824 



HUGO 



HUGUENOTS 



tArrnr, prftaBntftfrion -absent from, these, and which 

 made him one of the most popular writers of 

 his epoch. That said, it may be added that to 

 talk of Hugo as either a dramatist or a master of 

 romantic fiction is to beg the question of Hugo's 

 greatness. His prose r as prose, has never the easy, 

 voluptuous, natural eloquence of George Sand's, 

 nor the mordant felicity ot Menmees, nor.tne 

 spontaneity and vivacity of Dumas's, nor the ter- 

 rible yet irresistible persuasiveness of the opening 

 chapters of Musset's Confession d'un Enfant du 

 Siecle. His dramas are only so many lyrical ex- 

 pressions of Hugolatry, the work of the arch-Hugo- 

 later. His best and truest title to immortality ia 

 his poetry. In truth, the range and the capacity 

 of his genius in rhythm and rhyme are unparal- 

 leled in the literature of France. It was for Musset 

 to utter the truest note, and to make the invention 

 speak the very language of the heart ; it has been 

 for Leconte de Lisle, for Baudelaire, for Gautier to 

 produce impeccable work each after his kind ; but 

 assuredly it was for Hugo to accomplish the most 

 gorgeous arid the most heroic achievement in the 

 divine art of song. His verse, with its infinite 

 capacity of violence and calm, sunshine and thun- 

 der, apocalyptic fury and grace ineffable, has some- 

 thing of the effect of the multitudinous seas 

 as he saw and described them from his eyrie in 

 midchannel. The effect of his alexandrines, with 

 their wealth of colour and light and energy, may 

 fairly be paralleled with that of Shakespeare's 

 iambics ; while in their purity of form, the sweetness 

 and distinction of their cadences, their richness 

 of rhyme, their magical felicity jof expression, his 

 lyrical measures put the Pleiad and all its works 

 to shame. There can be no possible doubt that in 

 many of the relations of life Hugo was a poseur 

 of the first magnitude that from the first he hum- 

 bugged his contemporaries with a pertinacity and 

 a success that are only equalled by his faculty of 

 taking himself seriously. But there can be as little 

 that while essentially un-French a combination, 

 indeed, of Teuton and Celt, and moreover abso- 

 lutely lacking in sanity he was a lyrist of the first 

 order, a master of words and cadences, an artist in 

 njy thins and rhyings.""* 



See Victor HIKJO raconte par un Temoin de sa Vie 

 (1863) by his wife, who died at Brussels in 1868 ; works 

 on him by Rivel (1878), Paul de Saint Victor (1885), 

 Barbou ( 1881 ), Asseline ( 1885 ), Eire' ( three mainly hostile 

 books, 1883-93), Dupuy (two books, 1887-90), Mabilleau 

 (1893),Boudon(4thed. 1893), Renouvier (1893); Swin- 

 burne, A Study of Victor Huyo (1886), and English works 

 by Barnett Smith (1885), and J. P. Nichol (1892); and 

 criticisms by Gautier, Banville, Baudelaire, and Sainte 

 Beuve. His son Charles ( 1826-71 ), publicist and novelist, 

 was the father of the ' George' and ' Jeanne' of L'Art de 

 d'etre Grandpere ; Francois ( 1828-73) trans. Shakespeare. 



Huguenots (from the Genevese nickname 

 eiguenot, Ger. eidgenosse ), the name formerly given 

 in France to the adherents of the Reformation, 

 which movement commenced almost simultaneously 

 in France and Germany. One of the most eminent 

 names in the early history of French Protestantism 

 is that of Farel ( q.v. ), and one of the first supporters 

 of its cause was Margaret of Valois, queen of 

 Navarre, the sister of Francis I. Subsequently, in 

 the time of Calvin, many of the nobles and middle 

 classes embraced the reformed religion. Francis I. , 

 however, opposed it with great severity, and caused 

 many to be burned as heretics. Tlie alliance of 

 Henry II. with the German Protestants gave at 

 first an impulse to the cause of the Reformation, 

 but the aspect of things was again changed 

 when the family of Guise obtained ascendency at 

 court. Under Francis II. a chamber (chambre 

 ardente) Avas established in each parliament for the 

 punishment of Protestants ; and executions, con- 



fiscations, and banishments were common in all 

 parts of the kingdom. The Protestants took up 

 arms against the government, choosing Louis I., 

 Prince of Bourbon-Conde, for their leader. On 

 February 1, 1560, in a meeting at Nantes, they 

 resolved to petition the king for freedom of religion 

 and for the removal of the Guises ; and in the 

 event of his refusal, to seize the king's person, and 

 proclaim Conde governor-general of the kingdom. 

 But the court, being apprised of the conspiracy, 

 fled from Blois to Amboise, and the Duke of Guise 

 was appointed governor-general. Some bands of 

 Protestants, approaching Amboise with weapons in 

 their hands, were easily defeated and taken ; 1200 

 died by the hand of the executioner. The Edict of 

 Romorantin, in May 1560, took the prosecution of', 

 heretics out of the hands of the parliament, and) 

 gave it into those of the bishops. Whilst the Guises 

 plotted the death of the Protestant leaders Charles 

 IX. ascended the throne, a prince not yet of age ; 

 and the queen-mother, Catharine de' Medici (q.v.), 

 having removed the Guises from the helm of the 

 state, was compelled to seek the support of the 

 Protestants against them and their party. In July 



1561 appeared an edict which freed the Huguenots 

 from the penalty of death. For the complete 

 termination of strife the court opened a religious 

 conference at Poissy. The chief disputants were 

 the Cardinal of Lorraine on the one side, and 

 Theodore Beza (q.v.) on the other. The effect 

 of the discussion was to unite and embolden the 

 Protestants, with whom the machinations of the 

 Guises forced Catharine into closer alliance. In 



1562 appeared an edict giving noblemen the right 

 of the free exercise of their religion on their own 

 estates. 



In March of the same year, a company of Pro- 

 testants met in a barn at Vassy for religious 

 exercises was attacked, and many of them were 

 massacred by the followers of the Duke of Guise. 

 On this Conde hastened to Orleans, and called his 

 co-religionists again to his standard ; whilst the 

 Guises took possession of the persons of the king 

 and his mother, and proclaimed the Protestants 

 rebels. In September the royal troops took Rouen, 

 and in December a battle was fought at Dreux, in 

 which, after a hard struggle, the Protestants were 

 defeated. The Duke of Guise marched on Orleans, 

 but was assassinated in his camp before that city, 

 February 18, 1563. Hereupon the queen-mother 

 hastened to conclude the peace of Amboise, by 

 which the Protestants were allowed the free exer- 

 cise of their religion, except in certain districts 

 and towns. Catharine, however, formed a close 

 alliance with the Spaniards for the extirpation of 

 heresy, retrenched the new liberties of the Pro- 

 testants, and made attempts upon the life of Conde 

 and of the Admiral Coligny (q.v.). These leaders 

 of the Protestant party adopted the resolution of 

 taking possession of the king's person. The court 

 fled to Paris, which Conde invested ; but in Novem- 

 ber 1567 a battle was fought at St Denis between 

 Conde and the Constable Montmorency, in con- 

 sequence of which Conde fell back into Lorraine ; 

 and in March 1568 Catharine concluded peace at 

 Longjumeau. Nevertheless she persecuted the 

 Protestants, of whom 3000 were assassinated 

 or executed. The Protestants having, however, 

 received assistance in troops from Germany, and in 

 money and artillery from England, began the 

 third religious war. But on March 13, 1569, they 

 were defeated, and Conde their leader slain, at 

 Jarnac by the royal troops under the Duke of 

 Anjou, afterwards Henry III. Jeanne d'Albret, 

 queen of Navarre, endeavoured to reanimate the 

 Protestants, and set up her son, afterwards 

 Henry IV., as the head of the Protestant cause. 

 Coligny having received further assistance of 



