history, Victor Hugo never once wavered in his hopes for the future of his country So far fro annihilated, he predicted that France would rise to enjoy a greater height of prosperity, and a more durable peace, than she had ever enjoyed under the Empire

CHAPTER XIV

'QUATRE-VINGT-TREIZE'--POLITICS, ETC