Victor Hugo [pp. 81-90]

Victor -Hugo.
So it must be understood that the hatred
of Victor Hugo against the Roman church
is political, not religious. If he assailed
priests, as he did magistrates and the army,
it was only because they played an active
part in the Coup d'Etat.
His contempt of bourgeois or of peasants
was solely due to their approval of a sovereignty which represented to his eyes all
shame, ignorance, and immorality. Nobody,
indeed, was spared by his poetical indignation, not even the City of Paris, the greatest
prideof his life. On a certain night of September, i 855, from his rock of Jersey, while gazing
on the light-house of St. Malo, face to face
with France, he composed an eloquent appeal to the people of Paris: "A4 ceux gqui
dorment "" To those that sleep "; concluding:
"Si dans ce cloaque on demeure,
Si cela dure encore un jour,
Si cela dure encore une heure,
Te brise clairon et tambour,
Je fletris ces pusillanimes;
O vieux peuple des jours sublimes,
Geants, a qui nous les melions,
Je les laisse trembler leurs fievres,
Et je declare que ces lievres,
Ne sont pas vos fils, 6 lions!"
The "Coup d'Etat" was a turning point
in the life of Victor Hugo: "Be ye cursed,"
he exclaims: "D'emnplir de haine un coeur
quideborde d'amnour/"-" for filling with hate
a heart that overflows with love." Until the
2d of December, I85I - fatal date -not a
line, not a single word, was ever uttered or
written by him hostile to religion or to priests.
Even since that epoch, did he hear of a priest
who had sealed his devotion to the gospel by
his blood, Hugo would celebrate the mar tyr with a vehemence of admiration, unsur passed by the energy of his bursts of indig nation. Thus, number eight, first book, Les
Clitiments
"O, saint pretre! grande ame! Oh! je tombe i ge noux," etc.
In I870, after the fall of Napoleon, if the
French church had joined with republican
France, instead of losing their popularity in
foolish attempts for an impossible restora tion, without doubt Victor Hugo could have
been thoroughly reconciled to the church,
and, perhaps, as his death approached, if
not seen kneeling as formerly with Lamennais, he would have been heard conversing
"with Monseigneur Bienvenu," of the great
future.
In the days of the Coup d'Etat and of
his subsequent exile, began the period of the
full development and grandest works of our
greatest poet.
"What shall we do?" he asked his sons
Charles and F. V. Hugo, on their leaving
France for Jersey.
"I will translate Shakspere," was F. V.'s
answer. (This he did, and gave us our best
translation of the greatest poet of England.)
"As for me," said Hugo, "I will gaze on
the ocean"; and the ocean, in its turn,
seemed to reflect itself in his poetry in deep
and boundless metaphors.
From that moment, also, he is no more an
artist, in exclusive pursuit of "art for art's
sake." The social and political future of
France and of all nations will absorb him so
entirely that it would be senseless to draw in
his works a dividing line between politics and
poetry. It does not matter whether you call
his verses poetical politics, or political poetry.
The two elements can no more be separated
than mind and body in human nature, and
form a whole in which the style derives all
its beauty from political and philosophical
inspiration. Victor Hugo is the man who,
face to face with the empire, almost alone,
during eighteen years, with his avenging
verse and inexorable prose, fought and final ly overthrew that other man, Napoleon, who
had stolen France, conquered Russia, form ed alliance with England, weakened Austria,
liberated Italy, and for a score of years daz zled Europe and America. Victor Hugo is
that poet, or he is of no worth at all in liter ature and politics.
There are several kinds of persons devoted
to politics. The most common, though not
the highest in rank, are the politicians of
their time and of their country, absorbed
entirely with present issues and national in terests, and even when endowed with gen ius, thoroughly unconscious of the ultimate
1885.]
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