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 him by Napoleon in 1869. The past ten years had
wrought in him no signs of relenting, and when he was urged 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 number a congratulatory manifesto
addressed to the editors. By every means in his power, indeed, he
endeavoured to advance Republican principles.
Early in 1870 Napoleon was so impressed by the spread of Republican
feeling that he resolved to test the stability of his power and the
magic of his name by a _plebiscite_. This step was condemned by Hugo,
who asked why the people should be invited to participate in another
electoral crime. He thus gave vent to his burning indignation at the
proposal: 'While the author of the _Coup d'Etat_ wants to put a question
to the people, we would ask him to put this question to himself, "Ought
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 Government. But the poet went on
his course unmoved, now engaged in writing his study of _Shakespeare_,
and now in responding to the appeals made to him from various quarters,
including those from the insurgents of Cuba, the Irish Fenians who had
just been convicted, and the friends of peace at the Lausanne Congress.
He had suffered another domestic grief in 1868 by the death of his
wife, his unfailing sympathizer and consoler in his early struggles,
and other sorrows were impending.
The war with Prussia in 1870 led to the disaster of Sedan, and the
collapse of the Empire. Hugo at once hastened to France, where he was
welcomed 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 from Brussels to Paris, has written
a graphic 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
frame quivered with sobs. He bought up all the bread that could be
secured, and distributed it among the famished troops.' The scene in
Paris on Hugo's arrival was a memorable one. 'Through the midst of the
vast populace,' continues the narrator, 'I followed him with my gaze. I
looked with admiration on that man, now advancing in years, but faithful
still in vindicating right, and never now do I behold him greeted with
the salutations of a grateful people without recalling the scene of
that momentous night, when with weeping eyes 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 investment was closing in around the city; he came by
the last train, bringing with him the last breath of the air of freedom.
He had come to be a guardian of Paris; and what an ovation was that
which he received outside the station from those tumultuous throngs
already revolutionized, who were prepared to do great things, and
infinitely more rejoiced at the liberty they had regained than terrified
by the cannon that were thundering against their ramparts! Never can we
forget the spectacle as the carriage passed along the Rue Lafayette,
Victor Hugo standing up, and being literally borne along by the teeming
multitudes.' At one point, in acknowledging his enthusiastic reception,
Hugo said: 'I thank you for your acclamations. But I attribute them all
to your sense of the anguish 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 them that that single hour had compensated him for all his
nineteen years of exile.
Installed at the house of his friend Paul Meurice, Hugo remained in
Paris all through the siege. The Empire having 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
Empire is dead, and an excellent thing too. We have nothing 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 Germans becoming Vandals, and of barbarism
decapitating civilization.' But the victorious Germans did not share the
peaceful sentiments of the writer, and it would have gone 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 from his works at the
feet of the Republic. Readings were given of _Les Chatiments_, and other
poems, and the proceeds expended in ammunition. It was a brave struggle
on the part of the Parisians. Gambetta called on Hugo to thank him for
his services to the country, when the latter replied: 'Make use of me in
any way you can for the public good. 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 many of the younger
spirits at his table by his pleasantry and wit, which relieved the gloom
that pressed so heavily over all. When the great and terrible time of
peril and suffering 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 misery grew deeper. Not a crime was
committed. Paris earned the admiration of the world. Her struggle 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 men who loved Paris as a woman loves her child can
never forget the humiliation she was called upon to pass through.
In the list of the Committee of Public Safety, which was responsible for
the insurrectionary movement of the 31st of October, the name of Victor
Hugo appeared; but he disavowed its use, and on the ensuing 5th of
November he declined to become a candidate at the general election of
the mayors of Paris. Nevertheless, 4,029 suffrages 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 coming first
with 216,000, and Garibaldi third with 200,000 votes. Speaking on the
1st of March in the National Assembly--which met at Bordeaux--Hugo
strongly 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 has met with nothing but
cowardice from Europe. Not a Power, not a single King 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 who was not beaten.' A strange scene of tumult arose
upon this speech, many members of the Right gesticulating and
threatening violently. Rising in the midst of an uproar that was
indescribable, Hugo announced that he should send in his resignation.
This he accordingly did, and remained firm, notwithstanding 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 terms: 'Three weeks
ago the Assembly refused to hear Garibaldi; now it refuses to hear me. I
resign my seat.' Louis Blanc expressed his profound grief at the
resignation; it was, he said, adding another drop of sorrow to a cup
that seemed already over-full; and he grieved that a voice so powerful
should be hushed just at an emergency when the country should be showing
its gratitude 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 me
at Bordeaux is a pledge of a life devoted to humanity.'
It was at this juncture that the poet was called upon to mourn the loss
of his son Charles, who died suddenly from congestion of the brain.
There had been an unusually close bond between the two, and the shock
came with great force upon the father. The body of the deceased was
brought to Paris for interment, Hugo following the hearse on foot to the
family vault at Pere la Chaise. Funeral orations were delivered by
Auguste Vacquerie and Louis Mie.
From Brussels, whither he had gone 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
poem, _Les deux Trophees_, referring to the column and the Arc de
Triomphe, with the object of staying the hands of the destroyers, but
the mad work went forward. Nevertheless, it was characteristic of him
that after the insurrection was at an end, he pleaded for mercy towards
the offenders. In his house at Brussels many fugitives found shelter,
until the Belgian Government banished them from the country. In reply to
this edict Hugo published an article in _L'Independance_. He declared
that although Belgium by law might refuse an asylum to the refugees, 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 home; it was his privilege to open his door
if he would to his foe, and it ought to be Belgium's glory to be a place
of refuge. England did not surrender the refugees, and why should
Belgium be behindhand in magnanimity? But these arguments were of no
avail with the exasperated Belgians. 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 Madame Charles Hugo and
her children. Defeated in their attempts to break in the door or to
scale the house, the assailants at length made off. So far at first from
any redress being granted to Hugo for this outrageous assault, or any
punishment being meted out to the offenders, the poet himself was
ordered to quit the kingdom 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
contemplated. They also made some show of satisfaction to Hugo 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 nominal sum of 100
francs for being concerned in the outrage.
Hugo now made a tour through Luxemburg, 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, Cremieux, and Maroteau. In the elections of January,
1872, he got 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 conscience might not take orders. He
was willing to accept a _mandat contractuel_, by which there could be a
more open discussion between the elector and the elected. Hugo 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 barbarism many anecdotes were current.
On the morning following Christmas Day, 1873, the poet was again called
upon to bear a great loss by the death of his only remaining 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 from the grave-side.
During the siege of Paris, Hugo kept a diary of this lurid history, and
upon this he constructed his poem _L'Annee Terrible_--the events
celebrated extending from August, 1870, to July, 1871. Speaking of this
work, a writer whom I have already quoted remarked that 'the poems of
the siege at once demand and defy commentary; they should be studied in
their order as parts of one tragic symphony. From the overture, which
tells of the old glory of Germany before turning to France with a cry of
inarticulate love, to the sad majestic epilogue which seals up the
sorrowful record of the days of capitulation, the various and continuous
harmony flows forward through light and shadow, with bursts of thunder
and tempest, and interludes of sunshine and sweet air.' The variety of
note in these tragic poems has also been well insisted upon. 'There is
an echo of all emotions in turn that the great 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 bosom of a mother, the deep note of thought 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
poems the work of a Frenchman throughout, 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 from the ramparts; the floating 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 mother's hand;
the petroleuse, dragged 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 when we have
closed the book--of these, and of the little limbs and transparent
fingers, and baby-smile, and murmur like the murmur of bees, and the
face changed from rosy health to a pathetic paleness of the one-year-old
grandchild, too soon to become an orphan.' But other critics, while
acknowledging 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 momentous period.
While the language 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 from being 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.