Victor Hugo - Livres de poche

MAKERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Edited by BASIL WILLIAMS VICTOR HUGO BY MADAME DUCLAUX LONDON CONSTABLE AND COMPANT LTD. 1921 TO DANIEL AND MARIANNE HAL VY PREFATORY NOTE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR MME, DUCLATJX wrote to me six months after the beginning of the War that during September 1914 she did some work on Victor Hugo within sound of the cannon of the Marne but, as one may well believe of such a lover of the great poet, she soon found that her countrys life and death struggle made any other thought but that of helping her people in their war out of the question. For, as we remember, even the old poet shouldered his rifle and clamoured to be made use of in 1870, And now that the triumph, which would have consoled him for the anguish of those days, has come, here comes this book to remind us of what we owe to France, not only for her arms but still more for her great poets, her great torch-bearers for liberty. It would be impertinent in me to add anything more to what Mme. Duclaux has said about Victor Hugo, except to suggest how timely is such a book at a moment when the hope of the world still depends so largely on a sympathetic understanding by France and England of all that is best and most permanent in the spirit of the other. Victor Hugo is perhaps the type of Frenchman most unlike the Englishman, especially in that glorious swagger, which comes not from vanity and emptiness as it might with us, but from that abounding enthusiasm and zest in the immediate task which cannot halt to consider a possibly absurd aspect vii viii VICTOR HUGO Mme. Duclaux, English by birth and French by long association, has interpreted her poet with a tenderness and a sense of humour which makes usunderstand and sympathize even with his excesses and feel some of the Frenchmans joy in his finest work. BASIL WILLIAMS. July 1920. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE . . . a I. CHILDHOOD i II. THE RETURN TO FRANCE . ., 13 III. ROYALIST PARIS 18 IV. THE FIRST GLEAMS OF GLORY . . .27 V. FIRST LOVE 33 VI. TH BRIDEGROOM AND HIS BROTHER . . 46 VII. LIFE is AN ODE . 55 VIII. A PRINCE OF POETS 68 IX. FROM CROMWELL TO HERNANI . . 76 X. HERNANI 88 XI. 1830 .... . 93 XH. NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS . . 103 XIII. AUTUMN AND TWILIGHT . . . .108 XIV. THE PRINCESS NEGRONI . . . .120 XV. ELIDUC 133 XVL VICTOR HUGO AS RUY BLAS . . . .145 XVII, 1848 158 ix x VICTOR HUGO CHAP. PAGE XVIII. THE Coup DETAT . . . .169 XIX. A VOLCANO IN ERUPTION . . . .180 XX, CONTEMPLATION . . . . .189 XXI. THE ZENITH . . . . .,201 XXII. THE CLOSE OF A CHAPTER . . . .218 XXIII. THE EXILES RETURN . . .228 XXIV. THE LAST SHEAF OF HARVEST . . .241 XXV. THE BUDDHA ON THE BRACKET ., .251 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . ., . .261 INDEX ....... 263 CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD THE France into which Victor Hugo was born was not unlike our recent world of the Great War. The armies of the Republic, having repelled the invaders, had seethed over her borders into Holland, into Italy. All Europe was in ebullition, and felt the dread of the triumphant con queror who led the armies of France. 1 Eighteen Hundred and Two, Sparta gives way to Rome. Napoleon begins to bud in Bonaparte. Now where the Emperors forehead presses home The mask of the First Consul bursts apart. Twas in Besanjon, 2 an old Spanish city, A child was born, by chance, a wind-swept grain Whose double root was Brittany, Lorraine, Mute, sightless, pale was he, a thing to pity, 1 Ce si cle avait deuxans, Rome rempla9ait Sparte, D6j, Napoleon per ait sous Bonaparte, Et du Premier Consul d6ja, par maint eadroit, Le front de TEmpereur brisaat le masque troit Alors dans Besanjon, vieille ville espagnole...