THE STORY OF THE HUGOS
Victor Hugo, after all criticisms have been made, stands as a literarycolossus. He had imaginative power which makes his finest passagesfairly crash upon the reader's brain like blasting thunderbolts. Hisnovels, even when translated, are read and reread by people of everydegree of education. There is something vast, something almost Titanic,about the grandeur and gorgeousness of his fancy. His prose resemblesthe sonorous blare of an immense military band. Readers of English careless for his poetry; yet in his verse one can find another phase of hisintellect. He could write charmingly, in exquisite cadences, poems forlovers and for little children. His gifts were varied, and he knewthoroughly the life and thought of his own countrymen; and, therefore,in his later days he was almost deified by them.
At the same time, there were defects in his intellect and characterwhich are perceptible in what he wrote, as well as in what he did. Hehad the Gallic wit in great measure, but he was absolutely devoid ofany sense of humor. This is why, in both his prose and his poetry, hismost tremendous pages often come perilously near to bombast; and thisis why, again, as a man, his vanity was almost as great as his genius.He had good reason to be vain, and yet, if he had possessed a gleam ofhumor, he would never have allowed his egoism to make him arrogant. Asit was, he felt himself exalted above other mortals. Whatever he did orsaid or wrote was right because he did it or said it or wrote it.
This often showed itself in rather whimsical ways. Thus, after he hadpublished the first edition of his novel, The Man Who Laughs, anEnglish gentleman called upon him, and, after some courteouscompliments, suggested that in subsequent editions the name of anEnglish peer who figures in the book should be changed from TomJim-Jack.
"For," said the Englishman, "Tom Jim-Jack is a name that could notpossibly belong to an English noble, or, indeed, to any Englishman. Thepresence of it in your powerful story makes it seem to English readersa little grotesque."
Victor Hugo drew himself up with an air of high disdain.
"Who are you?" asked he.
"I am an Englishman," was the answer, "and naturally I know what namesare possible in English."
Hugo drew himself up still higher, and on his face there was a smile ofutter contempt.
"Yes," said he. "You are an Englishman; but I--I am Victor Hugo."
In another book Hugo had spoken of the Scottish bagpipes as "bugpipes."This gave some offense to his Scottish admirers. A great many personstold him that the word was "bagpipes," and not "bugpipes." But hereplied with irritable obstinacy:
"I am Victor Hugo; and if I choose to write it 'bugpipes,' it IS'bugpipes.' It is anything that I prefer to make it. It is so, becauseI call it so!"
So, Victor Hugo became a violent republican, because he did not wishFrance to be an empire or a kingdom, in which an emperor or a kingwould be his superior in rank. He always spoke of Napoleon III as "M.Bonaparte." He refused to call upon the gentle-mannered Emperor ofBrazil, because he was an emperor; although Dom Pedro expressed anearnest desire to meet the poet.
When the German army was besieging Paris, Hugo proposed to fight a duelwith the King of Prussia, and to have the result of it settle the war;"for," said he, "the King of Prussia is a great king, but I am VictorHugo, the great poet. We are, therefore, equal."
In spite, however, of his ardent republicanism, he was very fond ofspeaking of his own noble descent. Again and again he styled himself "apeer of France;" and he and his family made frequent allusions to theknights and bishops and counselors of state with whom he claimed anancestral relation. This was more than inconsistent. It was somewhatludicrous; because Victor Hugo's ancestry was by no means noble. TheHugos of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were not in any wayrelated to the poet's family, which was eminently honest andrespectable, but by no means one of distinction. His grandfather was acarpenter. One of his aunts was the wife of a baker, another of abarber, while the third earned her living as a provincial dressmaker.
If the poet had been less vain and more sincerely democratic, he wouldhave been proud to think that he sprang from good, sound, sturdy stock,and would have laughed at titles. As it was, he jeered at allpretensions of rank in other men, while he claimed for himselfdistinctions that were not really his. His father was a soldier whorose from the ranks until, under Napoleon, he reached the grade ofgeneral. His mother was the daughter of a ship owner in Nantes.
Victor Hugo was born in February, 1802, during the Napoleonic wars, andhis early years were spent among the camps and within the sound of thecannon-thunder. It was fitting that he should have been born and rearedin an age of upheaval, revolt, and battle. He was essentially thelaureate of revolt; and in some of his novels--as in Ninety-Three--thedrum and the trumpet roll and ring through every chapter.
The present paper has, of course, nothing to do with Hugo's publiclife; yet it is necessary to remember the complicated nature of theman--all his power, all his sweetness of disposition, and likewise allhis vanity and his eccentricities. We must remember, also, that he wasFrench, so that his story may be interpreted in the light of the Frenchcharacter.
At the age of fifteen he was domiciled in Paris, and though still aschoolboy and destined for the study of law, he dreamed only of poetryand of literature. He received honorable mention from the FrenchAcademy in 1817, and in the following year took prizes in a poeticalcompetition. At seventeen he began the publication of a literaryjournal, which survived until 1821. His astonishing energy becameevident in the many publications which he put forth in these boyishdays. He began to become known. Although poetry, then as now, was notvery profitable even when it was admired, one of his slender volumesbrought him the sum of seven hundred francs, which seemed to him notonly a fortune in itself, but the forerunner of still greaterprosperity.
It was at this time, while still only twenty years of age, that he meta young girl of eighteen with whom he fell rather tempestuously inlove. Her name was Adele Foucher, and she was the daughter of a clerkin the War Office. When one is very young and also a poet, it takesvery little to feed the flame of passion. Victor Hugo was often a guestat the apartments of M. Foucher, where he was received by thatgentleman and his family. French etiquette, of course, forbade anydirect communication between the visitor and Adele. She was still avery young girl, and was supposed to take no share in the conversation.Therefore, while the others talked, she sat demurely by the firesideand sewed.
Her dark eyes and abundant hair, her grace of manner, and the picturewhich she made as the firelight played about her, kindled a flame inthe susceptible heart of Victor Hugo. Though he could not speak to her,he at least could look at her; and, before long, his share in theconversation was very slight. This was set down, at first, to hisabsent-mindedness; but looks can be as eloquent as spoken words. Mme.Foucher, with a woman's keen intelligence, noted the adoring gaze ofVictor Hugo as he silently watched her daughter. The young Adeleherself was no less intuitive than her mother. It was very wellunderstood, in the course of a few months, that Victor Hugo was in lovewith Adele Foucher.
Her father and mother took counsel about the matter, and Hugo himself,in a burst of lyrical eloquence, confessed that he adored Adele andwished to marry her. Her parents naturally objected. The girl was but achild. She had no dowry, nor had Victor Hugo any settled income. Theywere not to think of marriage. But when did a common-sense decision,such as this, ever separate a man and a woman who have felt the thrillof first love! Victor Hugo was insistent. With his supremeself-confidence, he declared that he was bound to be successful, andthat in a very short time he would be illustrious. Adele, on her side,created "an atmosphere" at home by weeping frequently, and by goingabout with hollow eyes and wistful looks.
The Foucher family removed from Paris to a country town. Victor Hugoimmediately followed them. Fortunately for him, his poems had attractedthe attention of Louis XVIII, who was flattered by some of the verses.He sent Hugo five hundred francs for an ode, and soon afterward settledupon him a pension of a thousand francs. Here at
least was an income--avery small one, to be sure, but still an income. Perhaps Adele's fatherwas impressed not so much by the actual money as by the evidence of theroyal favor. At any rate, he withdrew his opposition, and the two youngpeople were married in October, 1822--both of them being under age,unformed, and immature.
Their story is another warning against too early marriage. It is truethat they lived together until Mme. Hugo's death--a married life offorty-six years--yet their story presents phases which would have madethis impossible had they not been French.
For a time, Hugo devoted all his energies to work. The record of hissteady upward progress is a part of the history of literature, and neednot be repeated here. The poet and his wife were soon able to leave thelatter's family abode, and to set up their own household god in a homewhich was their own. Around them there were gathered, in a sort ofsalon, all the best-known writers of the day--dramatists, critics,poets, and romancers. The Hugos knew everybody.
Unfortunately, one of their visitors cast into their new life a drop ofcorroding bitterness. This intruder was Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve,a man two years younger than Victor Hugo, and one who blended learning,imagination, and a gift of critical analysis. Sainte-Beuve is to-daybest remembered as a critic, and he was perhaps the greatest criticever known in France. But in 1830 he was a slender, insinuating youthwho cultivated a gift for sensuous and somewhat morbid poetry.
He had won Victor Hugo's friendship by writing an enthusiastic noticeof Hugo's dramatic works. Hugo, in turn, styled Sainte-Beuve "aneagle," "a blazing star," and paid him other compliments no lessgorgeous and Hugoesque. But in truth, if Sainte-Beuve frequented theHugo salon, it was less because of his admiration for the poet thanfrom his desire to win the love of the poet's wife.
It is quite impossible to say how far he attracted the seriousattention of Adele Hugo. Sainte-Beuve represents a curious type, whichis far more common in France and Italy than in the countries of thenorth. Human nature is not very different in cultivated circlesanywhere. Man loves, and seeks to win the object of his love; or, asthe old English proverb has it:
It's a man's part to try, And a woman's to deny.
But only in the Latin countries do men who have tried make theirattempts public, and seek to produce an impression that they have beensuccessful, and that the woman has not denied. This sort of man, inEnglish-speaking lands, is set down simply as a cad, and is excludedfrom people's houses; but in some other countries the thing is regardedwith a certain amount of toleration. We see it in the two books writtenrespectively by Alfred de Musset and George Sand. We have seen it stilllater in our own times, in that strange and half-repulsive story inwhich the Italian novelist and poet, Gabriele d'Annunzio, under a verythin disguise, revealed his relations with the famous actress, EleanoraDuse. Anglo-Saxons thrust such books aside with a feeling of disgustfor the man who could so betray a sacred confidence and perhapsexaggerate a simple indiscretion into actual guilt. But it is not so inFrance and Italy. And this is precisely what Sainte-Beuve attempted.
Dr. George McLean Harper, in his lately published study ofSainte-Beuve, has summed the matter up admirably, in speaking of TheBook of Love:
He had the vein of emotional self-disclosure, the vein of romantic orsentimental confession. This last was not a rich lode, and so he was atpains to charge it secretly with ore which he exhumed gloatingly, butwhich was really base metal. The impulse that led him along this falseroute was partly ambition, partly sensuality. Many a worse man wouldhave been restrained by self-respect and good taste. And no man with asense of honor would have permitted The Book of Love to see thelight--a small collection of verses recording his passion for Mme.Hugo, and designed to implicate her.
He left two hundred and five printed copies of this book to bedistributed after his death. A virulent enemy of Sainte-Beuve was nottoo expressive when he declared that its purpose was "to leave on thelife of this woman the gleaming and slimy trace which the passage of asnail leaves on a rose." Abominable in either case, whether or not theimplication was unfounded, Sainte-Beuve's numerous innuendoes in regardto Mme. Hugo are an indelible stain on his memory, and his infamy notonly cost him his most precious friendships, but crippled him in everyhigh endeavor.
How monstrous was this violation of both friendship and love may beseen in the following quotation from his writings:
In that inevitable hour, when the gloomy tempest and the jealous gulfshall roll over our heads, a sealed bottle, belched forth from theabyss, will render immortal our two names, their close alliance, andour double memory aspiring after union.
Whether or not Mme. Hugo's relations with Sainte-Beuve justified thelatter even in thinking such thoughts as these, one need not inquiretoo minutely. Evidently, though, Victor Hugo could no longer be thefriend of the man who almost openly boasted that he had dishonored him.There exist some sharp letters which passed between Hugo andSainte-Beuve. Their intimacy was ended.
But there was something more serious than this. Sainte-Beuve had infact succeeded in leaving a taint upon the name of Victor Hugo's wife.That Hugo did not repudiate her makes it fairly plain that she wasinnocent; yet a high-spirited, sensitive soul like Hugo's could neverforget that in the world's eye she was compromised. The two still livedtogether as before; but now the poet felt himself released from thestrict obligations of the marriage-bond.
It may perhaps be doubted whether he would in any case have remainedfaithful all his life. He was, as Mr. H.W. Wack well says, "a man ofpowerful sensations, physically as well as mentally. Hugo pursued everyopportunity for new work, new sensations, fresh emotion. He desired toabsorb as much on life's eager forward way as his great nature craved.His range in all things--mental, physical, and spiritual--was so farbeyond the ordinary that the gage of average cannot be applied to him.The cavil of the moralist did not disturb him."
Hence, it is not improbable that Victor Hugo might have broken throughthe bonds of marital fidelity, even had Sainte-Beuve never written hisabnormal poems; but certainly these poems hastened a result which mayor may not have been otherwise inevitable. Hugo no longer turned whollyto the dark-haired, dark-eyed Adele as summing up for him the whole ofwomanhood. A veil was drawn, as it were, from before his eyes, and helooked on other women and found them beautiful.
It was in 1833, soon after Hugo's play "Lucrece Borgia" had beenaccepted for production, that a lady called one morning at Hugo's housein the Place Royale. She was then between twenty and thirty years ofage, slight of figure, winsome in her bearing, and one who knew thearts which appeal to men. For she was no inexperienced ingenue. Thename upon her visiting-card was "Mme. Drouet"; and by this name she hadbeen known in Paris as a clever and somewhat gifted actress. TheophileGautier, whose cult was the worship of physical beauty, wrote in almostlyric prose of her seductive charm.
At nineteen, after she had been cast upon the world, dowered with thatterrible combination, poverty and beauty, she had lived openly with asculptor named Pradier. This has a certain importance in the history ofFrench art. Pradier had received a commission to execute a statuerepresenting Strasburg--the statue which stands to-day in the Place dela Concorde, and which patriotic Frenchmen and Frenchwomen drape inmourning and half bury in immortelles, in memory of that city of Alsacewhich so long was French, but which to-day is German--one of Germany'sgreat prizes taken in the war of 1870.
Five years before her meeting with Hugo, Pradier had rather brutallysevered his connection with her, and she had accepted the protection ofa Russian nobleman. At this time she was known by her realname--Julienne Josephine Gauvin; but having gone upon the stage, sheassumed the appellation by which she was thereafter known, that ofJuliette Drouet.
Her visit to Hugo was for the purpose of asking him to secure for her apart in his forth-coming play. The dramatist was willing, butunfortunately all the major characters had been provided for, and hewas able to offer her only the minor one of the Princesse Negroni. Thecharming deference with which she accepted the offered part attractedHugo's
attention. Such amiability is very rare in actresses who havehad engagements at the best theaters. He resolved to see her again; andhe did so, time after time, until he was thoroughly captivated by her.
She knew her value, and as yet was by no means infatuated with him. Atfirst he was to her simply a means of getting on in herprofession--simply another influential acquaintance. Yet she brought tobear upon him the arts at her command, her beauty and her sympathy,and, last of all, her passionate abandonment.
Hugo was overwhelmed by her. He found that she was in debt, and hemanaged to see that her debts were paid. He secured her otherengagements at the theater, though she was less successful as anactress after she knew him. There came, for a time, a short break intheir relations; for, partly out of need, she returned to her Russiannobleman, or at least admitted him to a menage a trois. Hugo underwentfor a second time a great disillusionment. Nevertheless, he was not tooproud to return to her and to beg her not to be unfaithful any more.Touched by his tears, and perhaps foreseeing his future fame, she gaveher promise, and she kept it until her death, nearly half a centurylater.
Perhaps because she had deceived him once, Hugo never completely losthis prudence in his association with her. He was by no means lavishwith money, and he installed her in a rather simple apartment only ashort distance from his own home. He gave her an allowance that wasrelatively small, though later he provided for her amply in his will.But it was to her that he brought all his confidences, to her heentrusted all his interests. She became to him, thenceforth, much morethan she appeared to the world at large; for she was his friend, and,as he said, his inspiration.
The fact of their intimate connection became gradually known throughParis. It was known even to Mme. Hugo; but she, remembering the affairof Sainte-Beuve, or knowing how difficult it is to check the will of aman like Hugo, made no sign, and even received Juliette Drouet in herown house and visited her in turn. When the poet's sons grew up tomanhood, they, too, spent many hours with their father in the littlesalon of the former actress. It was a strange and, to an Anglo-Saxonmind, an almost impossible position; yet France forgives much togenius, and in time no one thought of commenting on Hugo's manner oflife.
In 1851, when Napoleon III seized upon the government, and when Hugowas in danger of arrest, she assisted him to escape in disguise, andwith a forged passport, across the Belgian frontier. During his longexile in Guernsey she lived in the same close relationship to him andto his family. Mme. Hugo died in 1868, having known for thirty-threeyears that she was only second in her husband's thoughts. Was she doingpenance, or was she merely accepting the inevitable? In any case, herposition was most pathetic, though she uttered no complaint.
A very curious and poignant picture of her just before her death hasbeen given by the pen of a visitor in Guernsey. He had met Hugo and hissons; he had seen the great novelist eating enormous slices of roastbeef and drinking great goblets of red wine at dinner, and he had alsowatched him early each morning, divested of all his clothing andsplashing about in a bath-tub on the top of his house, in view of allthe town. One evening he called and found only Mme. Hugo. She wasreclining on a couch, and was evidently suffering great pain.Surprised, he asked where were her husband and her sons.
"Oh," she replied, "they've all gone to Mme. Drouet's to spend theevening and enjoy themselves. Go also; you'll not find it amusing here."
One ponders over this sad scene with conflicting thoughts. Was therereally any truth in the story at which Sainte-Beuve more than hinted?If so, Adele Hugo was more than punished. The other woman had sinnedfar more; and yet she had never been Hugo's wife; and hence perhaps itwas right that she should suffer less. Suffer she did; for after herdevotion to Hugo had become sincere and deep, he betrayed herconfidence by an intrigue with a girl who is spoken of as "Claire." Theknowledge of it caused her infinite anguish, but it all came to an end;and she lived past her eightieth year, long after the death of Mme.Hugo. She died only a short time before the poet himself was laid torest in Paris with magnificent obsequies which an emperor might haveenvied. In her old age, Juliette Drouet became very white and very wan;yet she never quite lost the charm with which, as a girl, she had wonthe heart of Hugo.
The story has many aspects. One may see in it a retribution, or one maysee in it only the cruelty of life. Perhaps it is best regarded simplyas a chapter in the strange life-histories of men of genius.