Part 7 (1/2)

As a polemic in verse, the poet was not very successful; but no one would turn to the poeo in order to find the successful controversial theologian No doubt hethat he was eious theories, and he was not the first literary genius who has done so But if he failed in polelanced, there still reo the poet and the philanthropist

CHAPTER XVI

PUBLIC ADDRESSES, ETC

Victor Hugo was unquestionably a great orator, or rather I ought perhaps to say he exhibited the powers of a great orator on special occasions

If eloquence is to be measured by the effect which it has upon the audience, he had the electrical force of the orator in no sree; for in connection with certain persons and topics he was successful in enkindling an enthusiasm in his hearers which was almost unparalleled

But his oratory was not of that even kind which, if it never passes beyond a given elevation, never sinks on the other hand into bathos or coe, and he was an orator when his heart was thrown into his subject, and he pressed into its service all the wealth of rhetoric he had at command Nevertheless, so successful--a result due in soe and quixotism of idea, and in others to the absence of that 'sweet reasonableness' which dispassionately weighs and considers the opinions of others, and judges righteous judgment

At the celebration of the Voltaire centenary in Paris in May, 1878, Hugo was the chief speaker The greatwas held in the Gaite Theatre, which was crowded to suffocation One as present stated that while all the speakers at the deo arose that the full terander, a erated scene be conceived than this association of Victor Hugo and Voltaire, of theof French orators exhausting his hly coloured epithets and colossal antitheses on the ironical head of Voltaire? A report of his speech does not suffice; the white head and apostle's beard, the inspired eye, the sole as if it would sound in the ears of posterity; the involuntarily haughty attitude in vain striving to seem modest; the imperturbable seriousness hich he piles antithesis upon antithesis--all this o was enthusiastically cheered on taking the chair Waving his arm he exclaimed, '_Vive la Republique!_'--a cry which was then taken up with equal fervour by every person in the audience After the other speakers had been heard, the distinguished chairman delivered his oration He rapidly sketched the work accomplished by Voltaire, and concluded thus: 'Alas! the present moment, worthy as it is of admiration and respect, has still its dark side There are still clouds on the horizon; the tragedy of peoples is not played out; war still raises its head over this august festival of peace; princes for two years have persisted in a fatal ; their discord is an obstacle to our concord, and they are ill-inspired in condes us back to Voltaire A events let us be reat dead, this great living spirit Let us bend before the venerated sepulchre Let us ask counsel of hio, but whose work is ihty thinkers and auxiliaries of this glorious Voltaire--of Jean Jacques, Diderot, Montesquieu Let us stop the shedding of huh, despots Barbarishteenth century succour the nineteenth The philosophers, our predecessors, are the apostles of truth Let us invoke these illustrious phanto of war, they ht of conscience to liberty, the sovereignty of reason, the sacredness of labour, the blessedness of peace And as night issues froht ereat French writers who present o; yet the latter, not only in praising his predecessor, but on randly inconsistent if he could thereby, as he believed, advance the interests of huo presided at the International Literary Congress held in Paris in June, 1878 His speech on that occasion, though by no ress as fored that a book once published becomes in part the property of society, and that after its author's death his faht to prevent its reissue He held that a publisher should be required to declare the cost and the selling price of any book he intended to bring out; that the author's heirs should be entitled to 5 or 10 per cent of the profit, and that in default of heirs the profit should revert to the State, to be applied to the encourageeneral questions, and dwelling on the o defined the Exhibition as the alliance of industry, the Voltaire Centenary as the alliance of philosophy, and the Congress then sitting as the alliance of literature 'Industry seeks the useful, philosophy seeks the true, literature seeks the beautiful--the triple aiates as the ambassadors of the human mind, citizens of a universal city, the constituent assembly of literature Peoples, he remarked, were estimated by their literature; Greece, sland suggesting that of Shakespeare, and France being at a certain period personified in Voltaire He next showed that copyright was in the interest of the public, by securing the independence of the writer; and, glancing at the former dependent position of overnment resulted in this--the people without bread and Corneille without a sou

Deriding the alleged dangerousness of books, and urging the real dangers of ignorance, he described schools as the luminous points of civilization He ridiculed as harical curiosities those ished s, and who anathematized 1789, liberty of conscience, free speech, and a free tribune He exhorted nise as their mission conciliation for ideas and reconciliation for nified universal disarmament, the restoration to health of the human race, the true redemption ofhi your fist In lieu of _Delenda est Carthago_, he proposed the destruction of hatred, which was best effected by pardon After showing her industry and hospitality, France should show her clemency, for a festival should be fraternal, and a festival which did not forgive somebody was not a real festival The symbol of public joy was the A of the Paris Exhibition

In the August following this Congress, a great working-men's conference was held in the French capital in favour of International Arbitration

Victor Hugo being unable to attend and preside at the gathering, as originally announced, sent a co his approbation of the objects of the'I demand what you demand,' he wrote 'I hat you want Our alliance is the commencement of unity Let us be cal of what they try to do will succeed against your decision, against your liberty, against your sovereignty Look on at what they do without uneasiness, alith serenity, sometimes with a smile The supreainst you, will serve you Continue to le people; Europe and you want a single thing--peace' Two or three -o in Paris, and presented hinificently illuminated and framed, as a token of admiration for the services he had rendered to the cause of hu as I live I shall oppose war, and defend the cause which is dear and common to us all--the cause of labour and peace'

As honorary president of a secular education congress in 1879, Victor Hugo thus addressed that body: 'Youth is the future You teach youth, you prepare the future This preparation is useful, this teaching is necessary to make the man of to-morrow The man of to-morrow is the universal Republic The Republic is unity, har comfort; it is the abolition of conflicts between man and man, nation and nation, the abolition of the law of death, and establishuinary and terrible revolutionary necessities is past For what reress suffices Great battles we have still to fight--battles the evident necessity of which does not disturb the serenity of thinkers; battles in which revolutionary energy will equal ht will overthrow violence allied with usurpation--superb, glorious, enthusiastic, decisive battles, the issue of which is not doubtful, and which will be the Hastings and the Austerlitz of humanity Citizens, the time of the dissolution of the old world has arrived The old despotisms are condemned by the Providential law Every day which passes buries them still deeper in annihilation

The Republic is the future'

Another address, in which Hugo expounded his views of the future of huress, etc, was delivered at Chateau d'Eau, on behalf of the Work the achievements of the centuries, he remarked that 'for four hundred years the human race has not e behind We enter now upon great centuries The sixteenth century will be known as the age of painters; the seventeenth will be tere of philosophers; the nineteenth, the age of apostles and prophets To satisfy the nineteenth century it is necessary to be the painter of the sixteenth, the writer of the seventeenth, the philosopher of the eighteenth; and it is also necessary, like Louis Blanc, to have the innate and holy love of humanity which constitutes an apostolate, and opens up a prophetic vista into the future In the twentieth century ill be dead, the scaffold will be dead, animas will be dead; but man will live For all there will be but one country--that country the whole earth; for all there will be but one hope--that hope the whole heaven'

It will be seen that there was a sweeping breadth and o's prophecies for the twentieth century But that epoch is so near that we ramme will so speedily be realized Still, the prophecy is lofty, generous, noble, and I will not attereat question of the day, that of labour, the orator observed: 'The political question is solved The Republic iscan unmake it The social question remains; terrible as it is, it is quite simple; it is a question between those who have, and those who have not The latter of these two classes h

Think ato be h an isthmus, you have Lesseps; if you want to create a sea, you have Roudaire Look you; there is a people and there is a world; and yet the people have no inheritance, and the world is a desert Give them to each other, and you make them happy at once

Astonish the universe by heroic deeds that are better than wars Does the world want conquering? No, it is yours already; it is the property of civilization; it is already waiting for you; no one disputes your title Go on, then, and colonize'

This is no doubt grand, but it is vague However, the hest aspiration have frequently proved themselves ill-fitted for the practical development of their own theories It is the penalty which the brain has to pay for being stronger than the hand that it must often call in the services and co-operation of the latter Hugo was exceedingly happy in dealing with cavillers at ress He showed that those who ht to be the least o M Thiers declared that the railould be a uished man, M Pouillet, confidently predicted that the apparatus of the electric telegraph would be consigned to a cabinet of curiosities And yet these two playthings have changed the course of the world Have faith, then; and let us realize our equality as citizens, our fraternity as men, our liberty in intellectual power Let us love not only those who love us, but those who love us not Let us learn to wish to benefit all ed; truth will reveal itself; the beautiful will arise; the supreme laill be fulfilled, and the world shall enter upon a perpetual fete-day I say, therefore, have faith! Look down at your feet, and you see the insect rass; look upwards, and you will see the star resplendent in the fir? They are both at their work; the insect is doing its work upon the ground, and the star is doing its work in the sky It is an infinite distance that separates them, and yet while it separates, unites They follow their law And why should not their law be ours? Man, too, has to submit to universal force, and inasmuch as he subrasps the earth, but his soul e of dust, but like the star he partakes of the eht is light!'

Soo's social and huained from these addresses In the course of a conversation with M Barbou, however, he supplemented these views and theories by explicit statements upon various questions France, he said, was in possession of a _bourgeoise_ Republic, which was not an ideal one, but which would undergo a slow and gradual transfor been pioneers and ained their knowledge by experience, having lived through the struggles of the past; but whose theories could not be put into practice by theed to younger men, and to the twentieth century

That solution, heless than the universal spread of instruction; it would follow the fore should be i the child they would endow the ht proceed to exercise severe repression upon anyone who resisted as right, because he would have been already so trained that he could not plead ignorance in his own behalf

But Hugo was careful to add that he did not expect a Utopia to follow this universal dissee When man had proceeded well on the path of advanceo out and colonize, and the whole interior of Africa was destined, he believed, before long to be conquered by civilization Frontiers would disappear, for the idea of fraternity was ed to o forth and reclaihter future, and his ords in this respect would seehtenment