'QUATRE-VINGT-TREIZE.'--POLITICS, ETC.
In 1874 appeared the last of Victor Hugo's great romances,
_Quatre-Vingt-Treize_. It was published on the same day in ten
languages. This grand historical and political novel was a fitting close
to a series of works unexampled in scope and breadth of conception. A
great prose epic upon that terrible year in French history, 1793, it
excited the liveliest interest throughout Europe, and critics of all
shades of opinion hastened to do justice to its extraordinary merits.
Even those warm admirers of the author's superb imaginative genius, who
had looked forward with misgiving to this daring excursion into the
historic field, admitted that his complete success had justified the
effort. They extolled the work as 'a monument of its author's finest
gifts; and while those who are, happily, endowed with the capacity of
taking delight in nobility and beauty of imaginative work will find
themselves in possession of a new treasure, the lover of historic truth,
who hates to see abstractions passed off for actualities, and legend
erected in the place of fact, escapes with his praiseworthy
sensibilities unwounded.'
The work is on a colossal scale, exhibiting great breadth of touch,
while the style has now the power of the lightning, and now the calm and
the depth of the measureless sea. 'With La Vendee for background, and
some savage incidents of the bloody Vendean war for external machinery,
Victor Hugo has realized his conception of '93 in three types of
character--Lantenac, the Royalist marquis; Cimourdain, the Puritan
turned Jacobin; and Gauvain, for whom one can as yet find no short name,
he belonging to the Millenarian times.' It was said that there is
nothing more magnificent in literature than the last volume of this
work, and while its author had no rival in the sombre, mysterious
heights of imaginative effect, he was equally a master in strokes of
tenderness and the most delicate human sympathy. Rapidity and profusion
are the pre-eminent characteristics of this work--'a profusion as of
starry worlds, a style resembling waves of the sea, sometimes indeed
weltering dark and massive, but ever and anon flashing with the foamy
lightning of genius. The finish and rich accurate perfection of our own
great living poet Tennyson are absent. Hugo is far more akin to Byron;
but his range is vaster than Byron's. He has Byron's fierce satire, and
more than Byron's humour, though it is the fashion to generalize and say
that the French have none. He is both a lyrical and epic poet. He is a
greater dramatist than Byron; and whether in the dramas or prose
romances, he shows that vast sympathy with, and knowledge of, human
nature which neither Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, nor Wordsworth had.
Scott could be his only rival. In France they had lived dramatic lives
for the last ninety years; we have lived much more quietly in England,
and in France there is a real living drama.'
As this book, full-hearted in its passion, and deeply-veined with human
emotion, is the last of Victor Hugo's prose romances, some brief general
allusions to him as a novelist will be appropriate. Taking the five
books (which have been referred to in the order of their publication)
alone, viz., _Notre-Dame_, _Les Miserables_, _Les Travailleurs_,
_L'Homme qui Rit_, and _Quatre-Vingt-Treize_--they would have made the
fame of any writer; and yet, it has been justly remarked, they are but
one facade of the splendid monument that Victor Hugo has erected to his
own genius. I am not one of those who would contend that Hugo's style is
everywhere immaculate. On the contrary, he sometimes sins greatly; but
these occasions are rare compared with his mighty triumphs. Still,
justice must not be extinguished in admiration. My own view of Hugo's
literary gifts, as expressed more especially in his romances, has been
so fairly put by another writer that I shall transfer, and at the same
time in the main adopt, his language: 'Everywhere we find somewhat the
same greatness, somewhat the same infirmities. In his poems and plays
there are the same unaccountable protervities that have already
astonished us in the romances; there, too, is the same feverish
strength, welding the fiery iron of his idea under forge-hammer
repetitions; an emphasis that is somehow akin to weakness; a strength
that is a little epileptic. He stands so far above all his
contemporaries, and so incomparably excels them in richness, breadth,
variety, and moral earnestness, that we almost feel as if he had a sort
of right to fall oftener and more heavily than others; but this does not
reconcile us to seeing him profit by the privilege so freely. We like to
have in our great men something that is above question; we like to place
an implicit faith in them, and see them always on the platform of their
greatness: and this, unhappily, cannot be with Hugo. As Heine said long
ago, his is a genius somewhat deformed; but, deformed as it is, we
accept it gladly; we shall have the wisdom to see where his foot slips,
but we shall have the justice also to recognise in him the greatest
artist of our generation, and, in many ways, one of the greatest artists
of all time. If we look back, yet once, upon these five romances, we see
blemishes such as we can lay to the charge of no other man in the number
of the famous; but to what other man can we attribute such sweeping
innovations, such a new and significant view of life and man, such an
amount, if we think of the amount merely, of equally consummate
performance?' It is in the nature of the human intellect, finite as it
is, to relax sometimes from its highest strain, and if Victor Hugo
failed at times to scale his loftiest note of thought or expression, it
may be remembered also that even Shakespeare was not always in the mood
for producing _Hamlets_.
There appeared, in 1874, Hugo's pathetic sketch 'Mes Fils,' containing a
tribute of affection to his own dead children; and in 1875-6 was
published his _Actes et Paroles_. This justificatory work was in three
parts, which dealt respectively with the period before exile, the period
of exile, and the period since exile. 'The trilogy is not mine,' said
the author, 'but the Emperor Napoleon's; he it is who has divided my
life; to him the honour of it is due. That which is Bonaparte's we must
render to Caesar.' Although he first strongly countenanced resistance,
the writer concluded with an exhortation to clemency, holding that
resistance to tyrants should not be deemed inconsistent with mercy to
the vanquished. We have here a complete collection of Hugo's addresses,
orations, and confessions of faith, etc., during the preceding thirty
years. _Pour un Soldat_, a little brochure written in favour of an
obscure soldier, appeared in 1875. Its publication not only resulted in
saving the life of the soldier, who had been condemned for a venial
crime, but the sufferers in Alsace and Lorraine reaped the pecuniary
fruits of its popularity. The second part of _La Legende des Siecles_
was published in 1877. At this time the poet was living in the Rue de
Clichy, No. 21, sharing part of the house with Madame Charles Hugo, who,
after a widowhood of some years, married M. Charles Lockroy, deputy for
the Seine, and also known as a man of letters. Madame Drouet, who had
befriended the poet when he was proscribed in 1851, placed her salon in
this house at the poet's disposal for the reception of his friends. M.
Barbou, who saw much of Hugo in this residence, thus describes the man
and his habits: 'The hand, no doubt, is too slow for the gigantic work
that the poet conceives. And yet no moment is ever lost. Generally up
with the sun, he writes until mid-day, and often until two o'clock.
Then, after a light luncheon, he goes to the Senate, where, during
intervals of debate, he despatches all his correspondence. He finds his
recreation generally by taking a walk, although not unfrequently he will
mount to the top of an omnibus just for the sake of finding himself in
the society of the people, with whom he has shown his boundless
sympathy. At eight o'clock he dines, making it his habit to invite not
only his nearest friends, but such as he thinks stand in need of
encouragement, to join him and his grandchildren at their social meal.
At table Victor Hugo relaxes entirely from his seriousness. The powerful
orator, the earnest pleader, becomes the charming and attractive host,
full of anecdote, censuring whatever is vile, but ever ready to make
merry over what is grotesque.... Hale and vigorous in his appearance,
precise and elegant in his attire, with unbowed head, and with thick,
white hair crowning his unfurrowed brow, he commands involuntary
admiration. Round his face is a close white beard, which he has worn
since the later period of his sojourn in Guernsey as a safeguard against
sore throat; but he shows no token of infirmity. His countenance may be
said to have in it something both of the lion and the eagle, yet his
voice is grave, and his manner singularly gentle.'
The same writer devotes a chapter to Hugo's love of children, _a propos_
of his _L'Art d'etre Grand-pere_. It is perfectly true that women, and
children also, stirred in the poet an element of chivalrous devotion.
He also strove to exalt woman as something far beyond the mere passion
and plaything of man; while as to children, 'he is pathetic over an
infant's cradle, he is delighted at childhood's prattle, and to him the
fair-haired head of innocence is as full of interest as the glory of a
man.' Nor was there anything derogatory to his genius in this, or in his
making Georges and Jeanne, his two grandchildren, the hero and heroine
of the work above named. When the wisdom of his indulgence was
questioned, he replied that he agreed with M. Gaucher, who held that 'a
father's duties are by no means light; he has to instruct, to correct,
to chastise; but with the grandfather it is different, he is privileged
to love and to spoil.' But he taught the oneness of humanity even to his
grandchildren; and once, when they were about to enjoy the good and
pleasant things of this life, he bade the children fetch in some
houseless orphans who were crouching under the window, in order to share
their appetizing dishes. Unconquered by his opponents, Hugo confessed
himself a captive to the children, and he defined Paradise as 'a place
where children are always little, and parents are always young.'
Towards the close of his eighth decade, the poet seemed to have almost
abandoned political life, but he had not forgotten his friends and the
electors of Paris. Innumerable letters published in the public press
proved this, as well as his presence as chairman at a number of
Democratic conventions, and the delivery of a number of public
discourses, such as those pronounced at the obsequies of M. Edgar Quinet
and Madame Louis Blanc. Preparatory to the first Senatorial elections,
M. Clemenceau, President of the Municipal Council of Paris, waited upon
the poet, and in the name of the majority of his colleagues offered him
the function of delegate. Hugo accepted, and at once issued his
manifesto, entitled 'The Delegate of Paris to the Delegates of the
36,000 Communes of France,' in which he reiterated, with redoubled
energy, his old idea of the abolition of monarchy by the federation of
the peoples. On the 30th of January, 1876, he was elected Senator of
Paris, but only after a keen struggle. He was fourth out of five, and
was not returned until after a second scrutiny, when it was found that
he had secured 114 votes out of a total of 216.
Soon after his election, Hugo introduced a proposal in the Senate for
granting an amnesty to all those condemned for the events of March,
1871, and to all those then undergoing punishment for political crimes
or offences in Paris, including the assassins of the hostages. On the
22nd of May he delivered an eloquent oration in support of his motion.
Towards the close of his address, he described the state of the
prisoners in New Caledonia. Having painted their agony, and deplored the
continuation of the prosecutions and the last transport of convicts, he
said: 'That is how the 18th of March has been atoned for. As for the 2nd
of December, it has been glorified, it has been adored and venerated, it
has become a legal crime. The priests have prayed for it, the judges
have judged by it, and the representatives of the people, at whom the
blows were dealt by this crime, not only received them, but accepted and
submitted to them, acting with all rigour against the people and all
baseness before the Emperor. It is time to put a stop to the
astonishment of the human conscience; it is time to renounce that double
shame of two weights and two measures. I ask a full amnesty for the
events of the 18th of March.' The motion was rejected, only about seven
hands being held up for the amnesty. The poet-orator again pleaded the
same cause in January, 1879, but his proposal was coldly received.
Nevertheless, in the following month an Amnesty Bill was passed by the
Chamber of Deputies.
Early in 1877 appeared the second part of the _Legende des Siecles_; and
it is pleasant to recall an interchange of courtesies which took place
in this year between Victor Hugo and our own greatly-honoured poet, Lord
Tennyson. In the month of June, 1877, there appeared in the _Nineteenth
Century_ the following sonnet, addressed to Hugo by the Poet Laureate:
'Victor in Poesy, Victor in Romance,
Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears,
French of the French, and lord of human tears;
Child-lover; Bard whose fame-lit laurels glance,
Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance,
Beyond our strait, their claim to be thy peers;
Weird Titan, by the winter-weight of years
As yet unbroken, stormy voice of France;
Who dost not love our England--so they say;
I know not--England, France, all man to be
Will make one people ere man's race be run:
And I, desiring that diviner day,
Yield thee full thanks for thy full courtesy
To younger England in the boy, my son.'
To this sonnet the French poet returned a reply which I may translate
as follows: 'My dear and eminent _confrere_, I read with emotion your
superb lines. It is a reflection of your own glory that you send me. How
shall I not love that England which produces such men as you! The
England of Wilberforce, the England of Milton and of Newton! The England
of Shakespeare! France and England are for me one people only, as Truth
and Liberty are one light only. I believe in the unity of humanity, as I
believe in the Divine unity. I love all peoples and all men. I admire
your noble verses. Receive the cordial grasp of my hand. It made me
happy to know your charming son, for it seemed to me that while clasping
his hand I was pressing yours.'
In 1877-78 appeared Hugo's _L'Histoire d'un Crime_. It possessed special
interest from its autobiographical character, and, like many of its
predecessors, it was instinct with energy and passion. By way of preface
to this history, the author remarked, 'This work is more than opportune;
it is imperative. I publish it.' Then came the following explanatory
note: 'This work was written twenty-six years ago at Brussels, during
the first months of exile. It was begun on the 14th of December, 1851,
and on the day succeeding the author's arrival in Belgium, and was
finished on the 5th of May, 1852, as though chance had willed that the
anniversary of the death of the first Bonaparte should be countersigned
by the condemnation of the third. It is also chance which, through a
combination of work, of cares, and of bereavements, has delayed the
publication of this history until this extraordinary year, 1877. In
causing the recital of events of the past to coincide with the events of
to-day, has chance had any purpose? We hope not. As we have just said,
the story of the _Coup d'Etat_ was written by a hand still hot from the
combat against the _Coup d'Etat_. The exile immediately became an
historian. He carried away this crime in his angered memory, and he was
resolved to lose nothing of it: hence this book. The manuscript of 1851
has been very little revised. It remains what it was, abounding in
details, and living, it might be said bleeding, with real facts. The
author constituted himself an interrogating judge; all his companions of
the struggle and of exile came to give evidence before him. He has
added his testimony to theirs. Now history is in possession of it; it
will judge. If God wills, the publication of this book will shortly be
terminated. The continuation and conclusion will appear on the 2nd of
December. An appropriate date.'
When the second part of the work was issued at the beginning of 1878,
France had fortunately passed through a time of great political
excitement without those fearful consequences which have frequently
followed such periods in her history. The continuation of Victor Hugo's
work did not consequently create such popular fervour as it might
otherwise have done. But the author was as scathing as ever in his
invectives, and no one knew such strong depths of bitterness and
indignation as he. The satellites of Louis Napoleon were sketched with
the pen of a Swift, and in the delineation of their master we find such
touches as this: 'Louis Napoleon laid claim to a knowledge of men, and
his claim was justified. He prided himself on it, and from one point of
view he was right. Others possess discrimination; he had a nose. 'Twas
bestial, but infallible.' As for the members of his court, 'they lived
for pleasure. They lived by the public death. They breathed an
atmosphere of shame, and throve on what kills honest people.' There are
many interesting episodes in a momentous period dealt with throughout
this work, which, like everything else by its author, is instinct with
his strong personality.