[1]Translator's note.—Spanish leader of a mule-team.
[1]Translator's note.—Spanish leader of a mule-team.
[2]Young shepherds.
[2]Young shepherds.
Segovia—M. de Tilly—The Alcazar—The doubloons—The castle of M. de la Calprenède and that of a Spanish grandee—Thebourdaloue—Otero—The Dutchmen again—The Guadarrama—Arrival at Madrid—The palace of Masserano—The comet—The College—Don Manoël and Don Bazilio—Tacitus and Plautus—Lillo—The winter of 1812 to 1813—The Empecinado—The glass ofeau sucrée—The army of merinoes—Return to Paris
Segovia—M. de Tilly—The Alcazar—The doubloons—The castle of M. de la Calprenède and that of a Spanish grandee—Thebourdaloue—Otero—The Dutchmen again—The Guadarrama—Arrival at Madrid—The palace of Masserano—The comet—The College—Don Manoël and Don Bazilio—Tacitus and Plautus—Lillo—The winter of 1812 to 1813—The Empecinado—The glass ofeau sucrée—The army of merinoes—Return to Paris
At length they reached Valladolid; then, after a few days' stay there, they proceeded from Valladolid to Segovia across steep mountains, sometimes sharp peaked, sometimes leading by gentler slopes to high summits from which they could see vast plains basking in the June sunshine.
The Count of Tilly was governor of Segovia. He belonged to the old court, was page to Louis XVI. and left Memoirs which are not wanting in a certain picturesqueness of their own—a much rarer quality at that epoch than the quality of arousing interest. He came to the door of Madame Hugo's carriage to welcome her, installed her in a palace and looked after her and her children during their stoppage at Segovia.
The event that struck the young poet most and remained most vividly in his memory during his sojourn in this town was his visit to the Alcazar—that splendid fairy palace, less famous but as beautiful as those of Granada and Seville, with its gallery containing portraits of all the Moorish kings painted in the trefoils and on backgrounds of gold. We need not explain to our readers that these pictures are later than Arabian times, the religion of the Arabs forbidding them to paint images. The Alcazar at that time was also used as the Mint. M. de Tilly took Madame Hugo and her children intothe coining-room, where he had a doubloon struck specially for each child to keep. One of the greatest of Hugo's youthful troubles was the losing of his coin in Madrid by letting it fall through the crack of a carriage door.
They waited eight days for reinforcements; for they dared not risk setting ont for Madrid without a fresh escort; when this new escort arrived, they resumed their journey to rejoin the convoy party on the Madrid road. At Segovia, Madame Hugo, as we know, had, through the intervention of Count Tilly, been lodged in the palace of a Spanish grandee. As in M. de la Calprenède's palace, everything was of silver, chandeliers, plates, basins, washing-bowls, everything, even to the chamber articles. One of the pieces of furniture that especially charmed Madame Hugo with its beauty and originality of shape was a delightful littlebourdaloue.
Here I shall be pulled up and asked why a night commode should have been associated with the name of the celebrated pupil of the Jesuits and why a chamber utensil should have been named after a preacher. I will explain, after I have done with Madame Hugo's fascination for this little article of furniture and the consequences that ensued.
Well, Madame Hugo was so delighted with the form of the charmingbourdalouethat she asked the master of the house in which she was staying if she might buy it of him. But, like a true Spaniard, the old Castillian was an implacable enemy to our nation, so he replied that Madame Hugo could have the coveted object if she wished, but that he never sold anything to the French. As, in this case, to take it was equivalent to stealing it, Madame Hugo refrained, supposing thebourdaloueto form part of a collection which it would be a pity to spoil. Now let us explain why those little elongated vessels are calledbourdaloues.The famous preacher gave such interminably long sermons that ladies were compelled to take certain precautions against their length which we think we need not explain more fully. More happy than Christopher Columbus, who gave his name to a new continent, the pillar of Christian eloquence gave his name to a new article of furniture,made especially because of his doings—an article which from its long and narrow shape was easily carried about.
Now that we think we have cleared up this historical question to the satisfaction of our readers, we will rejoin the convoy on its journey to Madrid. It had reached within a league of Otero, where they were to pass the night and whose towers they could already discern, when, because one of the spokes of a back wheel of Madame Hugo's gigantic coach snapped in two, they had to make an enforced halt on the high-road, which was paved with enormous pieces of rock. Faithful to his courteous habits, the Duc de Cotadilla had ordered a general halt, causing an outburst of objections. A general halt at seven in the evening! a halt which might last a couple of hours and allow the convoy to be overtaken by nightfall! The duke could hardly have done more even if the accident had happened to one of the waggons containing the treasure, and he was exceeding his duties altogether when it was only for the wife of a French general, a lady who had been a member of the Spanish aristocracy for barely three years! So there was a great clamour throughout the convoy. There had been precedents in similar cases, and the unfortunate carriage had been left behind bag and baggage to the mercy of Providence! The Duc de Cotadilla wished to keep his word, but he had to give way before the chorus of complaints. The convoy meant to continue its way to Otero; but help on which she had not counted was to be given to Madame Hugo and her poor abandoned coach. The forty Dutch grenadiers asked to be allowed the favour of remaining by her coach as escort until the wheel could be mended and it was possible to continue the journey. This favour was granted them. The convoy moved off and gradually, like a receding tide, left the coach stranded on the highway. But never did shipwrecked people alone on a desert island set themselves to work with greater energy to construct a raft than did the forty Dutch grenadiers to the mending of the wheel. It was completed in an hour or so. When they set off again, the rear of the convoy had long been lost to sight and darkness had begun tofall. However, in spite of all these adverse circumstances, the coach, with Madame Hugo, her three children, the servant, the chambermaid, the forty Dutch grenadiers, entered Otero by ten that night, without having had to pay toll to the guerilleros—a most unusual stroke of good luck. During the night, owing to the efforts of a local wheelwright, whom they compelled by force to undertake the job, with two army blacksmiths superintending his labours, the coach was mended; and next day it was ready to take its place at the head of the file of carriages.
They reached the chain of the Guadarrama Mountains and began to climb them; ascending the highest summit, they made a halt at the foot of the gigantic lion which turns its back on Old Castile, and, with one paw on the scutcheon of the Spains, looks to New Castile; then they descended towards the campagna round Madrid. The campagna of Rome is bare and gloomy, but flecked with glorious sunshine, and looks alive, if one may so put it, in spite of its loneliness. The campagna of Madrid is bare, arid and grey, and like a cemetery. And the Escurial rises up at the end of the plain like a tomb. This, indeed, was the impression it left on me, and also the impression it left on Hugo, who visited it thirty-five years before I did.
"L'Espagne m'accueillit livrée à la conquête;Je franchis le Burgare où mugit la tempête;De loin y pour un tombeau, je pris l'Escurial,Et le triple aqueduc vit s'incliner ma têteDevant son front impérial.Là, je voyais les feux des haltes militairesNoircir les murs croulants des villes solitaires;La tente de l'église envahissait le seuil;Les rires des soldats, dans les saints monastères,Par l'écho répétés, semblaient des cris de deuil!"
The convoy wound over the plain from the Escurial to Madrid like a long snake; they only slept once on the road, at Galapagar. Next day, by six in the evening, they had reached Madrid. They had scarcely entered its streets beforeeverybody disbanded, overjoyed at being no longer under the restraint of military discipline. Madame Hugo bade farewell to the Duc de Cotadilla, of Colonel Montfort and her forty Dutchmen; then Colonel du Saillant took her to the palace of the princes of Masserano, which was prepared for her reception. The general was at his governorship in Guadalajara: we shall see later what he was doing there.
The palace of Masserano was in theCalle de la Reyna.It was a vast building of the seventeenth century, in all the splendour and severity of that period; it had no garden but a multitude of little square courtyards paved with marble, each with a fountain in the centre. These courtyards could only be entered through a kind of postern gateway; the sun never reached down into them, for the walls enclosing them were some forty to fifty feet high; and they were only just large enough for a wolf to walk round the fountain; in fact, they were simply store-places of shade and coolness. So far as Victor's memory carried him, the interior of the palace was of incredible magnificence; especially the dining-room, which had large glass windows on each of its four sides, the light through which showed up in all their glory splendid paintings by Fra Bartolommeo, Velasquez, Murillo, Sébastian del Piombo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michael Angelo. This dining-room led into a large salon, upholstered in red damask, which led into another salon upholstered in blue damask, which in its turn led to what was called the princess's room, an immense chamber, upholstered and furnished in blue figured silk and silver. On the other side of the dining-room, through an anteroom, ornamented solely with oak chests which were meant to serve as seats for attendants, you entered a large gallery which contained a collection of full-length portraits of the Counts of Masserano, in court dress, also of princes of the same name; the principality, by the way, only dated back as far as the middle of the seventeenth century. It was in these great galleries that the children played hide-and-seek with the sons of General Lucotte, in rooms a hundred and fifty feet long, and among Chinese vases and porcelain ornamentssix feet in height! Their evenings were spent on a large balcony, from whence they could see the comet, in which they could distinguish the Virgin giving her hand to Ferdinand VII.,—so said the Spanish priests.
One morning an escort of Westphalian cavalry arrived, accompanying a messenger bearing a letter from General Hugo. The general was unable to come to Madrid, being busily engaged in warfare on the banks of the Tagus. The main purpose of the letter was to recommend the best college for the education of the three children. They were to be placed in the Séminaire des Nobles, where they would be prepared as pages of the king. It was not usual to take boys under thirteen, but, although Abel was only twelve, Eugène but ten and Victor only eight, an exception was made in their favour and a license from the king provided for their immediate admission. They had to leave the splendid Masserano palace, with its beautiful paintings by old masters, its splendid tapestries, its interminable galleries decorated with Chinese vases and the walls whereon three generations of counts and princes seemed to come to life again in their state costumes or in their trappings of war, for the gloomy seminary in theCalle San-Isidro.The Séminaire des Nobles was, indeed, a formidable and severe-looking edifice, with its great treeless courts, and one might almost go so far as to say its vast schoolrooms without scholars. There were twenty-five pupils, not including the three new-comers in this seminary, which had contained three hundred before the French invasion. This was, approximately, the proportion of the aristocracy of Spain that had rallied round Joseph Bonaparte. And besides the twenty-five scholars there was, as we have said, the three sons of General Hugo and a Spanish prisoner. The seminary looked indeed a gloomy place to the poor children when they entered it. Imagine those schoolrooms and dormitories and lavatories and refectories intended to meet the needs of three hundred pupils, now containing but twenty-five unhappy scholars, who looked lost therein. Virgil's phrase,rari nantes, seemed entirely to meet the case. The establishment waskept by two Jesuits who controlled the college with apparently equal strictness; these two Jesuits each represented opposite types of their order: one was named Don Manoël and the other Don Bazilio. Don Bazilio was tall and nearly fifty-five years of age; his forehead was bare and bald, and his nose was like a vulture's beak; his mouth was large and firm, and his chin protruded. He was hard and severe in character and never forgave. But, at the same time, he was just, and never punished unless punishment was deserved. The other, Don Manoël, was plump and very broad. His figure was thick-set; he had a smiling, almost a gay, face; and his manner towards new-comers was gentle and gracious and caressing; judging from his appearance, he was always ready to excuse, or at any rate to make allowance for faults; he was extremely false, very deceitful and utterly mischievous; he directed the college alone, in spite of the pretended collaboration of Don Bazilio, doubtless by order of his superiors. When the first edge of his appearance of sympathy had worn off, Don Manoël became unbearable. Lads began by detesting Don Bazilio; but, as he was just, in spite of his severity, this hatred gradually passed away; whilst, on the other hand, people began by liking Don Manoël, and ended by detesting him. But when the latter feeling was aroused it went on increasingcrescendo.
The studies which these two Jesuits set their pupils were ridiculous. They were so feeble that, in a college composed of young people of eighteen to twenty years of age, a special class had to be started for the new arrivals of whom the oldest was but twelve. They actually judged of the children's capacities by their size when they began to examine them, and gave Abel a Quintus Curtius, and EugèneDe Viris, and little Victor anEpitome.But at sight of this book, with which he had finished a long time before, the child rebelled and boldly asked for Tacitus. The fathers looked at one another in stupefaction and, refraining from punishing the audacious boy who had delivered himself of this ill-timed jest, they brought him the book. Victor opened it and immediately translatedthe paragraph about Cocceius Nerva on which he had alighted at haphazard. The two other brothers took up Tacitus in their turn, and gave an equal, if a not superior, proof of skill. They brought them Perseus and Juvenal; the children were familiar with both these satirists, and could not merely interpret them, but even offered to recite whole satires by heart. Thus the children fresh from France made light of these three authors, who were looked upon at the Séminaire des Nobles as beyond the reach of rhetoricians of twenty! The two Jesuits put their heads together, decided that they must make a special class for the three new-comers and settled that they would expound Plautus to them. Don Manoël it was, a true Jesuit, who chose an author full of ellipses, bristling with idioms, crammed with Roman patois, like that which Molière puts into the mouths of his peasant-folk, and for ever alluding to customs that had disappeared even in Cicero's time. But Don Manoël's end was accomplished: the children's brains grew dull over Plautus; and this was exactly what he wished, to break their pride. The twenty-two other pupils were Spaniards, sons of Spanish grandees who had thrown in their lot with Joseph. Among them were two sons of high birth to whom Victor dedicated different Souvenirs in his works: one, the Count of Belverana, whom he put in hisLucrèce Borgia, and Raymond de Benavente, to whom he addressed, in 1823, the Ode that begins with this stanza:—
"Hélas! j'ai compris ton sourire,Semblable au ris du condamnéQuand le mot qui doit le proscrireA son oreille a résonné!En pressant ta main convulsive,J'ai compris ta douleur pensive,Et ton regard morne et profond,Qui, pareil à l'éclair des nues,Brille sur des mers inconnues,Mais ne peut en montrer le fond."
The young poet noticed one custom peculiar to Spanish manners, namely, these children, whose ages varied fromthirteen and every year up to twenty, all used the familiar form of address among themselves, as became sons of Spanish grandees, and never addressed one another by their baptismal or family names, but only by their titles of prince, duke, marquis, count or baron. They called Victor "Baron," which filled him with pride.
Among these young folk—and to be exact in our figures we ought to reduce the number of these juvenile nobilities to twenty-one—was one who was neither knight, baron, count, marquis, duke nor prince, and who nevertheless was not the least remarkable inmate of the college. This was a young Spanish officer named Lillo, aged fifteen, who had been taken prisoner at the siege of Badajoz. He had fought like a demon, had killed a French grenadier with his own hand and had been taken only after a heroic defence. They were about to shoot him when Marshal Soult happened to pass by, and, having inquired and been informed what was being done, had him despatched to Madrid, with orders that he should be placed in the college. The order was carried out, and Lillo was sent to the college, but in the twofold capacity of pupil and prisoner. The lad, who had borne the rank of second lieutenant, had commanded grown men, had faced battle in open field, equipped as a soldier, took badly to the college discipline full of Jesuitical chicaneries, to which he had to submit like all the others, save in the matter of the common dormitory, where, however, each pupil had his own cubicle. He therefore, as far as he was permitted, kept to himself in solitude, rage burning at his heart's core, and in his relations with the other young lads he was cold, melancholy and haughty. Of course, the three French boys were the object of his particular aversion, and he was constantly picking quarrels with one and sometimes with all three of the sons of the general attached to Joseph, he a soldier of Ferdinand VII. Once he called NapoleonNapoladronbefore Eugène—true, nearly every Spaniard called the conqueror of Austerlitz by that nickname, but Eugène was none the less sensitive? to the insult on that account, and he retorted that Lillo had beentaken prisoner between the legs of a French grenadier. Lillo had a pair of compasses in his hand; he did not wait for any other weapon, but threw himself on Eugène and stabbed him brutally with it on the cheek. The wound, or rather the tear, was an inch and a half in length. Eugène wished to fight a duel, and Lillo was willing enough; but the professors intervened and separated the youth and the lad. Lillo disappeared the next day; and neither Victor nor his brother ever heard what became of him. I can still hear Victor's grave voice when he told me the anecdote, saying—
"And the young fellow was right: he was standing up for his country ... but children do not understand that."
The living at the Séminaire des Nobles was cloistral; probably no monastery throughout Spain kept severer rules. Once a fortnight they went for a walk, but even this was restricted, and they might not even go to the Délices (corresponding to our Champs-Élysées), for fear of guerilla bands. These twenty or twenty-five lads would have been a great prize, and worth a good ransom, belonging, as they did, not only to the first families in Madrid, but also to the families which had thrown in their lot with the brother ofNapoladron, as Lillo had called him.
From time to time, the boys would look up at the sound of an opening door and they would see a vision out of the seventeenth century appear in the beginning of the nineteenth. One day, when in the refectory, eating their meal in silence, while a junior master, seated on a raised chair in the midst of an immense hall, was reading to them in Spanish out of a pious book, suddenly, the door opened, after a couple of knocks, as though a prince, cardinal or Spanish grandee were outside. The four little Benavente boys had not seen their mother for over a year, and it was the Princess of Benavente. She advanced a few steps into the room and waited. Then her four sons rose, ranged themselves according to their age, eldest first, second next, and so on, and, without taking one step faster than another, advanced ceremoniously and kissed their mother's hand in turn from the tallest to thesmallest. The three young French lads were greatly astonished at the proceeding and at a loss to understand such etiquette as this, for they were accustomed to rush to their mother and fling themselves on her neck, when they caught sight of her.
At the end of six months' sojourn at the Séminaire des Nobles, Abel attained his twelfth year and was allowed by special privilege to enter as a page at that age.
Then came the winter and famine. It was cold everywhere during the fatal winter of 1812-1813, although it was nothing compared with the severity experienced in Russia.
It was the fate of Napoleon to attract and concentrate the attention of the world upon him during his reverses as during his victories.
The twenty-five pupils buried in that vast Séminaire des Nobles, in the dormitories, schoolrooms and refectories intended for three hundred inmates, were perished with cold. Nothing could warm those great rooms wherein there was not a single fireplace; braziers placed in the middle of the rooms only served to emphasise winter's triumph. Besides this, the children were not only perishing of cold, but, worse still, were dying of starvation. The wealthiest in Madrid could not get bread in 1812. And King Joseph himself—probably to set a good example—ordered that nothing but soldiers' bread should be served at his table. People were constantly found in the streets who had not even as much warmth as the braziers at the Séminaire des Nobles, or King Joseph's army bread, lying down on the thresholds of the great in tattered cloaks and dying of hunger and cold. If they were still alive, every effort was made to feed and warm them; if they were dead, they were removed and buried. Bread was as scarce at the Séminaire des Nobles as elsewhere, and the lads complained bitterly of hunger; to the less patient, father Manoël would say—
"Make the sign of the Cross on your stomachs, and that will feed you."
The boys made many crosses, and, although the action warmed them a little, it certainly did not nourish them. Butthey suspected Don Manoël, who kept fat amongst all the sad and emaciated faces, to have an illicit intimacy with the kitchen, which he hid even from Don Bazilio.
All this while, General Hugo was waging war along the banks of the Tagus against the famous Juan Martin, nicknamed theEmpecinado, as he had against Charette in the Vendée and against Fra Diavolo in Calabria. He has himself given a modest and learned account of the strategic movements of that fine campaign, which concluded with the capture and execution of the captain of the guerilla hordes which he combatted. We will select a few only of the picturesque accounts of dangers incurred—those fragments which History drops from her robe and which chroniclers carefully collect for their Memoirs.
One day, General Hugo and a hundred men came to a village situated on one of the many little streams that run into the Tagus. In order to avoid rousing needless alarm, he entered the village with only his two aides-de-camp, to obtain from the inhabitants some information of which he stood in need. He came from his camp, which included some five to six thousand men, who were a league lower down the river. To obtain the desired information, he applied to the proprietor of a large sugar-refining factory, who, seeing him accompanied by only two aides-de-camp, said never a word. General Hugo was thirsty. Unable to get his information, he thought he might at any rate get some refreshment and asked for a glass of water.
"Water?" said the proprietor of the sugar refinery. "There is plenty in the river."
And he shut the door in the general's face. The general waited a moment to see if the door would be reopened. Instead of the door, it was a window that was opened, the muzzle of a gun slyly protruded, fired, and a bullet whizzed past. At the sound of the gunshot, the detachment which had remained outside the town rushed in; and when the soldiers learnt what had just happened they wanted to demolish the sugar factory and burn the village. General Hugostopped them and said to his orderly, "Go back to the camp, and invite the whole of the six thousand men who form it, in my name, to come and drink someeau sucrée; it will be a treat for them—it is a long time since the poor devils tasted any!" It was one of the special virtues of the Imperial epoch to be quick to understand when one wished to understand: the aide-de-camp understood and set off at a gallop. The soldiers also understood. They burst open the doors of the sugar factory, threw two or three thousand sugar-loaves into the river; and for the rest of that day General Hugo's six thousand men had as mucheau sucréeto drink as they wanted! This was the only revenge he took on the refusal of a glass of water and the gun fired at him. The deed has remained in the annals of the army of Spain as one of the most toothsome jokes a general ever cracked with his men.
On another occasion, also when they were marching by the banks of the Tagus, in the place where I myself—I will tell the story in due course—sojourned thirty years later, one wretched night, on the great plains of Old Castile, between Toledo and Aranjuez, and it was just such a burning sun as made Sancho bitterly regret he had not an excellent curd cheese at hand, suddenly, the scouts fell back at full gallop on the advance-guard to warn General Hugo that what appeared to be an army corps of the enemy, of considerable number, was marching to encounter the French army. And, indeed, so great a cloud of dust was to be seen on the horizon as only a great body of men or the simoom could produce. This dust shone like those clouds of crimson and gold which appear in the atmosphere during the hottest of the dog-days. General Hugo gave orders for a halt. He then rode on in advance with a hundred men to examine the enemy's position himself, and if possible to divine its intentions. There was no doubt about it—it was an immense troop to judge by the space it occupied and the dust it raised, and it was marching towards him with one of its wings on the right bank of the Tagus. The infantry instantly received orders to prepare for battle, the artillery to plant their batterieson a small hillock, and the cavalry to take up a position on the right wing. Then they despatched a few men on horseback in front under the command of an orderly officer. But both officer and men returned at a gallop a few moments later. General Hugo thought his men must have beendriven back, and as not a single shot had been fired he was just preparing to give the fugitives a good wigging when on nearer approach he detected unequivocal signs of hilarity on the countenances of both officer and men.
"Well, what is it?" asked the general. "Who is our enemy?"
"General," replied the aide-de-camp, "our enemy is a flock of three hundred thousand merino sheep being driven by two hundred dogs, conducted by a dozen shepherds, and belonging to M.Quatrecentberger."
"What tomfoolery is this, monsieur?" said the general, frowning.
"I am not joking, general," said the officer, "and in ten minutes you will see that I have had the honour to tell you the precise truth."
A flock of 300,000 sheep! It made the mouths of the soldiers water! What a suitable aftermath to the barrels ofeau sucréewhich the general had provided for them!
The army corps consisted of 4000 men; each soldier could have at least a sheep to himself, and each began considering what kind of sauce he would serve to his own dish.
At the announcement of this strange news, M. Hugo advanced to the front. And there he saw through the dust first a dozen men on horseback, armed with long sticks studded with nails, like lances; behind these came the impenetrable front of 300,000 sheep; and upon the heels of these 300,000 sheep two hundred barking, biting dogs darting hither and thither. It looked like the migration of a great Arab tribe, in the time of Abraham. The story was quite correct, except the name of the owner, which the officer had taken the liberty of mispronouncing slightly to suit the occasion. The proprietor's name was notQuatrecentberger(four hundred shepherds), butKatzenberger.It will be seen that the difference in pronunciationwas so slight that the officer may be forgiven his appropriate pun. M. Katzenberger was a wealthy Alsatian speculator who had risked almost the whole of his fortune in a speculation in merino sheep. A great melancholy spread throughout the troops when it became known that the flock belonged to a compatriot. It was utterly unlikely that M. Hugo would allow M. Katzenberger's flock to be impounded, whether of 300,000 or even of 400,000 beasts. And, as a matter of fact, the chief shepherd, who had trembled for a moment at the prospective ruin of his master, received from General Hugo a promise that not only should every single hair of his merinoes go scot free, but that he should have a passport requesting all the French army corps to treat M. Katzenberger's shepherds, dogs and sheep with the utmost respect.
It was an odd incident! The flock reached France without any serious accident, and by this almost unexpected good fortune M. Katzenberger doubled, trebled and quadrupled his fortune. His first action was to offer General Hugo a sum of money proportionate to the service he had rendered him. General Hugo's first and final decision was to decline the offered sum. I believe it was 300,000 francs—a franc per sheep.
And here let us state that General Hugo, who held a high position for four years during the wars in Spain, who was given the charge of conducting the retreat from Madrid to Bayonne, a position which always allowed a general great facilities for enriching himself, died without any picture gallery, or a single Murillo or Velasquez or Zurbaran, possessing no other fortune but his retiring pension. It seems incredible, does it not? And yet so it was. But, the directors of the Musée will ask me, or those millionaire collectors who bought pictures for 600,000, 200,000, 50,000 and even 25,000 francs, at the sale after the decease of the late Marshal Soult, what benefit did he derive from his disinterested conduct towards M. Katzenberger? He was the gainer by an annual dinner which M. Katzenberger came from Strasbourg on purpose to give him and all the members of his family in Paris, on theanniversary of the great event that made his fortune. And this dinner was on a splendid scale: it must have cost the grateful Strasbourgian at least fifty louis.
During the winter of 1812 and the early months of 1813, in consequence of our misfortunes in Russia, matters began to assume such a threatening aspect in Spain that General Hugo felt it was dangerous to keep his wife and children at Madrid. Therefore Madame Hugo and her two youngest sons were put under the protection of quite as strong an escort as the one we have described, and they made the return journey from Madrid to Bayonne on their way to Paris, as successfully as they had travelled between Bayonne and Madrid. Madame Hugo had thought it best to keep the convent of the Feuillantines, so the two children returned to their old nest with its light and shade, its recollections of work and of play, and, furthermore, the abbé Larivière and hisTacitus. Abel Hugo, a soldier boy of thirteen, remained with his father.
The college and the garden of the Feuillantines—Grenadier or general—Victor Hugo's first appearance in public—He obtains honourable mention at the Academy examination—He carries off three prizes in the Jeux Floraux—Han d'Islande—The poet and the bodyguard—Hugo's marriage—TheOdes et Ballades—Proposition made by cousin Cornet
The college and the garden of the Feuillantines—Grenadier or general—Victor Hugo's first appearance in public—He obtains honourable mention at the Academy examination—He carries off three prizes in the Jeux Floraux—Han d'Islande—The poet and the bodyguard—Hugo's marriage—TheOdes et Ballades—Proposition made by cousin Cornet
That wretched year 1813 was a strange period of introspection.Un jour... But we will let the poet himself describe matters, in the verses below:—
"J'eus, dans ma blonde enfance, hélas, trop éphémère,Trois maîtres: un jardin, un vieux prêtre et ma mère.Le jardin était grand, profond, mystérieux,Fermé par de hauts murs aux regards curieux,Semé de fleurs s'ouvrant ainsi que des paupières,Et d'insectes vermeils qui couraient sur les pierres;Plein de bourdonnements et de confuses voix;Au milieu presqu'un champ, dans le fond presqu'un bois.Le prêtre, tout nourri de Tacite et d'Homère,Était un doux vieillard; ma mère était ma mère.Ainsi, je grandissait sous un triple rayon!Un jour... Oh! si Gauthier me prêtait son crayon,Je vous dessinerais d'un trait une figureQui, chez ma mère, un soir entra, fâcheux augure!Un docteur au front pauvre, au maintien solennel;Et je verrais éclore a vos bouches sans fiel,Portes de votre cœur qu'aucun souci ne mine,Ce rire éblouissant qui parfois m'illumine.Lorsque cet homme entra je jouais au jardin,Et rien qu'en le voyant je m'arrêtai soudain.C'était le principal d'un collège quelconque;Les tritons que Coypel groupe autour d'une conque,Les faunes que Watteau dans les bois fourvoya,Les sorciers de Rembrandt, les gnomes de Goya,Les diables variés, vrais cauchemars de moine,Dont Callot, en riant, taquine saint Antoine,Sont laids mais sont charmant; difformes, mais remplisD'un feu qui, de leur face, anime tous les plis,Et parfois, dans leurs yeux, jette un eclair rapide!Notre homme était fort laid, mais il était stupide!Pardon, j'en parle encor comme un franc écolier;C'est mal; ce que j'ai dit, tachez de l'oublier.Car de votre âge heureux, qu'un pedant embarrasse,J'ai gardait la colère et j'ai perdu la grâce.Cet homme chauve et noir, très effrayant pour moi,Et dont ma mère aussi d'abord eut quelque effroi,Tout en multipliant les humbles attitudes,Apportait des avis et des sollicitudes:Que l'enfant n'était pas dirigé; que, parfois,Il emportait son livre en rêvant dans les bois;Qu'il croissait au hasard dans cette solitude;Qu'on devait y songer, que la sévère étudeÉtait fille de l'ombre et des cloîtres profonds;Qu'une lampe pendue à de sombres plafonds,Qui de cent écoliers guide la plume agile,Éclairait mieux Horace et Catulle et Virgile,Et versait à l'esprit des rayons bien meilleursQue le soleil qui joue à travers l'arbre en fleurs;Et qu'enfin, il fallait aux enfants, loin des mères,Le joug, le dur travail, et les larmes amères.Là dessus le collège, aimable et triomphant,Avec un doux sourire, offrait au jeune enfant,Ivre de liberté, d'air, de joie et de roses,Ses bancs de chêne noir, ses longs dortoirs moroses,Les salles qu'on verrouille et qu'à tous leurs pilliersSculpte avec un vieux clou l'ennui des écoliers;Les magisters qui font, parmi les paperasses,Manger l'heure du jeu par les pensums voraces,Et, sans eau, sans gazon, sans arbres, sans fruits mûrs,Sa grande cour pavée, entre quatre grands murs!"
Here I would fain break off the quotation and continue in prose; but, to tell the truth, I have not the courage to do so. Oh! what fine lines yours are, my friend, and what a joy it is to me, not simply to cause them to be read—all the worldhas read them—but to cause them to be re-read by the hundred thousand readers whose eyes will travel over this chapter and who will sigh, with looks turned towards England—
"Soupir qui va vers toi sur la brise du soir,Fait d'un quart de tristesse et de trois quarts d'espoir."
Let us pick up the thread of Hugo's lines, into the middle of which I had the temerity to venture to put a couple of my own:—
"L'homme congédié, de ses discours frappée,Ma mère demeura triste et préoccupée.—Que faire? que vouloir? qui donc avait raison,Ou le morne collège ou l'heureuse maison?Qui sait mieux de la vie accomplir l'œuvre austère,L'écolier turbulant ou l'enfant solitaire?—Problèmes! questions! Elle hésitait beaucoup.L'affaire était bien grave. Humble femme après tout,Ame par le destin non pas les livres faite,De quel front repousser ce tragique prophèteAu ton si magistral, aux gestes si certains,Qui lui parlait au noms des Grecs et des Latins?Le prêtre était savant, sans doute; mais, que sais-je,Apprend-on par le maître ou bien par le collège?Et puis enfin,—souvent ainsi nous triomphons,—L'homme le plus vulgaire a de grands mots profonds;II est indispensable! il convient! il importe!Qui trouble quelquefois la femme la plus forte ...Pauvre mère, lequel choisir des deux chemins?Tout le sort de son fils se pesait dans ses mains.Tremblante, elle tenait cette lourde balance,Et croyait bien la voir, par moment, en silence,Pencher vers le collège, hélas! en opposantMon bonheur à venir à mon bonheur présent.Elle songeait ainsi, sans sommeil et sans trêve;C'était l'été vers l'heure ou la lune se lève,Par un de ces beaux soirs qui ressemblent au jour,Avec moins de clarté, mais avec plus d'amour.Dans son parc, où jouaient le rayon et la brise,Elle errait toujours triste et toujours indécise,Questionnant tout has l'eau, le ciel, la forêt,Écoutant au hasard les voix qu'elle entendrait.C'est dans ces moments là que le jardin paisible,La broussaille où remue un insecte invisible,Le scarabée, ami des feuilles, le lézardCourant au clair de lune au fond du vieux puisard,La faïence à fleur bleue où vit la plante grasse,Le dôme oriental du sombre Val-de-Grâce,Le cloître du couvent, brisé mais doux encore,Les marroniers, la verte allée aux boutons d'or,La statue où sans bruit se meut l'ombre des branches,Les pâles liserons, les pâquerettes blanches,Les cent fleurs du buisson, de l'arbre, du roseau,Qui rendent en parfums les chansons à l'oiseau,Se mirent dans la mare ou se cache sous l'herbe,Ou qui, de l'ébénier chargeant le front superbe,Au bord des clairs étangs, se mêlant au bouleau,Tremblent en grappes d'or dans les moires de l'eau,Et le ciel scintillant derrière les ramées,Et les toits répandant de charmantes fumées;C'est dans ces moments-là, comme je vous le dis,Que tout ce beau jardin, radieux paradis,Tous ces vieux murs croulants, toutes ces jeunes roses,Tous ces objets pensifs, toutes ces douces chosesParlèrent à ma mère avec l'onde et le vent,Et lui dirent tout has: 'Laisse-nous cet enfant!'Laisse-nous cet enfant, pauvre mère troublée;Cette prunelle ardente, ingénue, étoilée,Cette tête au front pur qu'aucun deuil ne voilà,Cette âme neuve encor, mère, laisse-nous la,Ne va pas la jetter au hasard dans la foule:La foule est un torrent qui brise ce qu'il roule.Ainsi que les oiseaux, les enfants ont leurs peurs.Laisse à notre air limpide, à nos moites vapeurs,A nos soupirs légers comme l'aile d'un songe,Cette bouche où jamais n'a passé le mensonge,Ce sourire naïf que sa candeur défend.O mère au cœur profond, laisse-nous cet enfant!Nous ne lui donnerons que de bonnes pensées;Nous changerons en jours les lunes commencées;Dieu deviendra visible à see yeux enchantés;Car nous sommes les fleurs, les rameaux, les clartés;Nous sommes la nature, et la source éternelleOù toute soif s'étanche, où se lave toute aile;Et les bois et les champs, du sage seul compris,Font l'éducation de tous les grands esprits;Laisse croître l'enfant parmi nos bruits sublimes,Nous le pénétrerons de ces parfums intimesNés du souffle céleste épars dans tout beau lieu,Qui font sortir de l'homme et monter jusqu'à Dieu,Comme le chant d'un luth, comme l'encens d'un vase,L'espérance, l'amour, la prière et l'extase!Nous pencherons ses yeux vers l'ombre d'ici bas,Vers le secret de tout entr'ouvert sous ses pas.D'enfant nous ferons homme, et d'homme poëte;Pour former de ses sens la corolle inquiète,C'est nous qu'il faut choisir, et nous lui montreronsComment, de l'aube au soir, du chêne aux moucherons;Emplissant tout, reflets, couleurs, brumes, haleines,La vie aux mille aspects rit dans les vertes plaines;Nous te le rendrons simple et des cieux ébloui,Et nous ferons germer de toute part en lui,Pour l'homme, triste d'effet, perdu sous tant de causesCette pitié qui naît du spectacle des choses.Laisse-nous cet enfant, nous lui ferons un cœurQui comprendra la femme; un esprit non moqueur,Où naîtront aisément le songe et la chimère;Qui prendra Dieu pour livre et les champs pour grammaire;Une âme pour foyer de secrètes faveurs,Qui luira doucement sur tous les fronts rêveurs,Et, comme le soleil dans les fleurs fécondées,Jettera des rayons sur toutes les idées.'Ainsi parlaient, à l'heure où la ville se tait,L'astre, la plante et l'arbre,—et ma mère écoutait.Enfant! ont-ils tenu leur promesse sacrée?Je ne sais, mais je sais que ma mère adoréeLes crut, et m'épargnant d'ennuyeuses prisons,Confia ma jeune âme à leur douces leçons!"
We see from what the poet tells us himself, what a struggle his mother had to keep up (having for ally the beautiful garden of the Feuillantines) against a master of the college, sent by M. de Fontanes, who was uneasy, after the fashion of Napoleon, that a child should grow up wild in the depths of an old cloister, thus escaping the university training which, in all ages and in every reign, has had for its object the breaking in of high-stepping colts. Thus, at fifteen, the old convent of the Feuillantines had fulfilled its promises, and made the child a poet. We shall see more of this presently, but for the moment let us go back to General Hugo, who, at the verytime when the mother and son conflict was proceeding was assisting at the retreat from Spain, after the two great battles of Salamanca and Vittoria, the Leipzig and Waterloo of the South. He had with him, as aide-de-camp, his son Abel, who, when only fourteen, had already been present at and taken part in three pitched battles and seventeen skirmishes. He had no need to envy his old schoolfellow Lillo, of the Séminaire des Nobles, who was an officer at fifteen years of age.
When the remnant of the army of Spain returned to France they found a Frenchcorps d'observationawaiting them with Imperial orders to incorporate the Spanish army with the French army. But those four years of service in Spain, that arduous campaign during which they had had to struggle not only against two armies, but also against the entire population; those dreadful sieges rivalled only in ancient warfare, when women and children defended every corner of the ramparts, every home and every stone, with musket and poignard in hand; those sierras, recalling the wars of the Titans, when fires were lit on every high peak; those jagged mountains taken by charges of cavalry; those rock fortresses defended and carried one after another; those scores of passes each like another Thermopylæ; that butchery in which torture and death awaited anyone taken prisoner, all went for nothing, was forgotten, had ceased to exist, had never existed directly Spain was evacuated. It might have been asked of Napoleon why he evacuated Russia. But it had taken a very god to bend the invincible one beneath him; like Thor, son of Odin, he had struggled with Death itself; he had not been vanquished like Xerxes, he had been crushed like Cambyses. The distinction is subtle, but one no more dreamt of disputing with the conqueror of Austerlitz than with the hero vanquished at Beresina. So the services of the French in Spain were regarded as of naught, and—except the 200,000 men left upon the battlefields of Talavera, Saragossa, Bayleu, Salamanca and Vittoria—all was as though nothing had occurred.
Consequently, General Hugo found this order addressed to himself at Bayonne:—
"MajorHugo will at once put himself under the command of General Belliard."
On the following day, General Hugo presented himself at the house of General Belliard in the uniform of an ordinary grenadier with woollen epaulettes. Belliard did not recognise him. General Hugo gave his name.
"What does this private soldier's uniform mean?" Belliard inquired.
"Grenadier or general," was Hugo's response.
And Belliard flung his arms round him. That very day he sent back the order to the emperor. It was returned with this correction in the margin in Napoleon's handwriting:—
"GeneralHugo will immediately take up the command at Thionville."
History has related the details of that siege in which General Hugo defended the citadel and governed the town. The citadel of Thionville was one of the latest to float the tricoloured flag. But it had to yield, though to the Bourbons, not to the enemy. General Hugo could not stop in Paris: there were too many heart-breaking scenes for the old soldier in the capital, where women strewed flowers in front of the Cossacks, where the people shouted "Vivent les allies!" and where the statue of the emperor was dragged through the gutters.
He bought the château of Saint-Lazare at Blois and retired there. Means did not allow of the beautiful convent of the Feuillantines being kept any longer. Madame Hugo remained at Paris in modest apartments, to look after her children, Eugène and Victor being placed in the abbé Cordier's boarding school, rue Sainte-Marguerite No. 41. Abel, an officer exempt from these things, was left free. Eugène and Victor were destined for the École polytechnique.
We have already pointed out that the convent of the Feuillantines had kept its word and turned Victor into a poet. Now let us hear about the boy's first attempts.
How grateful would I have been to-day to any contemporaryof Dante, Shakespeare or Corneille who would give me similar details of their lives, that twenty years of friendship with Victor Hugo enables me to give here!
It was just at the height of the Restoration. The Académie had announced as the subject for its annual prize, to be awarded on 25 August, Saint Louis's Day, "The happiness that study brings in all situations of life."
Victor went in for the competition without saying a word to anyone about it. He put his name down, according to the rules of the competition, in a sealed paper together with his piece of verse; but, after his name, he added his age, fourteen and a half. Besides giving his age thus, there were these lines in the course of the poem:—
"Moi qui, toujours fuyant les cités et les cours,De trois lustres à peine ai vu finir le cours."
Think of this future philosopher, who, at fourteen, hadfled from cities and courts!What delicious childish naïveté! But, strange to relate, it was this admission of fourteen years of age that condemned the poet, and prevented him from winning the prize. M. Raynouard, therapporteur, declared that the competitor, by allowing himselftrois lustres à peine—this was the method of counting in 1817 and is still used by the Académie—had intended to make game of the Académie. And, as though it were not a customary thing for the Académie to be made fun of, the prize was divided between Saintine and Lebrun. However, they read the whole piece composed by the impudent person who made fun of the Académie by speaking of his fourteen years and a half. The assembly, which enjoyed the Académie being thus made game of, highly applauded the lines of the young poet, who at the very moment he was being praised at the Académie was playing prisoners'-base in the college courtyard.
The following stanza was specially applauded, and would have been encored if encores were allowed at the Académie:—
"Mon Virgile à la main, bocages verts et sombres,Que j'aime à m'égarer sous vos paisibles ombres!Que j'aime, en parcourant vos gracieux détours,A pleurer sur Didon, à plaindre ses amours!Là, mon âme, tranquille et sans inquiétude,S'ouvre avec plus de verve aux charmes de l'étude;Là, mon cœur est plus tendre et sait mieux compatirA des maux que peut-être il doit un jour sentir."
It had been a remarkable contest; for, among the competitors, besides those we have named who won the prize—Saintine and Lebrun—were Casimir Delavigne, Loyson, Who has since acquired a certain popularity which has been interrupted by death, and Victor Hugo. Loyson obtained theaccessit, and Victor Hugo, in spite of M. Raynouard's contention that he had made game of the Académie, was the first to have honourable mention.
Casimir Delavigne, who had really committed the crime of poking fun at the Académie by treating the subject in exactly the opposite way, had a separate honourable mention apart from the competition.
Victor was playing at prisoners'-base, as we have said, whilst he was being applauded at the Académie. The first news he heard of his success was brought him by Abel and by Malitourne, who came rushing in, leapt on him and told him what had just happened and that he would in all probability have obtained the prize if the Académie had been ready to admit that a poet of fourteen could have written the lines. The supposition—not that he had wished to mock the Académie, but that he could lie—hurt the child exceedingly, and he procured his birth-certificate and sent it the Académie.
Vide pedes! vide latus!
They then had to believe it. And the indignation of that worthy grandmother changed to admiration.
M. Raynouard, the perpetual secretary, sent the honoured poet a characteristic letter. There was a deliciously fine mistake in spelling in the letter sent by the perpetual secretary: he told Victor Hugo that he should be pleased to make (fairait) his acquaintance. Two other members of the Académie wrote to the young poet without suggestionfrom outside. These were François de Neufchâteau and Campenon.
"Tendre ami des neuf sœurs, mes bras vous sont ouverts,Venez, j'aimie toujours les vers!"
wrote François de Neufchâteau.
"L'esprit et le bon goût nous ont rassasiés;J'ai rencontré des cœurs de glacePour des vers pleins de charme et de verve et de grâceQue Malfilâtre eut enviés!"
wrote Campenon.
And Chateaubriand called Hugo "l'Enfant sublime." The appellation stuck to him.
From that moment the youth was no longer his own master, but was given over to that consuming tyrant we call Poetry.
In those days, people still went in for theJeux Floraux, and Hugo competed in two successive years, 1818 and 1819. He won three prizes. The successful pieces wereMoïse sur le Nil, theVierges de Verdunand theStatue de Henri IV.Besides these, he published two satires and an ode. The satires were theTélégrapheand theRacoleur politique; the ode was theOde sur la Vendée.He published these three things at his own expense and, strange to relate, they brought him in 800 francs.
Poetry sold in those days: society was greedy for novelties and, when anything new was offered it, eagerly put its lips to the cup.
Meanwhile, two years of rhetoric in Latin, two years of philosophy and four years of mathematics had prepared the student for entrance at the École polytechnique.
He now began to face the future seriously, for the first time, and it terrified him. The vocation for which he was being educated was not the one for which he was fitted.
Just when he was about to take the leap and present himself for examination, he wrote to his father that he had found a profession: he was a poet and did not wish to enter the École;he would do without his allowance of 1200 francs. General Hugo was a man of decision himself and he realised that the boy had made up his mind; there was no time to be lost: Victor had eighteen months yet to study. He suppressed the allowance and abandoned the poet to his own resources. Victor possessed within himself as inexhaustible a treasure as those in theThousand and One Nights, and he had the 800 francs from his satires and the ode. On these 800 francs he lived for thirteen months, and during these thirteen months he composedHan d'Islande. That curious book was the work of a youth of nineteen.
While he was writingHan d'IslandeVictor's mother died—an event that influenced the sombre tone of his work considerably. This was his first sorrow and he never forgot it. From the day that that deep sorrow settled on his life, Victor never wore anything but black clothes or a black coat, and he never sealed his letters with aught but black sealing-wax.
And, indeed, we who have seen him grow up, from his childish days at the Feuillantines, at Avellino and at the Séminaire des Nobles, can guess how much his mother was to him. One day, in one of those moments of profound grief when the sorrowful heart seeks for surroundings in harmony with its own mourning, the youth went to Versailles, that most sorrowful and mournful of all places. He breakfasted at the café, holding a paper in his hand which he was not reading, for he was deep in thought. A life-guardsman, who was not given to thought and wanted to read, took the paper out of his hands. Victor at nineteen was fair and delicate of complexion and he looked only fifteen. The life-guardsman thought he was dealing with a boy, but he had insulted a man—a man who was in one of the dark crises of life, when danger often comes as a blessing. So the young man accepted the quarrel that was thrust upon him, coarse and foolish though it was. They fought with swords, almost there and then, and Victor received a slash in the arm. Thiscontretempshindered the appearance ofHan d'Islandefor a fortnight. Happily, his grief-stricken heart had its star as every dark night has, and itsflower as has every precipice;—he was in love! He was passionately in love with Mademoiselle Foucher, a maiden of fifteen with whom he had been brought up. He married this young girl, and she is to-day the devoted wife who followed the poet into exile.Han d'Islande, sold for 1000 francs, was the dowry of the wedded pair, who between them could only add up thirty-five years. The witnesses of the marriage were Alexandre Soumet and Alfred de Vigny, both poets just starting out in life and in art themselves. This thousand francs had to be used for housekeeping.
The first volume of poetry Victor published at this time was printed by Guiraudet, No. 335 rue Saint-Honoré and sold by Pélissier, place du Palais-Royal; it brought him in 900 francs, which were to be spent on luxuries. And out of these 900 francs the poet bought the first shawl he gave his young wife. Other women, wives of bankers and princes, have had more beautiful Cashmere shawls than yours, Madame Hugo, but none were woven out of more precious and valuable tissue!
This first volume was an immense success. I remember hearing about it when I was in the provinces.
Lamartine's first volume,Méditations poétiques, had appeared in 1820. It had an enormous and deserved success, and sooner or later it was destined to be superseded by another successful rival. It chanced this time that the rival proved equally successful, and the two successes kept pace with one another, hand in hand supporting each other. Nothing happened that could set the poets at variance, their styles were so unlike; nor did politics, thirty years later, succeed in severing the two men, no matter how different their opinions were.
The wedding took place at the house of M. Foucher, the father of the bride, who lived at the War Office. The wedding feast took place in the very hall where, by a strange coincidence to which we shall presently return, General la Horie, Victor's godfather, was sentenced.
Han d'Islande, which we have most unfairly deserted,achieved, by reason of its curious originality, quite as great a success as its admired sisters the fair and freshOdes.But it did not bear its author's name and it was impossible to guess that that bunch of lilies and lilacs and roses calledOdes et Balladesgrew under the shade of the rugged and dark oak tree calledHan d'Islande.Nodier read and marvelled at the latter production. Good and worthy Nodier! he was always to be found feeding his mind on everything that could nourish it and on everything that could expand his intellect. He announced that Byron and Mathurin were surpassed and that the unknown author ofHan d'Islandehad attained the ideal of a nightmare. He, the man who was to writeSmarra! was, upon my word, very modest. Nodier was not the sort of man from whom an author could long conceal his anonymity, no matter in what disguise he masqueraded. The great bibliomaniac who had made so many discoveries of this kind, quite as difficult to detect, discovered that Victor Hugo was the author ofHan d'Islande.But who was Victor Hugo? Was he a misanthrope like Timon, a cynic like Diogenes or a mourner like Democritus? He raised the veil and found, as we are aware, a fair-complexioned youth who had only just reached his twentieth year and looked but sixteen. He recoiled in amazement: it was incredible. He expected to find the distorted countenance of an aged pessimist; he found the youthful, open, hopeful smile of a budding poet. The very first time they met each other the foundations of a friendship were laid that nothing ever changed. Nodier always loved and was loved in return after this fashion.
Meanwhile, a competence amounting almost to a fortune, had come to the young housekeepers: the first edition ofHan d'Islande, which was sold for 1000 francs, had run out, and just when Thiers was making his literary début, under cover of the name of Félix Bodin, with hisHistoire de la Révolution, Victor was selling his second edition ofHan d'Islandefor 10,000 francs. Lecointre and Durey were the publishers who thus showered gold upon the nuptial bed of the young people. Honours now knocked at their door. We have spoken beforeof cousin Cornet, who had been made a senator and count under the Empire, and a peer of France under the Restoration; Victor's growing fame pleased the family pride of the old député of Nantes and member of theCinq Cents.He had no child of his own to whom to bequeath his coat of arms of azure with its three cornets argent and his peer's robes; so he proposed to throw the mantle over the young poet's shoulders on one condition. True, the condition was a severe one: in order that the giver's name should not be forgotten, the young poet was to call himself Victor Hugo-Cornet. The proposition was transmitted by General Hugo to the author ofHan d'Islandeand of theOdes et Ballades.The author ofHan d'Islandeand of theOdes et Balladesreplied that he preferred to call himself simply Victor Hugo; and if he wanted to become a peer of France at some future period he did not require the assistance of another, but would become so through his own unaided efforts. So Comte Cornet's offer was declined.
He had another cousin, Comte Volney, who nearly made him a similar proposal to become his heir; but, unluckily, he discovered thatHan d'Islandehad been written by the same hand as theOdes et Ballades, so he shook his head and buttoned his peer's robes over his own shoulders more tightly than before.
Léopoldine—The opinions of the son of the Vendéenne—The Delon conspiracy—Hugo offers Delon shelter—Louis XVIII. bestows a pension of twelve hundred francs on the author of theOdes et Ballades—The poet at the office of the director-general des postes—How he learns the existence of thecabinet noir—He is made a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur—Beauchesne—Bug-Jargal—The Ambassador of Austria's soirée—Ode à la Colonne—Cromwell—HowMarion Delormewas written
Léopoldine—The opinions of the son of the Vendéenne—The Delon conspiracy—Hugo offers Delon shelter—Louis XVIII. bestows a pension of twelve hundred francs on the author of theOdes et Ballades—The poet at the office of the director-general des postes—How he learns the existence of thecabinet noir—He is made a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur—Beauchesne—Bug-Jargal—The Ambassador of Austria's soirée—Ode à la Colonne—Cromwell—HowMarion Delormewas written
In 1824, at the same time as the appearance of a fresh volume of Odes, delightful little Léopoldine was born, whose death he witnessed later under such sad circumstances in front of the château de Villequier, drowned with her husband, on a fine day, by a sudden gust of wind. It was a cruel stroke of destiny, perhaps intended to prove the temper of the father's heart, which was to be severely tried during the days of civil strife that were in preparation for him. All these Odes bore the impress of Royalist opinions. The young man, scarcely past childhood, was the son of his Vendéenne mother, that saintly woman who saved the lives of nineteen priests in the civil war of 1793. General Hugo's friends, who held what were called at that time "Liberal opinions," without openly belonging to the Opposition, were yet often concerned at these ultra-monarchical tendencies; but the general shook his head and answered them smilingly.
"Leave things to time," he said. "The boy holds his mother's opinions; the man will hold his father's."
Here is a statement of the poet himself, which sets forth the promise made by his father, not only to a friend, but to France, to the future and to the whole world:—
"December1820"The callow youths who succeed nowadays to political ideas are in a strange predicament: our fathers are generally Bonapartists and our mothers Royalists. Our fathers only see in Napoleon the man who bestowed epaulettes upon them; our mothers only see in Bonaparte the man who took their sons away from them. Our fathers see in the Revolution the grandest result that the genius of a National Assembly could produce; the Empire, the greatest thing that the genius of a man could devise."To our mothers, the Revolution only meant the guillotine, and the Empire a sword. We children who were born under the Consulate have all been brought up at our mothers' knees,—our fathers were in camp,—and since they were often deprived of their husbands and brothers through the vagaries of the conquering Man, they riveted their hopes on us, young schoolboys of eight and ten years of age, and their gentle motherly eyes would fill with tears at the thought that by 1820 we should be eighteen, and by 1825 be either colonels, or else killed. The acclamation that greeted Louis XVIII. in 1814 was the delighted cry of our mothers. There are very few adolescents of our generation but have sucked in, with their mothers' milk, a hatred of the two periods of violent upheaval which preceded the Restoration. Robespierre was the bogey that frightened the children of 1803; and Bonaparte the bogey that terrified the children of 1815. I was lately strongly upholding my Vendéen opinions in my father's presence. He listened to me in silence, then he turned to General L——, who was with him, and remarked, 'Leave things to time: the child holds his mother's opinions; the man will follow his father's.' This prophecy set me to thinking. Whatever the case may be, and even admitting that, up to a certain point, experience modifies the impressions that we receive during our early years,the honest-minded man is sure not to be led astray if he submits all these modifications to the severe criticism of his conscience. A good conscience kept ever awake saves him from all the devious pitfalls wherein his honesty might go astray.In the Middle Ages people believed that any liquid in which a sapphire had rested was a preservative against plague, carbuncles, leprosy and every kind of disease. Jean-Baptiste de Rocoles said, 'Conscience is a similar sapphire!'"
"December1820
"The callow youths who succeed nowadays to political ideas are in a strange predicament: our fathers are generally Bonapartists and our mothers Royalists. Our fathers only see in Napoleon the man who bestowed epaulettes upon them; our mothers only see in Bonaparte the man who took their sons away from them. Our fathers see in the Revolution the grandest result that the genius of a National Assembly could produce; the Empire, the greatest thing that the genius of a man could devise.
"To our mothers, the Revolution only meant the guillotine, and the Empire a sword. We children who were born under the Consulate have all been brought up at our mothers' knees,—our fathers were in camp,—and since they were often deprived of their husbands and brothers through the vagaries of the conquering Man, they riveted their hopes on us, young schoolboys of eight and ten years of age, and their gentle motherly eyes would fill with tears at the thought that by 1820 we should be eighteen, and by 1825 be either colonels, or else killed. The acclamation that greeted Louis XVIII. in 1814 was the delighted cry of our mothers. There are very few adolescents of our generation but have sucked in, with their mothers' milk, a hatred of the two periods of violent upheaval which preceded the Restoration. Robespierre was the bogey that frightened the children of 1803; and Bonaparte the bogey that terrified the children of 1815. I was lately strongly upholding my Vendéen opinions in my father's presence. He listened to me in silence, then he turned to General L——, who was with him, and remarked, 'Leave things to time: the child holds his mother's opinions; the man will follow his father's.' This prophecy set me to thinking. Whatever the case may be, and even admitting that, up to a certain point, experience modifies the impressions that we receive during our early years,the honest-minded man is sure not to be led astray if he submits all these modifications to the severe criticism of his conscience. A good conscience kept ever awake saves him from all the devious pitfalls wherein his honesty might go astray.In the Middle Ages people believed that any liquid in which a sapphire had rested was a preservative against plague, carbuncles, leprosy and every kind of disease. Jean-Baptiste de Rocoles said, 'Conscience is a similar sapphire!'"
These few lines completely explain Victor's political conduct at different periods of his life. Meantime, the Royalist opinions which he revealed in his beautiful verses to those who looked upon such opinions as heresy were absolved by good deeds.
Let us mention a fact that will also serve to show the poet's life from an original aspect. In 1822 the Berton conspiracy burst forth, and all eyes were turned towards Saumur. Among the conspirators,—besides Berton, who died bravely, and Café, who opened his veins like a hero of old with a scrap of broken glass,—was a young man called Delon. I had caught occasional glimpses of this young man at the house of M. Deviolaine, to whom he was related, either carrying little Victor on his shoulder or jumping the future poet up and down on his knees. He was the son of an old officer who had served under General Hugo's orders. In the famous trial of the Chauffeurs this officer was the captainrapporteur; in the equally famous trial of Malet he was majorrapporteur, and, in both trials, without making any distinction between the accused, he had pronounced sentence of death on them. So General la Horie, Victor's godfather, of whom mention has been already made, was shot by Delon's orders. It was a strange coincidence that the son of the man who had pronounced sentence of death on others for conspiracy, should be doomed to death for the same cause! Since the day on which Major Delon had delivered sentence on General la Horie, instead of declining to adjudicate in the case, there had been a complete rupture between the Hugo and Delon family.
But although intercourse between the fathers was broken off, there had not been any rupture between the children. Victor lived then at No. 10 rue de Mézières. One morning he read in the papers the terrible story of the conspiracy of Saumur. Nearly all those concerned were arrested, with the exception of Delon, who had escaped. Very soon, childish recollections, strong and indelible, rose to the poet's mind; he seized his writing materials and, forgettingthe family hatreds and the difference of opinion, he wrote to Madame Delon, at Saint-Denis:—
"MADAME,—I learn that your son is proscribed and a fugitive; we hold different opinions, but that is only another reason why he would not be looked for at my house. I shall expect him; at whatever hour of day or night he comes he will be welcome. I am sure that no other place of refuge can be safer for him than the share of my room which I offer him. I live in a house without a porter's lodge, in the rue de Mézières No. 10, on the fifth floor. I will take care that the door shall be kept unlocked day and night."Accept my most respectful greetings, dear madame, and believe me, yours,VICTOR HUGO"
"MADAME,—I learn that your son is proscribed and a fugitive; we hold different opinions, but that is only another reason why he would not be looked for at my house. I shall expect him; at whatever hour of day or night he comes he will be welcome. I am sure that no other place of refuge can be safer for him than the share of my room which I offer him. I live in a house without a porter's lodge, in the rue de Mézières No. 10, on the fifth floor. I will take care that the door shall be kept unlocked day and night.
"Accept my most respectful greetings, dear madame, and believe me, yours,VICTOR HUGO"
When this letter was written, with the guilelessness of a child, the poet entrusted it to the post. To the post! A letter addressed to the mother of a man for whom the whole police force was in search! Well, when it was posted, Victor crept out every night at twilight to explore the neighbourhood, expecting to find Delon in each man who was leaning against a wall. Delon never appeared. But something else appeared, to the immense surprise of the poet, who had not made any move towards it whatever, namely, a pension of 1200 francs which the author ofOdes et Balladesreceived one morning in his small room in the rue de Mézières, the grant being signed by Louis XVIII. It could not have arrived at a more opportune time, for the poet had just married.
On 13 April 1825, Hugo went to the hôtel des Postes to engage three places on the mail coach for himself, his wife and a servant. They were going to Blois. He was anxious to secure these three seats in advance, but, unfortunately, this was not an easy thing: the mail went as far as Bordeaux, and to save places as far as Blois meant risking the emptiness of the seats from Blois to Bordeaux. However, the favour which Victor required could be granted by one man, and that man was M. Roger, the Postmaster-general. M. Roger was by way of being a literary man, he belonged to the Académie and might possibly grant Victor Hugo his desire. So Victordecided to go to the Postmaster-general's house. The usher announced the poet and, at Victor Hugo's name, which at that time was already well known, especially by reason of the ode which had appeared on the death of Louis XVIII. (the ode we have already partly quoted), M. Roger rose and approached the poet with demonstrations of the greatest friendliness. Needless to relate, the request for reserved places on the mail coach to Blois was at once accorded. But M. Roger, having the good fortune to have secured a visit from the poet, would not let him go easily: he made him sit down, and they talked together.
"By the way," M. Roger suddenly burst out in the middle of the conversation, "do you know to what you owe your pension of twelve hundred francs, my dear poet?"
"Why, I probably owe it to my small efforts in literature," Victor answered laughingly.
"Yes, of course," replied the Postmaster-general; "but would you like me to tell you exactly how you got it?"
"Certainly, I should be glad to know, I must confess."
"Do you remember the conspiracy of Saumur?"
"Of course."
"Do you recollect a young man named Delon who compromised himself in that conspiracy?"
"Perfectly well."
"You remember writing to him or, rather, to his mother, offering the outlaw half your room at No. 10 rue de Mézières?"
Victor made no answer this time; he stared at the Postmaster-general with startled eyes, not amazed at the magnificence of the worthy M. Roger, but at his powers of penetration. He had written that letter alone, between his own four walls: he had not told a single soul about it. Not even his own nightcap—that confidant which Louis XI. thought ought to be burned, since it had been the recipient of certain secrets—knew anything about it, seeing he never wore a nightcap.