X INTRODUCTION

Eighteen months later his lîfe was brightened by a happy marriage with the charming Adèle Foucher, who was ever a &ithful and cheerfiil companion in sorrow and in gladness, in prosperity and in defeat, at home and in exile.

Hugo was destined to suffer as well as to receive honor and renown. He lost his favorite daughter soon afler her marriage with an appréciative and loving husband. He moumed the loss of both his sons when they were scarcely in the prime of their manhood, and he outlived his wife by several years.

The most prominent feature in Hugo* s life is his unswerving dévotion to principle and his conscientious discharge of duty. Bom in the ranks of the nobility, with early teaching and bias in favor of royalty, he gave up his old opinions and prédilections in proportion as his horizon broadened and in accordance with his conviction of truth. For one not to change opinion was to stagnate, not to grow, and

INTRODUCTION xl

Hugo' S soul could not be smothered nor repressed. With rare opportunity for self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment by upholdîng the old order in the State, he tumed away from the allurements of court and royalty, and made a heroic fight for the oppressed and for true liberty. Napoléon III drove him from hîs native land.

Though he might hâve accepted amnesty and retumed to his home after ten years of exile, Hugo, as innocent, would not accept pardon from the guilty, and kept his vow not to retum to France imtil his land was free from the tyrant's chain. After the fall of Napoléon in the Franco-Prussian war, Hugo retumed to Paris and labored and sufifered for his coimtry. He had lived in exile for nearly twenty years. Not merely was he a marvel in the world of literature, but even in exile his influence was powerful in moulding the destiny of France.

It is probable that the future wiU

Xll INTRODUCTION

look upon Hugo as the most original and the greatest figure in the world of letters in the nineteenth century. At an early âge he gave wonderful promiîse, and was styled * '/ * enfant sublime, ' ' His dramas were epoch - making.

Every one is Êuniliar with the history of Hugo' s leadership in the Romantic school, his famous préface to " Cromwell/' and the war that was waged over the représentation of Hemani,*' ' ' Marion de Lorme, ' ' and * * Le Roi s'Amuse."

Hugo excelled in both prose and verse. There is no department of literature that he has not enriched by his pen. His lyrics, dramas, and novels, his philosophical and historical works and his travels, his discussions, speeches, and orations, ail bear the imprint of the master. Even his enemies could not deny that he was unrivaled in his command of language.

As one of them confessed: **He wields the French idiom at his will ;

INTRODUCTION XIU

he forges it as solid as iron, he tempers il like steel, he engraves it as silver, he moulds it like bronze, he chisels it as marble. The blades of Toledo are not keener, nor the mosaics of Florence more délicate, than the verses that his skilfiil workmanship has produced." One can say with Barbou that 'the multitude and variety of his works testify to his unparalleled industry, but their glory is that ail are faithful witnesses to his belief in right, his horror of meanness, his contempt of injustice, and to his courage.'

Hugo' s Works as published by the houses of Hetzel and Quantin, Paris, are as foUows: