HUGO, VICTOR-MARIE. 



481 



nique and devote himself to literature. His 

 odes on " La statue de Henri IV," " Les 

 vierges de Verdun," "Moise sur le Nil," were 

 crowned at the Floral Games of Toulouse. The 

 first he wrote in one night while watching 

 by the bedside of his sick mother, who had fall- 

 en asleep regretting that he had not entered 

 for the prize. His poetry from 1818 to 1822 

 was royalist and religious in tone, and he be- 

 came the literary idol of royalist society and 

 gained from Chateaubriand the title of "enfant 

 sublime" Chateaubriand also, when appoint- 

 ed ambassador to Berlin, offered him a place 



j as attache, but he declined it, as he did not 

 wish to leave his mother. In 1821 Madame 

 Hugo died, and in 1822 Victor married Made- 

 moiselle Adele Foucher, whom he had loved 

 from childhood. Under an old agreement of the 

 fathers, the children had been pledged to each 



i other before they were born ; but the match had 



i been opposed by both families on account of the 

 youth and poverty of the parties to it. In 1823 

 Hugo received from Louis XVI II a pension of 

 1,000 francs, granted, it is said, for the singular 

 reason that the poet had written a letter, which 

 came into the hands of the police, offering shel- 

 ter to a youthful comrade named Delon, con- 

 demned for taking part in the conspiracy of 

 Saumur. This generous boldness on the part 

 of the young royalist poet touched the King's 



1 fancy. Hugo founded a journal, " Le Con- 

 servateur litteraire," in connection with his 



i brothers and several friends in 1819, and in it 

 many of his earlier poems appeared. The first 

 volume of " Odes," which in the edition of 



' 1826 was entitled " Odes et ballades," was 



I published in 1822, a mean-looking little book, 



1 which won literary success and the praise of 

 the King ; " Han d'Islande," in which a love- 

 idyl supposed to represent his own story is 

 given in gloomy setting, appeared in 1823 ; the 

 second volume of "Odes" in February, 1824; 

 " Bug-Jargal," written, it is said, on a wager, 

 in fifteen days, in 1818, and first printed in 

 "Le Conservateur," came out in book-form in 

 January, 1826 ; and the third volume of " Odes " 

 in October of the same year. After the pub- 

 lication of " Han d'Islande " the author was 

 made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and 

 received a second pension of 2,000 francs. In 

 December, 1827, Hugo published " Cromwell," 

 an unplayable drama, in the preface to which 

 he declared war upon the classic school. In 



i December, 1828, appeared " Les orientales," 

 containing some of the most peculiar and beau- 

 tiful of his poems. Though romanticism un- 



! der many able leaders was aggressive in every 

 department of art, Hugo was destined to be- 



j come its representative champion, and he re- 

 solved to make his fight upon the stage. His 



; first attempt was "Amy Robsart," dramatized 



ji from Scott's novel of " Kenilworth," in col- 

 laboration with a friend. It was produced at 



I the Ode" on, and was hissed. In June, 1829, he 

 wrote " Marion Delorme," and in September 



;' of the same year " Hernani." The representa- 

 VOL. xxv. 31 A 



tion of the former was forbidden by the cen- 

 sor; the latter was accepted in October and 

 played Feb. 26, 1830, and met with a brilliant 

 success, a motley crowd of the enthusiastic dis- 

 ciples of the romantic school gathering to sup- 

 port it. Hugo appealed to Charles X from the 

 action of the censor in the case of " Marion De- 

 lorme," but the King sustained the critic and 

 tried to soothe the poet with a pension of 

 4,000 francs, which was rejected. The play 

 was represented at the Porte Saint-Martin as 

 soon as the government of Charles X had passed 

 away. Nov. 22, 1832, "Le roi s'amuse" was 

 brought out at the Theatre Frangais, played 

 once, and then interdicted, ostensibly on the 

 ground of its immorality, but possibly because 

 it tended to bring kings into contempt. The 

 poet appealed to the courts against the or- 

 der forbidding the representation of his play, 

 but his appeal was dismissed, and he then re- 

 signed the pensions continued to him from the 

 former government. "Lucrece Borgia" and 

 "Marie Tudor," dramas in prose, were repre- 

 sented at the Porte Saint-Martin in 1833 ; " An- 

 gelo," also a drama in prose, at the Theatre 

 Francais in 1835 ; " Ruy Bias," at the Porte 

 Saint-Martin in 1838; and "Les Burgraves," 

 his last drama, was brought out in 1843. "Es- 

 meralda," an opera, had failed shortly after 

 the success of " Angelo." In the mean while 

 he was not idle in other departments of liter- 

 ary labor. " Le dernier jour d'un Condamne" " 

 was published in 1829. It is an analysis of 

 the last hours of a man condemned to death, 

 and has a political as well as a literary purpose, 

 aiming, as it does, at the abolition of capital 

 punishment. In March, 1831, was published 

 the great middle-age romance, " Notre Dame 

 de Paris," and in the same year a volume of 

 poems, "Feuilles d'automne." In 1834 ap- 

 peared " Claude Gueux," a second attack on 

 the death- penalty, and the "Etude sur Mira- 

 beau." "Chants du cre"puscule " was published 

 in 1835; "Voix inte>ieures," in 1837; "Les 

 rayons et les ombres," in 1840; "Lettres sur 

 le Rhin," picturesque sketches of travel, in 

 1842. So far as literature was concerned, the 

 classic and royalist youth had developed into 

 a romantic and revolutionary man : 

 " Fidele enfin au sang qu'ont verse" dans ma veine, 

 Mon pere vieux soldat, ma mere Vende'enne ! " 



The change in politics was more gradual; 

 but the poet's father, who died in 1828, lived 

 to see the genius of his son contributing to 

 building up the Napoleonic myth, and to en- 

 joy the "Ode d la colonne," in which he dedi- 

 cated the Vend6me column as a trophy to 

 the veterans of the empire. In 1829 he had 

 begun to feel some of the inconveniences of 

 legitimist rule, and he was in no mood to pro- 

 test against the Revolution of July, 1830. He 

 sang of the "Trois jours" in the most beauti- 

 ful verses that they have inspired. In 1837 

 Louis Philippe made him an officer of the Le- 

 gion of Honor, and June 3, 1841, he was elect- 

 ed a member of the French Academy, after 



