Victor Hugo [pp. 81-90]

Victor -Hugo.
his eyes: "In the middle of the continent,
Germany stands armed to the teeth, an un ceasing threat to peace, the last effort of the
mediaeval spirit. Everything that was done
(I 870) must be undone. Between the great
future and us there is a fatal obstacle. Peace
is perceptible only after a collision and an
inexorable struggle. Alas! Whatever the
future may promise, the present has no re alization of peace."
If we compare, for instance, Europe in
the eleventh century with America in the
nineteenth, and realize what an immense
distance extends between them, and how
easily that distance has been traversed and
overcome, we may clearly understand that
none of the expectations of Victor Hugo are
impossible, or even to be relegated to a distant future. Undoubtedly, European nations are widely separated by differences of
race and religion. But America, with so
many different sects-Catholics, and Protestants of al! denominations, with such various
nationalities, Saxons, Germans, Celts, Latins, and even negroes multiplying in the
Southern States to an almost alarming extent-America, I say, shows such difficulties
not to be insurmountable. The barrier
raised by diversity of language, which does
not exist on this side of the Atlantic, is becoming every moment less formidable. The
time is near when the culture of modern
languages, taking possession of all the ground
lost by the Greek and the Latin, will produce a mutual interpretation of ideas and
sentiments, and demolish those walls of prejudice so carefully maintained by conceit and
narrow mindedness. Why, then, shall we
draw a line between the new and the old
world, and say: "Freedom and justice on
this side, iespotism and social tyranny on
the other side?" Is this really a mere
question of longitude?
These are the opinions of Victor Hugo.
They have nothing new-nil novi sub sole,
except in the scientific fields. Only he sang
these grand old themes with a voice so sonorous, so powerful, so sublime, that they
have resounded all over the earth, and deeply impressed and modified men's hearts and
minds in France and other civilized coun tries.
Victor Hugo, though considered by most
men in all countries as the greatest of French
poets, had and still has many adversaries.
First among them, we may see the Bonapartist admirers of that Napoleon branded by
Hugo as Napoleon le Petit, or Cartouchele
Grand. These men were supporters of a
throne shown by him to be founded on perjury, murder, and burglary. Against Bonapartism Victor Hugo has written two satires,
the most forcible, perhaps, that exist in any
language. When the first, a prose pamphlet,
entitled Napoleon le Petit, was issued, the
Bonapartists affected to laugh. After the
Coup d'Etat, a few weeks before Napoleon
iii. assumed the title of Emperor, one could
read in one of the journals that favored the
Prince-President: "M. Victor Hugo has just
issued in Brussels a pamphlet with the title
Napoleon le Petit, which contains the most
severe animadversion against the head
of the government." An officer of rank
brought to Saint Cloud the satirical issue.
Louis Napoleon took it in his hands, looked
at it a moment with a smile of contempt on
his lips, and then, pointing to the pamphlet,
he said to the persons around him:
"Look here, gentlemen, this is Napoleon
le Petit, described by Victor Hugo le Grand."
Was Louis Napoleon a prophet inferior
in any respect to the biblical ass of Balaam?
The would-be laugh stopped short, for,
soon after, the Chdtiments made their appearance, and never did such a whip fall on
the shoulders of a criminal. In fact, this
book, printed on candle-paper-not one
publisher in all Europe could be found to
print the terrible book-secretly introduced
into France, secretly read, for fear of prison
or deportation this book, I say, prepared
the fall of the Empire, by indoctrinating-the
rising generation with the noble cause of liberty. After the Franco-German war and the
horrors of the Commune, there would have
been perhaps an attempt at Napoleonic restoration, but forthat powerful book. Through
Hugo's influence, such an attempt had become utterly hopeless, and remained untried.
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[July,