BIOGEAPHIOAL NOTICE OF VICTOR HUGO

The yonnjçest of three «ons, Victor-Marie Hugo was born at Besançon on the 26th of February, 1802, and cied at Paris in May, 1885, at the npe âge of eighty-three, His fatber, Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Comte Hugo, was a major in the French army. and bis mother, Sophie Françoise Trébuchet, the daughtei of a shipowner at Nantes.

It was natural that bis mother, who had a great influence on his life, sbould bave given the ârst direction to the poet's thoughts, and that in his Odes et BallcSeï he sbould bave shown himself a staunch royalist. " L'enfant pense avee la mèrt, Chmnme pentcra avec te pire," General Hugo is reported to bave laid. But 'wisdom,' in this instance, was not to be 'justified of ber children,' for the great poet, at tbe âge of twenty-eight, when Hemani appeared, bad left far behind him the Napoleonic id'eas which bad been tbe lulinç principle of bis fatber's life.*

His earliest yeara were spcnt in foUowing hi<i fatber's fortunes in Spain and Italy. It was not until 1803 that Madame Hugo settlcd down with her children in Paris in a kind of cul de sac, called Impaêie des Feuillantines, in a bouse with a beautif ul garden attached to it, and undertook for some time the éducation of ber three boys, Tbey were afterwards plnced under the care of General Victor de T.ahorie, the poèt's godfather, who had taken refuge with Madame Hugo and her sons in order to escape political persécution.

Later on, Victor and his brothers were entered at the Collège Dëcotte and ■nbsequently at ' Louis-le-Grand.' The former'g remarkable abilities soon asserted themselves, and he became the delight and wonder of his masters. It waa when still at echool that he wrote in a fortnight, for a wager, his first prose work Bug-Jargal. Like Suy-Slas, Hug-Jurgal is a poor eaitb-worm enamoured of a star, and, like Hemani, be dies for a point ofhonour. Habibrab, the dwaïf, is tiie foreshadow, so to speak, of the hideousness of Qua-ximodo in Notre-Dame-de-Parit, and the revengeful spirit of Tribaulet in Le Sm t'amute.

Thèse crude sketches are intereating, becauae they serve in a measiire to illnstrate tbe graduai devclopment of Victor Hugo's genius. When barely âfteen years of âge, he competed for tbe prize of poetry annually ofFered by the Académie Française, Unfortunately, in the course of hii poem, the young author referred to tbe fact that he was scarce âfteen :

" For me three lustres scarce their cour» bave run." This aronsed tbe suspicion of the judges, who tbought it impossible for a boy of fifteen to bave composed a poem of sucb merit, and he was only awarded an ' honourable mention.' He was more f ortunate at the ' Jeux Floraux de Toulouse,' where his poetical genius gained for him, at seventeen, the depree of maitre is jeux floraux, and he received from tbe director the foUowing letter: — "Sir, — Since wehave received your odes, we have spoken niuch of your talents and your eztraordinary literary promise. Tour âge of seveni een 13 a matter of surprise to us oll — to some almost a matter of incredulity. Ton are an enigma of which the Hnses keep tbe key. ..."

Shortiy afterwards be appeared in the light of a eritlc, contributing articles

* Victor Hugo seems to have kept the Napoléon worship to tbe end of bis life. See many of his poema, and Let MisirabUi.— American Maitor.

Biographical Notice nf Victor Hugo.

tn a perindical called Le Conservateur Littéraire, His critical jud^ment was Sound, for in a remarkable article he dirined the powers of Lamartine. It was of him Jie said : " On reading guoh verses, who would not exclaim with La Harpe, ' Dost thou not hear a poet's song . , .' Courage, young man ! You are one of tbose whom Plato would have loaded wiui honours and banished from his republic.' The years 1819 and 1820, says Rabbe in bis biography, were among the bnsiest years of Victor Hugo's life. His Odes et Ballades, collected in a volume, flrst nppeared in 1822, and were received with the same enthusiasm that had greeted the appearance of LamarLine's Premières Méditations two years before.

Edition after édition was bronght eut, and Louis XVIII. awarded the boy poet a pension of 1500 francs from bis own privy f unî. This, together with the profit on the Odes, enabled him to marry Âdële Foncher, who had been 'the day-dream' of his youth. In 1827 appeared his histnrical drama of Cromwell, The bold and fearless préface to this work was the signal for tbat war against the classicists wbich, as head of the famons Cénade,* he progecuted with such indomitable vigour. The first pitched battle took place at the initial performance of Hernani, on the 25th of February, 1830. It ended, in spite of the niost determined opposition, in a splendid victory for the new Bchool, and the French drama wns for ever rid of those shackles "of f orm which bad so long held it in bondage. Romanticism, which, according to Baudelaire, is but the modem expression of the beautiful, had asserted ite power, and at the conclusion of the performance the name of the author was received as that of a victorions gênerai. The next day, Châteaubriand, who had previously cnlled hira 'Fenfant sublime^ wrote to Victor Hugo, Uailing him as "the rising star."

Then were produced, in rapid succession. Les Orientales (1829) and Ij» dernier Jour d'un Condamné. The drama of Hernani, which had been preceded by Marion de Lorme, tbe performance of wbich was prohibited by the censorship, was followed by Le Roi s'amuse and Lucrèce Borgia, Tben appeared Ruy-Blas, perhaps the most powerful of Victor Hugo's dramaa, and, after an interval, Les Burgraves, in forin the most finished of them ail. After this wonderful outburst of drainatic power, the lyric muse seemed to daim again her former devotee. Les Feuilles d'Automne, Les Chants du Crépuscule, Les Voix Intérieures, and Les Rayons et les O/nires came to delight and entrance a public never weary of admiring those flights of a genius whom ail France noir delighted to bonour,

It was in 1841 that he was elected a niember of the French Academy, Thrice before had he knocked at the doors of tbe Forty Immortais, only to be received with th^same frigid politeness, The reason was not far to seek, The poet himself h^s given the explanation, when, in answer to some one who wanbed to know how he, of ail men, had incurred the bitter enmity of the Forty: *'I hadwritten Hernani," said Hugo, with a smile.

It would be impossible, in the short space at our disposai, to comment upon, or even enumerate the many other works which, issued from the pen of Victor Hugo between 1831 and 1851, when the Cnup d'Etat drove the illustrious poet into exile. In 1832 had appeared Sutre-Dame de Paris, as an ezample of style without a rival in the language, which was to be followed, thirty years after, wheu his contract with his piiblisber, M. Gosselin, had expired, by those wonderful romances. Les Misérables, Les Travailleurs de la Mer, Quatrevingt-TrAze, etc.

Leaving Paris in disguise — a price bad been put upon his head by the Government of Napoléon 111. — in December, 1851, Victor Hugo first weut to Brussels. There he remained until May, 1852, having written in the mean-

• A club formed for the purpose of dis^temtnating an d defending the new ideas of the Romantic scbuol. and included among its roemb-rs. beaides Victor Hugo, tbe numes uf Alf. de Vigny, Sainte-Beavea Jules de Reaséquier, Êuiile and Autony l)escbamp8, and •ome twenty othera.

Biographical Notice qf Victor Hugo.

time L'flistoire d'un Crime, which, however, was not published until 1877. Expelled from lirussels at the insti/atinn of Napolenn III., because of the too great impression produoed by the publication of Napoléon le Petit, Victor Hngo dccided to take refuge in jersej', wbere he was received with open arnis, wiiere he lived in comparative quiet for a short time, and wbere was composed that marvellnus satire, Let Châtiments, which did more perhaps than any other worlt to undermine and finallr overthrow the power of Napoléon III. Again driven from Jersey for having protested against a decree expelling a certain number of bis fellow-exiles, exclaiming, Si c'est l'expulsion, expulsez noua tous, the poet sougbt refuge in Guemsey. It was in the latter island, in the now historical Hauteville House, that Victor Hugo remained in undisturbed quiet for nearly seventeen years. If the poet chnfed, and well he might, at bis exile, what a gain to literature is implied in those seventeen years of literary work ! There was written Les Misérables, the most powerful romance of modem limes ; there aiso were conceived and flnally executed Les Contemplations, La Légende des Siècles, Les Quatre Vents de l'Esprit, etc. There also waa written Les Travailleurs de la Mer, dedicated to Guernsey, and the scène of which is laid amid those rocks and islar.ds which he knew and loved so well. There it waa that be loved to watch the sea in ail its changeful mnods, and to paint it in words as no master of the brush has ever done on canvas.

After Sedan and the fall of the Empire in September, 1870, Victor Hugo retumed to bis beloved Paris, wbere he lived until May, 1885, the cynosure of all eyes and the " darling" of the Parisians. Only a few months before bis death he celebrated bis eighty-tbird birthday, and received a splendid ovation from all his conntrymen.

In reviewing Victor Hugo's literary life, extending over nearly seventy years, the first thing that strikes one is its amazing productiveness. His novels alone might well secm work ennugh for one man ; but they form but a small fraction of his wonderful life-work. The Se varietur édition of the works published during his lit'etime contains forty-six volumes ; while the manuseript matter which he bas left behind, and wbich is to be published by hig literary executors under the gênerai title of L'Océan, will possibly run into twenty or more volumes.

It does not corne within the scope of this short notice to estimate the character of a genius like Victor Hugo. " Poet, dramatist, historian, philosopher and patriot ; the spiritnal sovereign of the nineteenth century was before all things, and above all things, a poet." So speaks a nian of genius, Mr. Swinbume. Posterity in a few years, in its calm and dispassionate review of the work of this great life, may be trusted to confirm the words of theEnglish

Ëoet ; for if ever man brought down to earth the celestial fire, it waa Victor lugo.

And what, we may ask, was the nnchanging motive power of the poet'a life and work ? It can be summed up in two words — " Universal Charitj-." Nowbere, perhaps, bas he himseif more beautifuUy set forth the whole duty of man tban in thèse lines taken from the poem addressed to the spirit of his depart«d son, in L'Année Terrible —

"Are we sure we h»ve done, if only balf dune, The good 't *aB ours to do ?

Hate bave we cumiuered, «nd by love bave we won, Ay, won our enemy too ? "

It will be the chief glory of his writings that they bave been devoted to the cause of sufTering bumanity, and that they all bear faithful witness to bis unsbaken belief in right, his horror of meanness, his contempt for injustice, his nnnlterable trust in the future, bis dcep gincerity of purpose, and hia splendid courage.

J. BOÏELLE.

Biographical Notice.

This is the e8timate of an ardent admirer ; we believe that posterity, while doing justice to Victor Hugo's genius, especially as a poet and novelist, will hardiy call him a great liistorian or a great philosopher. His dramas hâve exerted snch an influence on the French stage that the student of literature can never OTerlook them, whatever defects he may find ; besides, the évident faults are more than compensated by brilliant qualities. American Editob.

Boston, June, 1892.