Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo[1] (French:[viktɔʁmaʁiyɡo]ⓘ; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a FrenchRomantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms.
Although he was a committedroyalist when young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed, and he became a passionate supporter ofrepublicanism, serving in politics as both deputy and senator. His work touched upon most of the political and social issues and the artistic trends of his time. His opposition toabsolutism, and his literary stature, established him as a national hero. Hugo died on 22 May 1885, aged 83. He was given astate funeral in thePanthéon ofParis, which was attended by over two million people, the largest in French history.[2]
Victor-Marie Hugo was born on 26 February 1802 (7Ventôse,year X of the Republic[3]) inBesançon in Eastern France. He was the youngest son ofJoseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1774–1828), a general in theNapoleonic army, andSophie Trébuchet (1772–1821). The couple had two other sons:Abel Joseph (1798–1855) andEugène (1800–1837). The Hugo family came fromNancy inLorraine, where Hugo's grandfather was a wood merchant. Léopold enlisted in the army ofRevolutionary France at fourteen. He was an atheist and an ardent supporter of the Republic. Hugo's mother Sophie was loyal to the deposeddynasty but would declare her children to be Protestants.[4][5][6] They met inChâteaubriant in 1796 and married the following year.[7]
Since Hugo's father was an officer in Napoleon's army, the family moved frequently from posting to posting. Léopold Hugo wrote to his son that he had been conceived on one of the highest peaks in theVosges Mountains, on a journey from Lunéville to Besançon. "This elevated origin," he went on, "seems to have had effects on you so that your muse is now continually sublime."[8] Hugo believed himself to have been conceived on 24 June 1801, which is the origin ofJean Valjean's prisoner number24601.[9]
In 1810, Hugo's father was made Count Hugo de Cogolludo y Sigüenza by then King of SpainJoseph Bonaparte,[10] though it seems that the Spanish title was not legally recognized in France. Hugo later titled himself as a viscount, and it was as "Vicomte Victor Hugo" that he was appointed apeer of France on 13 April 1845.[11][12]
Weary of the constant moving required by military life, Sophie separated temporarily from Léopold and settled in Paris in 1803 with her sons. There, she began seeing GeneralVictor Fanneau de La Horie, Hugo's godfather, who had been a comrade of General Hugo's during the campaign in Vendee. In October 1807, the family rejoined Leopold, now Colonel Hugo, Governor of the province ofAvellino. There, Hugo was taught mathematics byGiuseppe de Samuele Cagnazzi, elder brother of Italian scientistLuca de Samuele Cagnazzi.[13] Sophie found out that Leopold had been living in secret with an Englishwoman called Catherine Thomas.[14]
Soon, Hugo's father was called to Spain to fight thePeninsular War. Madame Hugo and her children were sent back to Paris in 1808, where they moved to an old convent, 12Impasse des Feuillantines, an isolated mansion in a deserted quarter of the left bank of the Seine. Hiding in a chapel at the back of the garden was de La Horie, who had conspired to restore the Bourbons and been condemned to death a few years earlier. He became a mentor to Hugo and his brothers.[15]
In 1811, the family joined their father in Spain. Hugo and his brothers were sent to school in Madrid at theReal Colegio de San Antonio de Abad while Sophie returned to Paris on her own, now officially separated from her husband. In 1812, as the Peninsular War was turning against France, de La Horie was arrested and executed. In February 1815, Hugo and Eugène were taken away from their mother and placed by their father in the Pension Cordier, a private boarding school in Paris, where Hugo and Eugène remained for three years while also attending lectures atLycée Louis le Grand.[16]
On 10 July 1816, Hugo wrote in his diary: "I shall beChateaubriand or nothing." In 1817, he wrote a poem for a competition organised by theAcademie Française, for which he received an honorable mention. The Academicians refused to believe that he was only fifteen.[17] Hugo moved in with his mother to 18rue des Petits-Augustins the following year and began attending law school. Hugo fell in love and secretly became engaged, against his mother's wishes, to his childhood friendAdèle Foucher. In June 1821, Sophie Trebuchet died, and Léopold married his long-time mistress Catherine Thomas a month later. Hugo married Adèle the following year. In 1819, Hugo and his brothers began publishing a periodical calledLe Conservateur littéraire.[18]
Like many young writers of his generation, Hugo was profoundly influenced byFrançois-René de Chateaubriand, the famous figure in the literary movement ofRomanticism and France's pre-eminent literary figure during the early 19th century. In his youth, Hugo resolved to be "Chateaubriand or nothing", and his life would come to parallel that of his predecessor in many ways. LikeChateaubriand, Hugo furthered the cause of Romanticism, became involved in politics (though mostly as a champion ofRepublicanism), and was forced into exile due to his political stances. Along with Chateaubriand he attended theCoronation of Charles X inReims in 1825.[19]
The precocious passion and eloquence of Hugo's early work brought success and fame at an early age. His first collection of poetry (Odes et poésies diverses) was published in 1822 when he was only 20 years old and earned him a royal pension fromLouis XVIII. Though the poems were admired for their spontaneous fervor and fluency, the collection that followed four years later in 1826 (Odes et Ballades) revealed Hugo to be a great poet, a natural master of lyric and creative song.
Victor Hugo in 1829, lithograph by Achille Devéria in the collection of theNational Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.Jean Valjean (also known as Monsieur Madeleine in the book)[20] is the principal character in Hugo's great novel,Les Misérables.
Victor Hugo's first mature work of fiction was published in February 1829 by Charles Gosselin without the author's name and reflected the acute social conscience that would infuse his later work.Le Dernier jour d'un condamné (The Last Day of a Condemned Man) would have a profound influence on later writers such asAlbert Camus,Charles Dickens, andFyodor Dostoyevsky.Claude Gueux, a documentary short story about a real-life murderer who had been executed in France, was published in 1834. Hugo himself later considered it to be a precursor to his great work on social injustice,Les Misérables.
Hugo became the figurehead of the Romantic literary movement with the playsCromwell (1827) andHernani (1830).[21]Hernani announced the arrival of French romanticism: performed at theComédie-Française, it was greeted with several nights of rioting as romantics and traditionalists clashed over the play's deliberate disregard for neo-classical rules. Hugo's popularity as a playwright grew with subsequent plays, such asMarion Delorme (1831),Le roi s'amuse (1832), andRuy Blas (1838).[22] Hugo's novelNotre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) was published in 1831 and quickly translated into other languages across Europe. One of the effects of the novel was to shame the City of Paris into restoring the much neglectedCathedral of Notre Dame, which was attracting thousands of tourists who had read the popular novel.
Hugo began planning a major novel about social misery and injustice as early as the 1830s, but a full 17 years were needed forLes Misérables to be realised and finally published in 1862. Hugo had previously used the departure of prisoners for theBagne of Toulon inLe Dernier Jour d'un condamné. He went to Toulon to visit the Bagne in 1839 and took extensive notes, though he did not start writing the book until 1845. On one of the pages of his notes about the prison, he wrote in large block letters a possible name for his hero: "JEAN TRÉJEAN". When the book was finally written, Tréjean becameJean Valjean.[23]
Hugo was acutely aware of the quality of the novel, as evidenced in a letter he wrote to his publisher, Albert Lacroix, on 23 March 1862: "My conviction is that this book is going to be one of the peaks, if not the crowning point of my work."[24] Publication ofLes Misérables went to the highest bidder. The Belgian publishing houseLacroix andVerboeckhoven undertook a marketing campaign unusual for the time, issuing press releases about the work a full six months before the launch. It also initially published only the first part of the novel ("Fantine"), which was launched simultaneously in major cities. Installments of the book sold out within hours and had an enormous impact on French society.
The critical establishment was generally hostile to the novel;Taine found it insincere,Barbey d'Aurevilly complained of its vulgarity,Gustave Flaubert found within it "neither truth nor greatness", theGoncourt brothers lambasted its artificiality, andBaudelaire—despite giving favourable reviews in newspapers—castigated it in private as "repulsive and inept". However,Les Misérables proved popular enough with the masses that the issues it highlighted were soon on the agenda of theNational Assembly of France. Today, the novel remains his best-known work. It is popular worldwide and has been adapted for cinema, television, and stage shows.
An apocryphal tale[25] has circulated, describing the shortest correspondence in history as having been between Hugo and his publisherHurst and Blackett in 1862. Hugo was on vacation whenLes Misérables was published. He queried the reaction to the work by sending a single-charactertelegram to his publisher, asking?. The publisher replied with a single! to indicate its success.[26] Hugo turned away from social/political issues in his next novel,Les Travailleurs de la Mer (Toilers of the Sea), published in 1866. The book was well received, perhaps due to the previous success ofLes Misérables. Dedicated to the channel island ofGuernsey, where Hugo spent 15 years of exile, the novel tells of a man who attempts to win the approval of his beloved's father by rescuing his ship, intentionally marooned by its captain who hopes to escape with a treasure of money it is transporting, through an exhausting battle of human engineering against the force of the sea and an almost mythical beast of the sea, agiant squid. Superficially an adventure, one of Hugo's biographers calls it a "metaphor for the 19th century–technical progress, creative genius and hard work overcoming the immanent evil of the material world."[27]
The word used in Guernsey to refer to squid (pieuvre, also sometimes applied to octopus) was to enter the French language as a result of its use in the book. Hugo returned to political and social issues in his next novel,L'Homme Qui Rit (The Man Who Laughs), which was published in 1869 and painted a critical picture of the aristocracy. The novel was not as successful as his previous efforts, and Hugo himself began to comment on the growing distance between himself and literary contemporaries such asFlaubert andÉmile Zola, whoserealist andnaturalist novels were now exceeding the popularity of his own work.
His last novel,Quatre-vingt-treize (Ninety-Three), published in 1874, dealt with a subject that Hugo had previously avoided: theReign of Terror during theFrench Revolution. Though Hugo's popularity was on the decline at the time of its publication, many now considerNinety-Three to be a work on par with Hugo's better-known novels.
Portrait as member of theNational Assembly of the Second Republic, 1848
After three unsuccessful attempts, Hugo was finally elected to theAcadémie française in 1841, solidifying his position in the world of French arts and letters. A group of French academicians, particularlyÉtienne de Jouy, were fighting against the "romantic evolution" and had managed to delay Victor Hugo's election.[28] Thereafter, he became increasingly involved in French politics.
In 1848, Hugo waselected to the National Assembly of theSecond Republic as a conservative. In 1849, he broke with the conservatives when he gave a noted speech calling for the end of misery and poverty. Other speeches called for universal suffrage and free education for all children. Hugo's advocacy to abolish the death penalty was renowned internationally.[note 1]
When Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III)seized complete power in 1851, establishing an anti-parliamentary constitution, Hugo openly declared him a traitor to France. He moved toBrussels, thenJersey, from which he was expelled for supportingL'Homme, a local newspaper that had published a letter toQueen Victoria by a French republican deemedtreasonous. He finally settled with his family atHauteville House inSaint Peter Port,Guernsey, where he would live in exile from October 1855 until 1870.
The wretched moral character of Thénardier, the frustrated bourgeois, was hopeless; it was in America what it had been in Europe. Contact with a wicked man is sometimes enough to rot a good deed and cause something bad to come out of it. With Marius's money, Thénardier became a slave trader.
Like most of his contemporaries, Hugo justified colonialism in terms of acivilizing mission and putting an end to theslave trade on the Barbary coast. In a speech delivered on 18 May 1879, during a banquet to celebrate the abolition of slavery, in the presence of the French abolitionist writer and parliamentarian Victor Schœlcher, Hugo declared that theMediterranean Sea formed a natural divide between "ultimate civilisation and... utter barbarism." Hugo declared that "God offers Africa to Europe. Take it" and "in the nineteenth century the white man made a man out of the black, in the twentieth century Europe will make a world out of Africa".[31]
This might partly explain why, in spite of his deep interest and involvement in political matters, he remained silent on the Algerian issue. He knew about the atrocities committed by the French Army during theFrench conquest of Algeria as evidenced by his diary[32] but he never denounced them publicly; however, inLes Misérables, Hugo wrote: "Algeria too harshly conquered, and, as in the case of India by the English, with more barbarism than civilization."[33]
Victor Hugo in 1861
After coming in contact withVictor Schœlcher, a writer who fought for the abolition of slavery and French colonialism in the Caribbean, he started strongly campaigning against slavery. In a letter to American abolitionistMaria Weston Chapman, on 6 July 1851, Hugo wrote: "Slavery in the United States! It is the duty of this republic to set such a bad example no longer... The United States must renounce slavery, or they must renounce liberty."[34] In 1859, he wrote a letter asking the United States government, for the sake of their own reputation in the future, to spare abolitionistJohn Brown's life, Hugo justified Brown's actions by these words: "Assuredly, if insurrection is ever a sacred duty, it must be when it is directed against Slavery."[35] Hugo agreed to diffuse and sell one of his best known drawings, "Le Pendu", an homage to John Brown, so one could "keep alive in souls the memory of this liberator of our black brothers, of this heroic martyr John Brown, who died for Christ just as Christ.[36]
Only one slave on Earth is enough to dishonour the freedom of all men. So the abolition of slavery is, at this hour, the supreme goal of the thinkers.
As a novelist, diarist, and member of Parliament, Victor Hugo fought a lifelong battle for the abolition of the death penalty.The Last Day of a Condemned Man published in 1829 analyses the pangs of a man awaiting execution; several entries inThings Seen (Choses vues), the diary he kept between 1830 and 1885, convey his firm condemnation of what he regarded as a barbaric sentence;[38] on 15 September 1848, seven months after theRevolution of 1848, he delivered a speech before the Assembly and concluded, "You have overthrown the throne. ... Now overthrow the scaffold."[39] His influence was credited in the removal of the death penalty from the constitutions ofGeneva,Portugal, andColombia.[40] He had also pleaded forBenito Juárez to spare the recently captured emperorMaximilian I of Mexico, but to no avail.[41]
Although Napoleon III granted an amnesty to all political exiles in 1859, Hugo declined, as it meant he would have to curtail his criticisms of the government. It was only after Napoleon III fell from power and theThird Republic was proclaimed that Hugo finally returned to his homeland in 1870, where he was promptly elected to the National Assembly and the Senate.
He was in Paris during thesiege by the Prussian Army in 1870, famously eating animals given to him by the Paris Zoo. As the siege continued, and food became ever more scarce, he wrote in his diary that he was reduced to "eating the unknown".[42]
Communards defending a barricade on the Rue de Rivoli
During theParis Commune—the revolutionary government that took power on 18 March 1871 and was toppled on 28 May—Victor Hugo was harshly critical of the atrocities committed on both sides. On 9 April, he wrote in his diary, "In short, this Commune is as idiotic as the National Assembly is ferocious. From both sides, folly."[43] Yet he made a point of offering his support to members of the Commune subjected to brutal repression. He had been inBrussels since 22 March 1871 when in the 27 May issue of the Belgian newspaperl'Indépendance Victor Hugo denounced the government's refusal to grant political asylum to the Communards threatened with imprisonment, banishment or execution.[44] This caused so much uproar that in the evening a mob of fifty to sixty men attempted to force their way into the writer's house shouting, "Death to Victor Hugo! Hang him! Death to the scoundrel!"[45]
Hugo, who said "A war between Europeans is a civil war,"[46] was a strong advocate for the creation of theUnited States of Europe. He expounded his views on the subject in a speech he delivered during theInternational Peace Congress which took place in Paris in 1849.[47] Here he declared "nations of the continent, will, without losing your distinctive qualities and glorious individuality, be blended into a superior unity and constitute a European fraternity, just asNormandy,Brittany,Burgundy,Lorraine, have been blended into France", this new state would be administered by "a great Sovereign senate which will be to Europe what the Parliament is to England".[48]
Because of his concern for the rights of artists andcopyright, he was a founding member of theAssociation Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, which led to theBerne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. However, inPauvert's published archives, he states strongly that "any work of art has two authors: the people who confusingly feel something, a creator who translates these feelings, and the people again who consecrate his vision of that feeling. When one of the authors dies, the rights should totally be granted back to the other, the people." He was one of the earlier supporters of the concept ofdomaine public payant, under which a nominal fee would be charged for copying or performing works in the public domain, and this would go into a common fund dedicated to helping artists, especially young people.
Hugo's religious views changed radically over the course of his life. In his youth and under the influence of his mother, he identified as a Catholic and professed respect for Church hierarchy and authority. From there he became anon-practising Catholic and increasingly expressed anti-Catholic andanti-clerical views. He frequentedspiritism during his exile (where he participated also in manyséances conducted by MadameDelphine de Girardin)[49][50] and in later years settled into arationalistdeism similar to that espoused byVoltaire. A census-taker asked Hugo in 1872 if he was a Catholic, and he replied, "No. AFreethinker."[51]
After 1872, Hugo never lost his antipathy towards the Catholic Church. He felt the Church was indifferent to the plight of the working class under the oppression of the monarchy. Perhaps he also was upset by the frequency with which his work appeared on the Church'slist of banned books. Hugo counted 740 attacks onLes Misérables in the Catholic press.[52] When Hugo's sons Charles andFrançois-Victor died, he insisted that they be buried without acrucifix or priest. In his will, he made the same stipulation about his own death and funeral.[53]
Yet he believed in life after death and prayed every single morning and night, convinced as he wrote inThe Man Who Laughs that "Thanksgiving has wings and flies to its right destination. Your prayer knows its way better than you do."[54]
Hugo'srationalism can be found in poems such asTorquemada (1869, aboutreligious fanaticism),The Pope (1878,anti-clerical),Religions and Religion (1880, denying the usefulness of churches) and, published posthumously,The End of Satan andGod (1886 and 1891 respectively, in which he represents Christianity as agriffin andrationalism as anangel).The Hunchback of Notre-Dame also garnered attention due to its portrayal of the abuse of power by the church, even getting listed as one of the "forbidden books" by it. In fact, earlier adaptations had to change the villain,Claude Frollo from being a priest to avoid backlash.[55]
Although Hugo's many talents did not include exceptional musical ability, he nevertheless had a great impact on the music world through the inspiration that his works provided for composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Hugo himself particularly enjoyed the music ofGluck,Mozart,Weber andMeyerbeer. InLes Misérables, he calls the huntsman's chorus in Weber'sEuryanthe, "perhaps the most beautiful piece of music ever composed".[57] He also greatly admiredBeethoven and, rather unusually for his time, appreciated works by composers from earlier centuries such asPalestrina andMonteverdi.[58]
Two famous musicians of the 19th century were friends of Hugo:Hector Berlioz andFranz Liszt. The latter played Beethoven in Hugo's home, and Hugo joked in a letter to a friend that, thanks to Liszt's piano lessons, he learned how to play a favourite song on the piano – with only one finger. Hugo also worked with composerLouise Bertin, writing the libretto for her 1836 operaLa Esmeralda, which was based on the character inThe Hunchback of Notre Dame.[58] Although for various reasons the opera closed soon after its fifth performance and is little known today, it has enjoyed a modern revival, both in a piano/song concert version by Liszt at theFestival international Victor Hugo et Égaux 2007[59] and in a full orchestral version presented in July 2008 atLe Festival de Radio France et Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon.[60] He was also on friendly terms withFrederic Chopin. He introduced him toGeorge Sand who would be his lover for years. In 1849, Hugo attended Chopin's funeral.
On the other hand, he had low esteem forRichard Wagner, whom he described as "a man of talent coupled with imbecility."[61]
Well over one thousand musical compositions have been inspired by Hugo's works from the 19th century until the present day. In particular, Hugo's plays, in which he rejected the rules of classical theatre in favour of romantic drama, attracted the interest of many composers who adapted them into operas. More than one hundred operas are based on Hugo's works and among them areDonizetti'sLucrezia Borgia (1833),Verdi'sRigoletto (1851) andErnani (1844), andPonchielli'sLa Gioconda (1876).[62]
Hugo's novels, as well as his plays, have been a great source of inspiration for musicians, stirring them to create not only opera and ballet but musical theatre such asNotre-Dame de Paris and the ever-popularLes Misérables, LondonWest End's longest running musical. Additionally, Hugo's poems have attracted an exceptional amount of interest from musicians, and numerous melodies have been based on his poetry by composers such asBerlioz,Bizet,Fauré,Franck,Lalo,Liszt,Massenet,Saint-Saëns,Rachmaninoff, andWagner.[62]
Today, Hugo's work continues to stimulate musicians to create new compositions. For example, Hugo's novel against capital punishment,The Last Day of a Condemned Man, was adapted into an opera byDavid Alagna, with a libretto byFrédérico Alagna and premièred by their brother, tenorRoberto Alagna, in 2007.[63] In Guernsey, every two years, the Victor Hugo International Music Festival attracts a wide range of musicians and the premiere of songs specially commissioned from such composers asGuillaume Connesson,Richard Dubugnon [fr],Olivier Kaspar, andThierry Escaich and based on Hugo's poetry.
Remarkably, not only has Hugo's literary production been the source of inspiration for musical works, but also his political writings have received attention from musicians and have been adapted to music. For instance, in 2009, Italian composer Matteo Sommacal was commissioned by Festival "Bagliori d'autore" and wrote a piece for speaker and chamber ensemble entitledActes et paroles, with a text elaborated by Chiara Piola Caselli after Victor Hugo's last political speech addressed to the Assemblée législative, "Sur la Revision de la Constitution" (18 July 1851),[64] and premiered in Rome on 19 November 2009, in the auditorium of the Institut français, Centre Saint-Louis, French Embassy to the Holy See, by Piccola Accademia degli Specchi featuring the composerMatthias Kadar [nl].[65]
Caricature of Hugo in the London magazineVanity Fair, September 1879Funeral procession of Victor Hugo arriving at thePanthéon
When Hugo returned to Paris in 1870, the country hailed him as a national hero. He was confident that he would be offered the dictatorship, as shown by the notes he kept at the time: "Dictatorship is a crime. This is a crime I am going to commit," but he felt he had to assume that responsibility.[66] Despite his popularity, Hugo lost his bid for re-election to the National Assembly in 1872.
Throughout his life Hugo kept believing in unstoppable humanistic progress. In his last public address on 3 August 1879 he prophesied, in an over-optimistic way, "In the twentieth century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, hatred will be dead, frontier boundaries will be dead, dogmas will be dead; man will live."[67]
Within a brief period, he suffered a mild stroke, his daughter Adèle was interned in aninsane asylum, and his two sons died. (Adèle's biography inspired the movieThe Story of Adele H.) His wife Adèle had died in 1868.
Hugo on his deathbed (photographed byNadar)Tomb of Victor Hugo at thePanthéon
His faithful mistress,Juliette Drouet, died in 1883, only two years before his own death. Despite his personal loss, Hugo remained committed to the cause of political change. On 30 January 1876, he was elected to the newly created Senate. This last phase of his political career was considered a failure. Hugo was a maverick and achieved little in the Senate. He suffered a mild stroke on 27 June 1878.[68][69] To honour the fact that he was entering his 80th year, he received one of the greatest tributes to a living writer ever held. The celebrations began on 25 June 1881, when Hugo was presented with aSèvres vase, the traditional gift for sovereigns. On 27 June, one of the largest parades in French history was held.
Marchers stretched from theAvenue d'Eylau, where the author was living, down theChamps-Élysées, and all the way to the centre of Paris. The paraders marched for six hours past Hugo as he sat at the window at his house. Every inch and detail of the event was for Hugo; the official guides even wore cornflowers as an allusion to Fantine's song inLes Misérables. On 28 June, the city of Paris changed the name of the Avenue d'Eylau toAvenue Victor-Hugo.[70] Letters addressed to the author were from then on labelled "To Mister Victor Hugo, In his avenue, Paris". Two days before dying, he left a note with these last words: "To love is to act."
On 20 May 1885,le Petit Journal published the official medical bulletin on Hugo's health condition. "The illustrious patient" was fully conscious and aware that there was no hope for him. They also reported from a reliable source that at one point in the night he had whispered the followingalexandrin, "En moi c’est le combat du jour et de la nuit."—"In me, this is the battle between day and night."[71]Le Matin published a slightly different version: "Here is the battle between day and night."
Hugo died on May 22, 1885, at 50 Avenue Victor Hugo (now number 124). His death, from pneumonia, generated intense national mourning. He was not only revered as a towering figure in literature, he was a statesman who shaped theThird Republic and democracy in France. All his life he remained a defender of liberty, equality and fraternity as well as an adamant champion of French culture. In 1877, aged 75, he wrote, "I am not one of these sweet-tempered old men. I am still exasperated and violent. I shout and I feel indignant and I cry. Woe to anyone who harms France! I do declare I will die a fanatic patriot."[72]
Crowd of mourners at the funeral, 1 June 1885.
Although he had requested a pauper's funeral, by decree of PresidentJules Grévy he was awarded a state funeral, an event described byNietzsche as a "veritable orgy of bad taste".[73] More than two million people joined Hugo's funeral procession in Paris from theArc de Triomphe to thePanthéon, where he was buried. He shares a crypt within thePanthéon withAlexandre Dumas andÉmile Zola. Most large French towns and cities have a street or square named after him.
Hugo left five sentences as his last will, to be officially published:
Je donne cinquante mille francs aux pauvres. Je veux être enterré dans leur corbillard. Je refuse l'oraison de toutes les Églises. Je demande une prière à toutes les âmes. Je crois en Dieu.
I leave 50,000 francs to the poor. I wish to be buried in their hearse. I refuse [funeral] orations from all Churches. I ask [for] a prayer to all souls. I believe in God.
Hugo produced more than 4,000 drawings, with about 3,000 drawings still in existence. Originally pursued as a casual hobby, drawing became more important to Hugo shortly before his exile when he made the decision to stop writing to devote himself to politics. Drawing became his exclusive creative outlet between 1848 and 1851.[74][75]
Hugo worked only on paper, and on a small scale; usually in dark brown or blackpen-and-ink wash, sometimes with touches of white, and rarely with colour.[76]
Hugo marriedAdèle Foucher in October 1822. Despite their respective affairs, they lived together for nearly 46 years until she died in August 1868. Hugo, who was still banished from France, was unable to attend her funeral in Villequier, where their daughter Léopoldine was buried. From 1830 to 1837, Adèle had an affair withCharles-Augustin Sainte Beuve, a reviewer and writer.[77]
Adèle and Victor Hugo had their first child, Léopold, in 1823, but the boy died in infancy. On 28 August 1824, the couple's second child,Léopoldine, was born, followed byCharles on 4 November 1826,François-Victor on 28 October 1828, andAdèle on 28 July 1830.
Hugo's eldest and favourite daughter, Léopoldine, died in 1843 at the age of 19, shortly after her marriage to Charles Vacquerie. On 4 September, she drowned in theSeine atVillequier when the boat she was in overturned. Her young husband died trying to save her. The death left her father devastated; Hugo was travelling at the time, in the south of France, when he first learned about Léopoldine's death from a newspaper that he read in a café.[78]
Léopoldine reading. Drawing by her motherAdèle Foucher, 1837
He describes his shock and grief in his famous poem "À Villequier":
Hélas ! vers le passé tournant un œil d'envie, Sans que rien ici-bas puisse m'en consoler, Je regarde toujours ce moment de ma vie Où je l'ai vue ouvrir son aile et s'envoler!
Je verrai cet instant jusqu'à ce que je meure, L'instant, pleurs superflus ! Où je criai : L'enfant que j'avais tout à l'heure, Quoi donc ! je ne l'ai plus !
Alas! My envious eye, turning toward the past, Without anything else down here able to console me, I look continually at that moment of my life Where I saw her spread her wings and fly away!
I will see that instant until I die, That instant, nothing beyond! Where I cried: "The child I had a short time ago, What! I have her no more!"
He wrote many poems afterward about his daughter's life and death. His most famous poem is "Demain, dès l'aube" (Tomorrow, at Dawn), in which he describes visiting her grave.
Hugo decided to live in exile afterNapoleon III'scoup d'état at the end of 1851. After leaving France, Hugo lived in Brussels briefly in 1851, and then moved to theChannel Islands, first to Jersey (1852–1855) and then to the smaller island of Guernsey in 1855, where he stayed until Napoleon III's fall from power in 1870. Although Napoleon III proclaimed a general amnesty in 1859, under which Hugo could have safely returned to France, the author stayed in exile, only returning when Napoleon III was removed from power by the creation of theFrench Third Republic in 1870, as a result of the French defeat at theBattle of Sedan in theFranco-Prussian War. After theSiege of Paris from 1870 to 1871, Hugo lived again in Guernsey from 1872 to 1873, and then finally returned to France for the remainder of his life. In 1871, after the death of his son Charles, Hugo took custody of his grandchildrenJeanne and Georges-Victor.
From February 1833 until her death in 1883,Juliette Drouet devoted her whole life to Victor Hugo, who never married her even after his wife died in 1868. He took her on his numerous trips and she followed him in exile onGuernsey.[79] There Hugo rented a house for her nearHauteville House, his family home. She wrote some 20,000 letters in which she expressed her passion or vented her jealousy on her womanizing lover.[80]On 25 September 1870 during theSiege of Paris (19 September 1870 – 28 January 1871) Hugo feared the worst. He left his children a note reading as follows:
"J.D.She saved my life in December 1851. For me she underwent exile. Never has her soul forsaken mine. Let those who have loved me love her. Let those who have loved me respect her.She is my widow."V.H.[81]
For more than seven years, Léonie d'Aunet, who was a married woman, was involved in a love relationship with Hugo. Both were caught in adultery on 5 July 1845. Hugo, who had been a Member of theChamber of Peers since April, avoided condemnation whereas his mistress had to spend two months in prison and six in a convent. Many years after their separation, Hugo made a point of supporting her financially.[82]
Hugo gave free rein to his libido until a few weeks before his death. He sought a wide variety of women of all ages, be they courtesans, actresses, prostitutes, admirers, servants or revolutionaries likeLouise Michel for sexual activity. Both agraphomaniac anderotomaniac, he systematically reported his casual affairs using his own code, asSamuel Pepys did, to make sure they would remain secret. For instance, he resorted to Latin abbreviations (osc. for kisses) or to Spanish (Misma. Mismas cosas: The same. Same things). Homophones are frequent:Seins (Breasts) becomes Saint;Poële (Stove) actually refers toPoils (Pubic hair). Analogy also enabled him to conceal the real meaning: A woman'sSuisses (Swiss) are her breasts—because Switzerland is renowned for its milk. After a rendezvous with a young woman namedLaetitia he would writeJoie (Happiness) in his diary. If he addedt.n. (toute nue) he meant she stripped naked in front of him. The initialsS.B. discovered in November 1875 may refer toSarah Bernhardt.[83]
Victor Hugo acquired several nicknames. The first one originated from his own description ofShakespeare in the introduction to his eponymous work. In this introduction toWilliam Shakespeare (essay), he tried to delve into what constituted the genius of certain artists and described Shakespeare as an "Ocean Man":[84][85][86]
There were indeed ocean men. [...] all of this could exist within a mind, and then that mind is called genius, and you haveAeschylus, you haveIsaiah, you haveJuvenal, you haveDante, you haveMichelangelo, you haveShakespeare, and it is the same thing to gaze upon these souls or to gaze upon the Ocean.
During his lifetime and in the 1870s, the expression to describe him entered popular culture.[87][88] It was later adopted by authors and literary critics, including Joseph Serre, who identified it with an expression he himself coined.[89][90] This nickname became widespread during the 20th century and was used by theNational Library of France when organizing an exhibition about him.[84] Since then, it has been frequently used in research and literary critics.[91][92][93][94] Alongside "Ocean Man," the nickname "Horizon Man" was sometimes used during Hugo's lifetime as well.[87] Finally, researchers and literary critics, such asHenri Meschonnic, proposed the nickname "Century Man" to refer to Victor Hugo.[95]
Avenue Victor-Hugo in Paris.Statue of Victor Hugo in Rome, Italy. It is across from the Museo Carlo Bilotti on Viale Fiorello La Guardia.
His legacy has been honored in many ways, including his portrait being placed on French currency.
The people ofGuernsey erected a statue by sculptorJean Boucher inCandie Gardens (Saint Peter Port) to commemorate his stay in the islands. The City of Paris has preserved his residencesHauteville House,Guernsey, and6, Place des Vosges, Paris, as museums. The house where he stayed inVianden, Luxembourg, in 1871 has also become a commemorative museum.
TheAvenue Victor-Hugo in the16th arrondissement of Paris bears Hugo's name and links thePlace de l'Étoile to the vicinity of theBois de Boulogne by way of thePlace Victor-Hugo. This square is served by aParis Métrostop also named in his honour. In the town ofBéziers there is a main street, a school, hospital and several cafés named after Hugo, and a number of streets and avenues throughout France are named after him. The schoolLycée Victor Hugo was founded in his town of birth,Besançon in France.Avenue Victor-Hugo, located inShawinigan, Quebec, was named to honour him. A street in San Francisco, Hugo Street, is named for him.[96]
A 1959 French banknote featuring Hugo
In the city ofAvellino, Italy, Victor Hugo briefly stayed in what is now known asIl Palazzo Culturale when reuniting with his father,Leopold Sigisbert Hugo, in 1808. Hugo would later write about his brief stay here, quoting"C'était un palais de marbre..." ("It was a palace ofmarble").
Les Misérables (1862) - mega-novel, initially begun asLes Misères. 7 chapters from Book 7 of Part 3 were excised byAlbert Lacroix at the time of publication. None of the English translations include the excised chapters but some French editions include them as Appendix or in Notes.
Les Misères (1845-48) - two draft versions ofLes Misérables - not yet translated into English but available online in French
^These parliamentary speeches are published inŒuvres complètes: actes et paroles I : avant l'exil, 1841–1851. Scroll down to theAssemblée Constituante 1848 heading and subsequent pages.[29]
^On the role of E. de Jouy against V. Hugo, seeLes aventures militaires, littéraires et autres de Etienne de Jouy de l'Académie française byMichel Faul (Editions Seguier, France, 2009ISBN978-2-84049-556-7)
^Gallego Urrutia, María Teresa (2013).Los miserables (in European Spanish) (orhi ed.). Madrid: Biblioteca de Traductores. p. 1784.(From castilian in the original Maria Teresa Gallego Urrutia' translation
^In God's Empire French Missionaries and the Modern World. Oxford University Press. 2012. p. 62.
^Hugo, Victor (1972).Choses Vues. Paris: Gallimard. pp. 286–87.ISBN2-07-040217-7.
^Les Misérables, Random House Publishing Group, 2000, 1280 pages,ISBN9780679641551, p. 720.
^Peace Congress, 2d, Paris, 1849. Report of the proceedings of the second general Peace Congress, held in Paris on the 22, 23, and 24 August 1849. Compiled from authentic documents under the superintendence of the Peace Congress Committee. London, Charles Gilpin, 1849
^Malgras, J. (1906).Les Pionniers du Spiritisme en France: Documents pour la formation d'un livre d'Or des Sciences Psychiques. Paris.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Chez Victor Hugo. Les tables tournantes de Jersey. Extracts from meeting minutes published byGustave Simon in 1923
^Hugo, Victor (1864),William Shakespeare, Paris: A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven et Cie, éditeurs, pp. v–46, retrieved28 November 2023
^Prévost, Marie-Laure; Hugo, Victor; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, eds. (2002).Victor Hugo, l'homme océan: publié à l'occasion de l'Exposition "Victor Hugo, l'Homme Océan", présentée par la Bibliothèque Nationale de France ... du 20 mars au 23 juin 2002. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France [u.a.]ISBN978-2-7177-2201-7.
^"Cao Dai | Syncretic faith, Divine Eye, Divine Path | Britannica".www.britannica.com. Retrieved19 April 2024.Its pantheon of saints includes such diverse figures as the Buddha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, Muḥammad, Pericles, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Victor Hugo, and Sun Yat-sen.
Afran, Charles (1997)."Victor Hugo: French Dramatist". Website: Discover France. (Originally published inGrolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1997, v.9.0.1.) Retrieved November 2005.
Barbou, Alfred (1882).Victor Hugo and His Times. University Press of the Pacific: 2001 paperback edition.ISBN0-89875-478-X
Barnett, Marva A., ed. (2009).Victor Hugo on Things That Matter: A Reader. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.ISBN0-300-12245-4
Bates, Alfred (1906)."Victor Hugo". Website: Theatre History. (Originally published inThe Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, vol. 9. ed. Alfred Bates. London: Historical Publishing Company, 1906. pp. 11–13.) Retrieved November 2005.
Bates, Alfred (1906)."Hernani". Website: Theatre History. (Originally published inThe Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, vol. 9. ed. Alfred Bates. London: Historical Publishing Company, 1906. pp. 20–23.) Retrieved November 2005.
Bates, Alfred (1906)."Hugo's Cromwell". Website: Theatre History. (Originally published inThe Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, vol. 9. ed. Alfred Bates. London: Historical Publishing Company, 1906. pp. 18–19.) Retrieved November 2005.
Brombert, Victor H. (1984).Victor Hugo and the Visionary Novel. Boston: Harvard University Press.ISBN0-674-93550-0
Burnham, I.G. (1896)."Amy Robsart". Website: Theatre History. (Originally published inVictor Hugo: Dramas. Philadelphia: The Rittenhouse Press, 1896. pp. 203–06, 401–02.) Retrieved November 2005.
Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition (2001–05)."Hugo, Victor Marie, Vicomte". Website: Bartleby, Great Books Online. Retrieved November 2005. Retrieved November 2005.
Davidson, A.F. (1912).Victor Hugo: His Life and Work. University Press of the Pacific: 2003 paperback edition.ISBN1-4102-0778-1
Dow, Leslie Smith (1993).Adele Hugo: La Miserable. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions.ISBN0-86492-168-3
Falkayn, David (2001).Guide to the Life, Times, and Works of Victor Hugo. University Press of the Pacific.ISBN0-89875-465-8
Feller, Martin (1988).Der Dichter in der Politik. Victor Hugo und der Deutsch-Französische Krieg von 1870/71. Untersuchungen zum französischen Deutschlandbild und zu Hugos Rezeption in Deutschland. Marburg: Doctoral Dissertation.
Frey, John Andrew (1999).A Victor Hugo Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press.ISBN0-313-29896-3
Grant, Elliot (1946).The Career of Victor Hugo. Harvard University Press. Out of print.
Haine, W. Scott (1997)."Victor Hugo". Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. Website: Ohio University. Retrieved November 2005.
Halsall, A.W. et al. (1998).Victor Hugo and the Romantic Drama. University of Toronto Press.ISBN0-8020-4322-4
Hart, Simon Allen (2004).Lady in the Shadows: The Life and Times of Julie Drouet, Mistress, Companion and Muse to Victor Hugo. Publish American.ISBN1-4137-1133-2
Houston, John Porter (1975).Victor Hugo. New York: Twayne Publishers.ISBN0-8057-2443-5
Hovasse, Jean-Marc (2001),Victor Hugo: Avant l'exil. Paris: Fayard.ISBN2-213-61094-0
Hovasse, Jean-Marc (2008),Victor Hugo: Pendant l'exil I. Paris: Fayard.ISBN2-213-62078-4
Ireson, J.C. (1997).Victor Hugo: A Companion to His Poetry. Clarendon Press.ISBN0-19-815799-1
Robb, Graham (1997)."A Sabre in the Night". Website:The New York Times (Books). (Excerpt from Graham, Robb (1997).Victor Hugo: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.) Retrieved November 2005.
