482 



HUGO, VICTOR-MARIE. 



missing an election in 1836, 1839, and 1840. 

 April 16, 1845, Louis Philippe made him a 

 member of the Chamber of Peers. In that 

 body he acted as an independent conservative, 

 and June 14, 1847, he pleaded eloquently for 

 the return of the political exiles, on the pre- 

 sentation of a petition from Jerome Bonaparte 

 for leave to re-enter France. After the Revo- 

 lution of February, 1848, he accepted the re- 

 public, "that majestic form of society, which 

 our fathers have seen grand and terrible in the 



HAUTBVILLE HOUSE, ISLAND OP GUERNSEY, THE HOME OP VICTOR HUGO. 



past, and which all of us hope to see grand 

 and beneficent in the future." He was chosen 

 to the Constituent Assembly as one of the 

 representatives of the city of Paris in June, 



That year he was chosen tenth on the list of 

 28 deputies from Paris to the National Assem- 

 bly. He soon put himself in opposition to the 

 administration of Louis Napoleon, chosen Presi- 

 dent Dec. 10, 1848. It was said that he was 

 disappointed in his hopes of obtaining high 

 office, and the famous description of the poet 

 as a man of affairs, published in his paper, was 

 quoted as betraying bis ambition: "Bras et 

 tete, cceur et pens6e, glaive et flambeau, doux 

 et fort, doux parce qu'il est fort et fort parce 

 qu'il est doux, con- 

 que>ant et legislateur, 

 roi et prophete, lyre et 

 epee, apotre et mes- 

 sie." No such petty 

 motive will explain his 

 subsequent career, and 

 his progress toward 

 advanced democracy 

 may be regarded as 

 the natural course of 

 his mind. He broke 

 with the reactionary 

 party July 10, 1849, 

 on the project for pub- 

 lic assistance, and Oct. 

 10, the same year, he 

 bitterly opposed the 

 intervention to over- 

 throw the Roman Re- 

 public. He became the 

 leader, orator, and or- 

 acle of the democracy, 

 in the discussion of 

 public education, the 

 reform of the elector- 

 al law, freedom of the 

 press, revision of the 

 Constitution. In 1851 

 he defended, eloquent- 

 ly but unsuccessfully, 

 his son accused for the 

 publication of an arti- 

 cle against the death- 

 penalty. Magnificent 

 courage not less than 

 splendid ability mark- 

 ed this era of political 



effort, and his great speeches have been com- 

 pared to storms ; but of course he was sneered 

 at for his sudden conversion to republicanism, 

 and his own royalist and Napoleonic odes were 



1848. Aug. 1, 1848, he founded " L'Evene- often quoted against him. He opposed the re- 

 ment," a paper on which his two sons, Gau- election of Louis Napoleon fiercely, and, about a 

 tier, and other friends, were engaged. He month before the coup d'etat, delivered a speech 

 criticised the administration of Gen. Cavaignac, of five hours' duration in which he inveighed 



against the re-establishment of the empire, 

 which he foresaw. When the coup d'etat took 

 place, Dec. 2, 1851, he was among the first 

 proscribed. He was one of those members of 

 the Assembly who, shut out of the Palais Bour 

 bon, held a meeting at the mairie of the tent 

 arrondissement, one of the committee of resis 

 ance that tried to organize against the usui 

 pation, and placarded Paris with a denuncia- 



and was for a time identified with the reac- 

 tionary party, but he kept his independence 

 of action, and while demanding with the Right 

 the abandonment of the scheme for the na- 

 tional employment of labor, and the formation 

 of tw ( chambers, he advocated, with the Left, 

 the liberty of the press, and the abolition of 

 the death-penalty. Jan. 10, 1849, he demanded 

 the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. 



