480 



HUGO, VICTOR-MARIE. 



and his mother was a royalist in her sympa- 

 thies, and had shared in the dangers of the 

 Vendean insurrection ; so that he spoke of 

 himself as born with both royalist and impe- 

 rial aspirations. He alluded frequently to the 

 antiquity of his race, but his paternal grand- 

 father was a master builder at Nancy, and 

 made no pretensions to nobility. He was a 

 feeble child, and when about six weeks old he 

 was carried to Elba, where his father's regi- 

 ment was stationed, and there and in Corsi- 

 ca he remained three years. The two suc- 

 ceeding years his mother passed at Paris with 

 her children. She then went with them to It- 

 aly, where her husband, at that time Col. 



Hugo, was governor of the province of 

 Avellino in the kingdom of Naples. The 

 future poet, according to his biographers, 

 played about the foot of Vesuvius, and 

 shuddered at the stories of the celebrated 

 bandit known as Fra Diavolo, whose band 

 his father broke up. In 1809 Madame 

 Hugo returned to Paris with her family 

 and lived in an old house with a high- 

 walled garden, where Victor played and 

 studied with his brothers, who afterward 

 achieved distinction in literature, and 

 with the girl who became his wife. He 

 was taught by an old married priest, and 

 by Gen. La Horie, who had been com- 

 promised with Moreau, was for several 

 years under the surveillance of the im- 

 perial police, and took refuge in the 

 Hugo household, where he was accus- 

 tomed to sit with the boy upon his knee 

 and read with him Polybius and Tacitus. 

 The hiding-place of La Horie was dis- 

 covered and he was arrested and impris- 

 oned, escaping only to take part in an 

 insurrection, in which he perished; and 

 this incident is supposed to have aided 

 the mother's influence in giving the poet's 

 mind its first royalistic tendency. In the 

 spring of 1811 Madame Hugo went to 

 Spain, whither her husband, then general 

 and marechal of the palace, had accom- 

 panied King Joseph Bonaparte in 1809. 

 journey was not made without peril, among 

 deserted villages and desperate bands of guer- 

 rillas. The family took up its residence at Ma- 

 drid in the Macerano Palace, and the boys were 

 placed in the College of Nobles, where they 

 remained a year, and it was intended that 

 Victor should become one of the pages of 

 the King; but the prospects of the new mon- 

 archy continued to be so stormy that Madame 

 Hugo returned to Paris with her younger sons, 

 Eugene and Victor, taking up her former resi- 

 dence, and committing the education of the 

 boys to their former teacher. There was little 

 religion mingled with their instruction, for their 

 mother was less religious than loyal. Gen. 

 Hugo returned from Spain after the overthrow 

 of the Bonaparte kingdom a poor man, as he 

 had purchased an estate there which was con- 

 fiscated. He afterward conducted the famous 



defense of Thionville in the invasion of 1814, 

 Madame Hugo, who used to wear green shoes 

 in order to keep the imperial color under her 

 feet, received marks of favor from the returning 

 Bourbons; and during the Hundred Days her 

 husband separated from her and took charge 

 of the education of his sons. He sent them to 

 a boarding-school, where they remained until 

 1818, attending a course of philosophy, phys- 

 ics, and mathematics at the College of Louis le 

 Grsmd. Victor showed great aptitude for math- 

 ematics, but he preferred poetry to all else, and 

 devoted his leisure time to it. He began to 

 write verse at ten years of age, and at thirteen 



VICTOR HUGO. 



The 



rhymed about Roland and his chivalry. Dur- 

 ing the four following years he composed mul- 

 titudinous verses in the classic style, his more 

 important efforts being the tragedy of " Irta- 

 m&ne," celebrating under an Egyptian disguise 

 the restoration of the Bourbons ; the drama of 

 "Ines de Castro," and three acts of an unfinished 

 tragedy, " Athelie, ou les Scandinaviens." A 

 poem, "Sur les avantages de Tetude," submit- 

 ted in competition for a prize offered by the 

 Academy in 1817, was mentioned with honor, 

 and would, it is said, have been crowned if the 

 author had not spoken of himself in the closing 

 lines as fifteen years of age, which aroused the 

 suspicions of the judges, who feared a mys- 

 tification. 



Gen. Hugo had intended his son Victor for 

 the profession of arms, but in 1818 he yieldec 

 this point and allowed the young poet to giv< 

 up the project of entering the Ecole Polytech- 



