Chapter 2

The defence of the weak by the strong is one of his constant themes, as witness _Éviradnus_, _Le Petit Roi de Galice_, _Les Pauvres Gens._ The contrast of the weak and the strong is one of his favourite artistic effects, as witness _Booz endormi_, _La Confiance du Marquis Falrice._ An act of pity redeemed Sultan Mourad, an act of pity made the poor ass greater than all the philosophers. It was this absorbing pity for the defenceless that made Hugo so merciless to the oppressor and so incapable of seeing anything but the deepest black in the picture of the tyrant. One-sided the poet may be, but it is the one-sidedness of a generous nature; he may err, but his errors at least lean to the side of virtue.

It would be impossible in the brief space of an introduction such as this to discuss at any length the characteristics of Hugo as a literary artist, but a few remarks may be made on some of the features of his art which are most conspicuous in the poems selected for this volume. It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the poet's extraordinary fecundity of words and images. Occasionally, especially in his later works, this degenerates into diffuseness, and he exhibits a tendency to repetition and a fondness for long enumeration of names and details. On the other hand, he constantly shows how well he understood the power of brevity and compression. There is not a superfluous word nor a poetic image in _La Conscience_, the severe and simple style of which is well suited to the sternness of the subject. The story of _Après la Bataille_ is related with telling conciseness, while in the highly finished work of _Booz endormi_ there are no redundant phrases. The many variations on the same theme in _Aymerillot_ may be criticized as tedious, but there underlies them the artistic purpose of intensifying the reader's sense of the cowardice of the nobles by an accumulation of examples. A like criticism and a like defence may be made of the long list of the crimes of Sultan Mourad, though here perhaps the poet's torrent of facts goes beyond the point at which the amassing of details is effective. On the other hand, the swiftness of the narrative of the _Mariage de Roland_, and the soldierly brevity of the _Cimetière d'Eylau_, a piece not included in this volume, are alike admirable, and show Hugo at his best as a story-teller.

One of the most marked features of Hugo's poetry is his custom of attributing human desires and volition to inanimate objects. To Hugo, the whole universe seemed to be alive, both as a whole and in each of its separate parts, and his way of humanizing the inanimate is not so much a conscious literary artifice as the natural habit of his imagination. The tendency is not confined to his poetry; readers of his romances will remember the gargoyles of Notre-Dame and the cannon which got loose in the hold of the _Claymore_ and became 'une bête surnaturelle.' But the instances in his romantic poetry are naturally more numerous and more vivid. The swords of the heroes are always alive; in the duel between Roland and Olivier:

Durandal heurte et suit Closamont.

In the combat between Roland and his enemies in the _Petit Roi de Galice_, the hero staggers and Froïla leaps forward to crush him:

Mais Durandal se dresse et jette Froïla Sur Pacheco, dont l'âme en ce moment hurla.

The statues in the hall at Final are moved at the gentle tread of Fabrice and his little ward, and seem to bow to them as they pass.

Chaque statue, émue à leur pas doux et sombre, Vibre, et toutes ont l'air de saluer dans l'ombre, Les héros le vieillard, et les anges l'enfant.

But the most striking instance of this tendency occurs in _Éviradnus_, where, from beginning to end, all that surrounds the actors in the story lives with a passionate life. The trees that overhear the plot of Sigismond and Ladislas tremble and moan, and the words that issue from the lips of the miscreants are dark with shadow or red with blood. The half-ruined castle of Corbus fights with the winter, like a strong man with his enemies; the gargoyles on its towers bark at the winds, the graven monsters on the ramparts snarl and snort, the sculptured lions claw and bite the wind and rain[4]. In the gloomy halls the griffins seize with their teeth the great beams of the roofs, and the door is afraid of the noise of its own opening. The very shadows feel fear and the pillars are chilled with terror. The armour of the horses and the men is terribly alive, and charger and knight make but one monster, clothed in scales of steel.

[Footnote 4: With this picture in verse of the fight between the castle and the storm should be compared the prose picture of the fight between the fire and the water in _Le Rhin_ (Lettre xix).]

Hugo loves especially to endow with life objects that suggest a struggle. It is the wrecked and broken ship of _Pleine Mer_ rather than the triumphant vessel of _Plein Ciel_ that is animate.

Ce Titan se rua, joyeux, dans la tempête; * * * * * Quand il marchait, fumant, grondant, couvert de toile, Il jetait un tel râle â l'air épouvanté Que toute l'eau tremblait. * * * * * Et pour l'âme il avait dans sa cale un enfer.

Allied with this habit of vivifying the inanimate is the more subtle artifice of transfiguring or magnifying concrete objects, so that they become symbolic without ceasing to be real. This blending of the actual and the figurative is seen in the description of the King and Emperor in _Éviradnus:_

Leurs deux figures sont lugubrement grandies Par de rouges reflets de sacs et d'incendies. * * * * * Leurs ongles monstrueux, crispés sur des rapines, Égratignent le pâle et triste continent.

In _La Confiance du Marquis Fabrice_ the reality of the wine and the suggestion of the blood are very artfully mingled

Quelque chose de rouge entre les dalles fume, Mais, si tiède que soit cette douteuse écume, Assez de barils sont éventrés et crevés Pour que ce soit du vin qui court les pavés.

Another remarkable feature of Hugo's literary art is the feeling for light and shade which it displays. He likes to wrap his poems in a physical atmosphere of brightness or gloom, corresponding to the sentiment which pervades them. How, for instance, in _Les Orientales_, that exquisite little gem, _Sarah la Baigneuse_, flashes and sparkles with light! How striking in _La Fin de Satan_ is the contrast between the murky atmosphere in which the maker of crosses works and the bright sunshine in which Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem is bathed! With what consummate art the darkness of the Crucifixion is made to accentuate the horror of the event!

L'ombre immense avait l'air d'une accusation; Le monde était couvert d'une nuit infamante; C'était l'accablement plus noir que la tourmente, La morne extinction de l'haleine et du bruit.

Contrast the radiance of the dawn in which the Satyr, the emblem of strong and joyous Nature, is first seen:

C'était l'heure où sortaient les chevaux du soleil; Le ciel tout frémissant du glorieux réveil, Ouvrant les deux battants de sa porte sonore, Blancs, ils apparaissaient formidables d'aurore; Derrière eux, comme un orbe effrayant, couvert d'yeux, Éclatait la rondeur du char radieux * * * * * Les quatre ardents chevaux dressaient leur poitrail d'or; Faisant leurs premiers pas, ils se cabraient encor Entre la zone obscure et la zone enflammée; De leurs crins, d'où semblait sortir une fumée De perles, de saphirs, d'onyx, de diamants, Dispersée et fuyante au fond des éléments, Les trois premiers, l'oeil fier, la narine embrasée, Secouaient dans le jour des gouttes de rosée; Le dernier secouait des astres dans la nuit.

In _La Confiance du Marquis Fabrice_ light and shadow are very skilfully managed. We see the little princess Isora making her toilet in the early morning, when everything is fresh and bright. It is in the dawn that she loves to play. But the banquet of death takes place at night in a dimly lighted hall, when the lack of clear light adds to the horror of the scene. Note the Rembrandtesque effects in such phrases: 'aux tremblantes clartés,' 'l'ombre indistincte,' 'à travers l'ombre, on voit toutes les soifs infâmes,' and it ends in 'le triomphe de l'ombre,' a phrase in which the literal and the figurative are subtly blended together. On the other hand, how everything sparkles and gleams in _Le Mariage de Roland_! Olivier's sword-point glitters like the eye of a demon, while Durandal shines as he falls on his foeman's head; the sunshine is all round them in the day, and the night passes quickly; sparks fly from the weapons as they strike one another, and light up the very shadows with a dull flash. Take again _La Rose de l'Infante_. Everything round the little princess is bright: 'le profond jardin rayonnant et fleuri,' 'un grand palais comme au fond d'une gloire,' 'de clairs viviers,' 'des paons étoilés.' The very grass, too, seems to sparkle with diamonds and rubies. But Philip is a dark shadow, half hidden in mist:

On voit d'en bas une ombre, au fond d'une vapeur, De fenêtre à fenêtre errer, et l'on a peur.

He is always dressed in black:

Toujours vêtu de noir, ce tout-puissant terrestre Avait l'air d'être en deuil de ce qu'il existait.

No light is ever seen in his palaces:

L'Escurial, Burgos, Aranjuez, ses repaires, Jamais n'illuminaient leurs livides plafonds.

His eye shines, it is true, but it is a gleam that suggests a darkness beneath:

Sa prunelle Luit comme un soupirail de caverne.

Note again the oppressive darkness of the opening lines of _Pleine Mer_, in which the only touch of light is the winding-sheet of the waves, and contrast it with the atmosphere of light which surrounds the ship in _Plein Ciel_, where even the night is bright:

La Nuit tire du fond des gouffres inconnus Son filet où luit Mars, où rayonne Vénus.

_Le Crapaud_ is wrapped in the light of sunset:

Le couchant rayonnait dans les nuages roses; C'était la fin d'un jour d'orage, et l'occident Changeait l'ondée en flamme en son brasier ardent. * * * * * Les feuilles s'empourpraient dans les arbres vermeils; L'eau miroitait, mêlée à l'herbe, dans l'ornière.

And this because sunset is the hour for gentle thoughts and quiet feeling:

Dans la sérénité du pâle crépuscule, La brute par moments pense et sent qu'elle est soeur De la mystérieuse et profonde douceur.

So strong is Hugo's feeling for light and shadow that he often seems to solidify them, as it were, into concrete objects. When the trap-door in the hall of Corbus is opened

Il en sort de l'ombre, ayant l'odeur du crime,

and in the pit are seen

D'ombres tâtant le mur et de spectres reptiles.

In _Les Pauvres Gens_

La morte écoute l'ombre avec stupidité.

In _Fabrice_

L'aïeul semble d'ombre et de pierre construit.

The light seems solid in this line from _Le Satyre_:

Son pied fourchu faisait des trous dans la lumière.

Again, in _La Conscience_, shadow is vast and oppressive:

L'ombre des tours faisait la nuit dans les campagnes.

And in _Au Lion d'Androclès_ it is the fitting emblem of the human race in a degenerate age:

La créature humaine, importune au ciel bleu, Faisait une ombre affreuse à la cloison de Dieu.

Very curious is the connexion between the legends of a countryside and the smoke of its cottages in the lines:

Les légendes toujours mêlent quelque fantôme A l'obscure vapeur qui sort des toits de chaume, L'âtre enfante le rêve, et l'on voit ondoyer L'effroi dans la fumée errante du foyer. (_Éviradnus_.)

Of the infinite variety of Hugo's poetic gifts such a selection as is contained in this volume can of course give but a very inadequate idea. The extraordinary versatility and fecundity of his genius can be appreciated only by those who have read all, or at least much, of his output. But the first series of the _Légende_ is perhaps that part of the poet's work in which substance and beauty, original thought and vivid expression, are found in the most perfect combination. Written in middle life, it stands midway between his earlier poetry with its more lyric note and his later work with its deeper and more prophetic tones. In point of expression the poet's powers had attained their full development; he has perfect command of rime; the versification is free and shows no trace of the stilted style of his first volumes; the language is copious and eloquent, but exhibits few signs of that verbosity and tendency to vain repetition which, as has been already remarked, marred some of his later poetry. In the _Légende_, no doubt, are a thousand extravagances, _bizarreries_, anachronisms, and negligences. But the greatest poet is not, like the greatest general, he who makes fewest mistakes, but he who expresses the noblest and truest feeling in the noblest and truest language. So judged, the _Légende_ will take its place amongst the best that the nineteenth century produced in poetry.

G. F. BRIDGE.

LONDON, _March_, 1907.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Victor-Marie Hugo, son of an officer in Napoleon's army, was born at Besançon on February 26, 1802. He spent a roving and unsettled childhood, for wherever the father was sent the mother and children followed. The first three years of his life were spent in Elba, where he learnt to speak the Italian dialect spoken in the island in addition to his mother tongue. Then for three years the family was in Paris and Victor got a little education in a small school. But in 1805 the father was appointed to a post in the army of Naples, and in the autumn of 1807 his wife and children joined him at Avellino. Two years later General Hugo was invited by Joseph Bonaparte to fill an important position in the kingdom of Spain, and, desirous that his sons should receive a good education, he sent his family to Paris, where his wife chose for their home the house in the Rue des Feuillantines which has been so charmingly described by the poet in the lines _Ce qui se passait aux Feuillantines_. There he learnt much from an old soldier, General Lahorie, who, obnoxious to Napoleon for the share he had taken in Moreau's plot, lived secretly in the house, and from an old priest named Larivière, who came every day to teach the three brothers. There too he played in the garden with the little Adèle Foucher, who afterwards became his wife. But this quiet home life did not last long. In 1811 Madame Hugo set off to join her husband at Madrid, and the boys went with her. At Madrid they were sent to a school kept by Priests where Victor was not very happy, and from which he got small profit. Next year the whole family returned to Paris, and in 1815, at the age of thirteen, he was definitely sent to a boarding-school to prepare for the École Polytechnique. But his was a precocious genius, and he devoted himself, even at school, to verse-writing with greater ardour than to study. He wrote in early youth more than one poem for a prize competition, composed a romance which some years later he elaborated into the story _Bug-Jargal_, and in 1820, when only eighteen, joined his two brothers, Abel and Eugène, in publishing a literary journal called _Le Conservateur Littéraire_. About the same time he became engaged to Adèle Foucher, and wrote for her the romance of _Han d'Islande_, which, however, was not published till later. In 1822 he and Adèle were married, and in the same year he published his first volume of _Odes_. He was now fully launched on a literary career, and for twenty years or more the story of his life is mainly the story of his literary output. In 1827 he published his drama of _Cromwell_, the preface to which, with its note of defiance to literary convention, caused him to be definitely accepted as the head of the Romantic School of poetry. _Les Orientales_, _Le dernier jour d'un condamné_, _Marion de Lorme_, and _Hernani_ followed in quick succession. The revolution of 1830 disturbed for a moment his literary activity, but as soon as things were quiet again he shut himself in his study with a bottle of ink, a pen, and an immense pile of paper. For six weeks he was never seen, except at dinner-time, and the result was _Notre-Dame de Paris_. During the next ten years four volumes of poetry and four dramas were published; in 1841 came his election to the Academy, and in 1843 he published _Les Burgraves_, a drama which was less successful than his former plays, and which marks the close of his career as a dramatist. In the same year there came to him the greatest sorrow of his life. His daughter Léopoldine, to whom he was deeply attached, was drowned with her husband during a pleasure excursion on the Seine only a few months after their marriage.

In 1845 Hugo began to take an active part in politics. Son of a Vendean mother, he had been in early life a fervent royalist, and even in 1830 he could write of the fallen royal family with respectful sympathy. Yet by that time his democratic leanings had declared themselves, and he accepted the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe only as a step towards a republic, for which he considered France was not yet ripe. In 1845 the king made him a peer of France, but this did not prevent him from throwing himself with all the ardour of his nature into the revolution of 1848. Divining the ambition of Louis Napoleon, he resisted his growing power, and when the Second Empire was established the poet was among the first who were exiled from France. He took refuge first in Jersey, and afterwards in Guernsey, where he lived in a house near the coast, from the upper balcony of which the cliffs of Normandy could sometimes be discerned. Thence he launched against the usurper a bitter prose satire, _Napoléon le Petit_, and a still bitterer satire in verse, _Les Châtiments_, and there he wrote two of his greatest novels, _Les Travailleurs de la Mer_ and _Les Misérables_, two of his finest volumes of poetry, _Les Contemplations_, the greater part of the first series of _La Légende des Siècles_, and the two remarkable religious poems, _Dieu_ and _La Fin de Satan_. He returned to France on the fall of Napoleon in 1870, to be for fifteen years the idol of the people, who regarded him as the incarnation of the spirit of liberty. Several volumes of poetry were issued during those fifteen years, notably _L'Année Terrible_, _Les Quatre Vents de l'Esprit_, and a second series of _La Légende des Siècles_, none perhaps equal as a whole to the best of his earlier volumes, but all, especially the second-named, abounding in beautiful and striking poetry. He died in 1885, and was buried in a manner befitting one who had filled Europe with his fame, and had been for so many years the 'stormy voice of France.'

PRÉFACE DE LA PREMIÈRE SÉRIE

_Hauteville-House, Septembre 1857,_

Les personnes qui voudront bien jeter un coup d'oeil sur ce livre ne s'en feraient pas une idée précise, si elles y voyaient autre chose qu'un commencement.

Ce livre est-il donc un fragment? Non. Il existe à part. Il a, comme on le verra, son exposition, son milieu et sa fin.

Mais, en même temps, il est, pour ainsi dire, la première page d'un autre livre.

Un commencement peut-il être un tout? Sans doute. Un péristyle est un édifice.

L'arbre, commencement de la forêt, est un tout. Il appartient à la vie isolée, par la racine, et à la vie en commun, par la sève. A lui seul, il ne prouve que l'arbre, mais il annonce la forêt.

Ce livre, s'il n'y avait pas quelque affectation dans des comparaisons de cette nature, aurait, lui aussi, ce double caractère. Il existe solitairement et forme un tout; il existe solidairement et fait partie d'un ensemble.

Cet ensemble, que sera-t-il?

Exprimer l'humanité dans une espèce d'oeuvre cyclique; la peindre successivement et simultanément sous tous ses aspects, histoire, fable, philosophie, religion, science, lesquels se résument en un seul et immense mouvement d'ascension vers la lumière; faire apparaître dans une sorte de miroir sombre et clair--que l'interruption naturelle des travaux terrestres brisera probablement avant qu'il ait la dimension rêvée par l'auteur--cette grande figure une et multiple, lugubre et rayonnante, fatale et sacrée, l'Homme; voilà de quelle pensée, de quelle ambition, si l'on veut, est sortie _La Légende des Siècles_.

Le volume qu'on va lire n'en contient que la première partie, la première série, comme dit le titre.

Les poèmes qui composent ce volume ne sont donc autre chose que des empreintes successives du profil humain, de date en date, depuis Ève, mère des hommes, jusqu'à la Révolution, mère des peuples; empreintes prises, tantôt sur la barbarie, tantôt sur la civilisation, presque toujours sur le vif de l'histoire; empreintes moulées sur le masque des siècles.

Quand d'autres volumes se seront joints à celui-ci, de façon à rendre l'oeuvre un peu moins incomplète, cette série d'empreintes, vaguement disposées dans un certain ordre chronologique, pourra former une sorte de galerie de la médaille humaine.

Pour le poète comme pour l'historien, pour l'archéologue comme pour le philosophe, chaque siècle est un changement de physionomie de l'humanité. On trouvera dans ce volume, qui, nous le répétons, sera continué et complété, le reflet de quelques-uns de ces changements de physionomie.

On y trouvera quelque chose du passé, quelque chose du présent et comme un vague mirage de l'avenir. Du reste, ces poèmes, divers par le sujet, mais inspirés par la même pensée, n'ont entre eux d'autre noeud qu'un fil, ce fil qui s'atténue quelquefois au point de devenir invisible, mais qui ne casse jamais, le grand fil mystérieux du labyrinthe humain, le Progrès.

Comme dans une mosaïque, chaque pierre a sa couleur et sa forme propre; l'ensemble donne une figure. La figure de ce livre, on l'a dit plus haut, c'est l'Homme.

Ce volume d'ailleurs, qu'on veuille bien ne pas l'oublier, est à l'ouvrage dont il fait partie, et qui sera mis au jour plus tard, ce que serait à une symphonie l'ouverture. Il n'en peut donner l'idée exacte et complète, mais il contient une lueur de l'oeuvre entière.

Le poème que l'auteur a dans l'esprit n'est ici qu'entr'ouvert.

Quant à ce volume pris en lui-même, l'auteur n'a qu'un mot à en dire. Le genre humain, considéré comme un grand individu collectif accomplissant d'époque en époque une série d'actes sur la terre, a deux aspects, l'aspect historique et l'aspect légendaire. Le second n'est pas moins vrai que le premier; le premier n'est pas moins conjectural que le second.

Qu'on ne conclue pas de cette dernière ligne--disons-le en passant--qu'il puisse entrer dans la pensée de l'auteur d'amoindrir la haute valeur de l'enseignement historique. Pas une gloire, parmi les splendeurs du génie humain, ne dépasse celle du grand historien philosophe. L'auteur, seulement, sans diminuer la portée de l'histoire, veut constater la portée de la légende. Hérodote fait l'histoire, Homère fait la légende.

C'est l'aspect légendaire qui prévaut dans ce volume et qui en colore les poèmes. Ces poèmes se passent l'un à l'autre le flambeau de la tradition humaine. _Quasi cursores_. C'est ce flambeau, dont la flamme est le vrai, qui fait l'unité de ce livre. Tous ces poèmes, ceux du moins qui résument le passé, sont de la réalité historique condensée ou de la réalité historique devinée. La fiction parfois, la falsification jamais; aucun grossissement de lignes; fidélité absolue à la couleur des temps et à l'esprit des civilisations diverses. Pour citer des exemples, la _Décadence romaine_ n'a pas un détail qui ne soit rigoureusement exact; la barbarie mahométane ressort de Cantemir, à travers l'enthousiasme de l'historiographe turc, telle qu'elle est exposée dans les premières pages de _Zim-Zizimi_ et de _Sultan Mourad_.