CHAPTER VI

Victor Hugo--His birth--His mother--Les Chassebœuf and les Comet--Captain Hugo--The signification of his name--Victor's godfather--The Hugo family in Corsica--M. Hugo is called to Naples by Joseph Bonaparte--He is appointed colonel and governor of the province of Avellino--Recollections of the poet's early childhood--Fra Diavolo--Joseph, King of Spain--Colonel Hugo is made a general, count, marquis and major-domo--The Archbishop of Tarragona--Madame Hugo and her children in Paris--The convent of Feuillantines

We will now devote a few pages to the author of _Marion Delorme_, _Notre-Dame de Paris_ and _Orientales_; for we deem he is well worth the digression.

Victor Hugo was born on 26 March 1803. Where and under what conditions the poet himself tells us on the first page of his _Feuilles d'Automne_:--

"Ce siècle avait deux ans; Rome remplaçait Sparte; Déjà Napoléon perçait sous Bonaparte, Et du premier consul, trop gêné par le droit, Le front de l'empereur brisait le masque étroit. Alors, dans Besançon, vieille ville espagnole, Jeté comme la graine au gré de l'air qui vole, Naquit, d'un sang breton et lorrain à la fois, Un enfant sans couleur, sans regard et sans voix; Si débile, qu'il fut, ainsi qu'une chimère, Abandonné de tous, excepté de sa mère, Et que son cou, ployé comme un frêle roseau, Fit faire, en même temps, sa bière et son berceau. Cet enfant que la vie effaçait de son livre, Et qui n'avait pas même un lendemain à vivre, C'est moi...."

The child was, indeed, so weak that, fifteen months after his birth, he could not even hold up his head on his shoulders, but, as though it were already weighted with all the thoughts of which it only possessed the germ, it persistently fell forward on his breast.

The poet continues:--

"Je vous dirai peut-être, quelque jour, Quel lait pur, que de soins, que de vœux, que d'amour, Prodigués pour ma vie, en naissant condamnée, M'ont fait deux fois le fils de ma mère obstinée."

His mother, of Breton blood, who persevered in battling with death for the life of her child, like a true mother and a Bretonne, was the daughter of a rich ship-owner of Nantes, and granddaughter of one of the leaders of the _bourgeoisie_ in that land of opposition. Furthermore, she was cousin-german to Constantin François, Count of Chassebœuf, who renounced that grand feudal name, reminiscent of the _barons pasteurs_ of the Middle Ages, for that of Volney, which would merely remind one of the name of a provincial comedian, if the gentleman who had the strange fancy of taking that name had not made it famous by putting it at the beginning of his _Voyage en Égypte_, and at the end of his _Ruines_; she was, besides, cousin of another imperial celebrity, Comte Cornet, who was less literary in his tastes than political. Comte Cornet, whose name is now, perhaps, forgotten, was deputy for Nantes and one of the Conseil des Cinq-Cents; he took part in the doings of the famous 18 brumaire, which changed the aspect of France for half a century. Instead of defending the privileges of the Assembly, he supported Bonaparte's pretensions; and Napoleon, ont of gratitude, made him senator--the usual reward for such services--then count; and so that he should possess everything--in quantity if not in quality--that the members of the old nobility possessed, who had rallied round the Empire, he gave him a coat of arms; but, through one of those pleasantries which a crowned soldier sometimes permits himself, this coat of arms, which recalled the somewhat plebeian origin of the person whom it was intended to ennoble, was azure with three cornets argent.

Madame Hugo's name was Sophie Trébuchet. She had, as we have seen, two peerages in her family, that of Comte Volney and that of Comte Cornet. Please remember this fact, for we shall have occasion again to refer to it. The Lorraine blood of which the poet sings came from his father, Joseph-Léopold-Sigisbert Hugo. From this side noble descent was quite undoubted; it sprang from an ancient German source.

His grandfather, Georges Hugo, was captain of the guards to some duke of Lorraine, and had been ennobled in 1531, by letters patent dated at Lillebonne, in Normandy, by this duke, who bestowed on him as coat of arms, on a field azure, _au chef d'argent_, two martlets in sable. Three martlets are, as is well known, the arms of the House of Lorraine. So the duke could not have done more for his captain; another martlet, and he would have put him on the same level with himself. But those who wish for fuller details than we give on this subject, and a greater authority, should consult Hozier, register IV., under the heading of _Hugo._ However, as we believe in the magic of names, we will give some information that Hozier does not give--namely, that the old German word _hugo_ is equivalent to the Latin word _spiritus_, and means breath, soul, spirit!

The feebler a babe is, the more need there is for haste to baptize it. Major Sigisbert Hugo, in command at that time at Besançon, which was the depot of a Corsican regiment, seeing his third son was so delicate, looked round and selected Victor Faneau de la Horie for godparent, who was shot in 1812 for being the instigating spirit of the conspiracy of which Mallet was the active agent. And from him the poet received his Christian name of _Victor_, which, added to his surname, no matter whether it precedes or follows it, can be translated in no other way than to mean--

"Conquering spirit--triumphant soul--victorious breath!"

The poet never thought of calling himself by any other name than the accident of his birth had decreed, as had his maternal cousin Chassebœuf, and we shall even see later that, when the addition would have been useful to him, he declined to call himself Hugo-Cornet.

Victor's father was one of the rough champions bred by the Revolution; he took up arms in 1791, and did not sheathe his sword until 1815. Others kept theirs in use until 1830 and 1848, but it was rarely that it brought them good fortune. In 1795 he was a lieutenant and fought in the Vendéan War. It was his company which formed part of the detachment, led by Commandant Muscar, that took Charette in the forest of la Chabotière. By a strange coincidence, it was Colonel Hugo who captured Fra Diavolo in Calabria, and General Hugo who took Juan Martin, otherwise known as the _Empecinado_, on the banks of the Tagus; they were the three principal leaders of that great period of wars which lasted more than a quarter of a century. Of course it will be well understood that we do not compare the noble and loyal Charette with the Calabrian brigand or the Spanish bandit. Charette was shot, Fra Diavolo hung and Juan Martin garroted. After the peaceful settlement of la Vendée the lieutenant got his captaincy, left the Loire for the Rhine and civil war for foreign campaigns, and became attached to the general staff of Moreau, with whom he made the campaign of 1796; he next went into Italy, to serve in Masséna's army corps.

In connection with my father, I have mentioned what an antipathy Bonaparte felt towards officers who came to him already distinguished by their actions in the armies of the West and the Pyrenees and the North. Captain Sigisbert Hugo was yet another instance. At the battle of Caldiero, he was commanded by Masséna to hold the head of the bridge, with his company, and he was the pivot on which the fate of the whole battle turned; Masséna accordingly expected to be able to recompense this magnificent feat of arms by obtaining Captain Hugo his majority (_chef de bataillon_). But he had not reckoned for the general-in-chief's hatred. Bonaparte asked whence Captain Hugo had come, and when he learnt that he had belonged to the Army of the Rhine, he cancelled the nomination. King Louis-Philippe did pretty much the same injustice to the general as Bonaparte had to the captain: the name of the battle of Caldiero is on the Triumphal Arch at Étoile, but that of General Hugo is not there. The poet avenged this strange oversight in the last line of his final stanza on the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile:--

"Quand ma pensée ainsi, vieillissant ton attique, Te fait de l'avenir un passé magnifique, Alors, sous ta grandeur je me courbe effrayé; J'admire! et, fils pieux, passant que l'art anime, Je ne regrette rien devant ton mur sublime, Que Phidias absent, et mon père oublié!"

However, as Captain Hugo was not among the number of those who are beaten in their career, he obtained his majority at last, but under what circumstances I am not aware. However that may be, he was a major, and happened to be in garrison at Lunéville when the conferences for the ratification of the treaty of Campo-Formio were begun in that town. At these conferences Joseph Bonaparte, who was later King of Naples, then King of Spain and the Indies, was plenipotentiary of the Republic. I knew this King of Naples and Spain well at Florence. His disposition was more gentle than elevated, more placid than bold; like his brothers Louis and Lucien, and we might even say like his brother Napoleon, he had had at first a passion for literature; the others had written memoirs, comedies and epic poems, he had written novels. His daughter, Princess Zenaïde, who is now Princess of Canino, was, I believe, named after one of her father's heroines. Joseph Bonaparte, as plenipotentiary, became intimate with Major Hugo, who, as we have mentioned, joined the depot of the Corsican regiment at Besançon when the conferences were concluded. And we have also stated that it was there the famous poet was born of whom we are now writing.

Some months after his birth, the depot of which his father was in command received orders to undertake garrison duty on the isle of Elba. And on that island, where Napoleon began his decline and fall, the author of the _Ode à la Colonne_, or, rather, of the _Odes à la Colonne_, began to grow strong.

The first tongue that the child, who was predestined to be so celebrated, learnt to talk was Italian; and the first word he pronounced--after those two words with which all human voices, lips and tongues begin, _papa_ and _mamma_--was an apostrophe to his governess: "_cattiva_!" he called out one day, before anyone knew he had learnt the meaning of the word. Perhaps it may not be generally known that _cattiva_ means _naughty._ Of the isle of Elba the child remembers nothing, and nothing of his early sojourn among his fellow-men; nothing of this earliest halt on the threshold of his existence has remained in his memory.

In 1806 the plenipotentiary Joseph was made King of Naples; he then remembered his friend the major of Lunéville; he inquired what had become of him, learnt that he was living on the isle of Elba, and that he had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, or, as it was still called in 1806, _gros-major._ He wrote to him and proposed he should come and join fortunes with him, and aid him in the establishment of his throne in the beautiful city which all ought to see before they die, and leave in order to die as soon as they have seen it. But no one dared venture on such military escapades without the permission of the master. Lieutenant-Colonel Hugo asked leave of the Emperor Napoleon to attach himself to King Joseph. The Emperor Napoleon condescended to reply that he not only authorised this change of service, but that he should be pleased to see a French element in his brother's armies, which were only the wings of his own army.

Frenchmen never take service in a foreign army without certain feelings of regret, but this army was destined to be one of the wings of the National Army. And to ameliorate so far as he could the hardships of this exile, the newly made king promoted _gros-major_ Hugo a colonel, made him an aide-de-camp and appointed him governor of the province of Avellino. When installed in his governorship, the husband sent for his wife and children, whom he longed to have near him. So, in 1807, Madame Hugo and her three sons set out for Naples; and the child continued the life of wandering which had begun in his cradle, and which, continued through his youth, was to be his lot to the threshold of manhood. It is to these long journeys taken in his dawning days that the poet alludes in the following lines:--

"Enfant, sur un tambour ma crèche fut posée; Dans un casque pour moi l'eau sainte fut puisée; Un soldat, m'ombrageant d'un belliqueux faisceau De quelque vieux lambeau d'une bannière usée, Fit les langes de mon berceau.

Parmi les chars poudreux, les armes éclatantes, Une muse des camps m'emporta sous les tentes. Je dormis sur l'affût des canons meurtriers; J'aimai les fiers coursiers aux crinières flottantes, Et l'éperon froissant les rauques étriers.

Avec nos camps vainqueurs, dans l'Europe asservie, J'errai; je parcourus la terre avant la vie, Et, tout enfant encor, des vieillards recueillis M'écoutaient, racontant d'une bouche ravie Mes jours si peu nombreux et déjà si remplis.

Je visitai cette île en noirs débris féconde, Plus tard premier degré d'une chute profonde! Le haut Cenis, dont l'aigle aime les rocs lointains, Entendit, de son antre où l'avalanche gronde, Ses vieux glaçons crier sous mes pas enfantins.

Vers l'Adige et l'Arno, je vins des bords du Rhône; Je vis de l'Occident l'auguste Babylone: Rome, toujours vivante au fond de ses tombeaux, Reine du monde encor sur un débris de trône, Avec une pourpre en lambeaux.

Puis Turin; puis Florence, aux plaisirs toujours prête; Naple, aux bords embaumés où le printemps s'arrête, Et que Vésuve en feu couvre d'un dais brûlant, Comme un guerrier jaloux qui, témoin d'une fête, Jette, au milieu des fleurs, son panache sanglant?"

Happy, a hundred times happy, is the man who is able to embroider the web of his life with such magic characters! I too have had recollections similar to those of my literary brother, but I have expressed mine in humble prose, and I rejoice to find them expressed again in his splendid and sonorous poetry. Thence ascend the earliest recollections of the child, indelible recollections, which still shine clearly when extreme old age has come upon us, as a mirage reflects a vanished oasis.

Hugo, who had only once been across beautiful Italy, often talked to me about the grand pictures of it that remained on his memory; they were as present to his mind as though he had been my companion during my fifteen or twenty journeys therein! But he never remembered things in their normal conditions; they always recurred to him in connection with some momentary incident or accident that happened to have changed their ordinary aspect. Thus, Parma was remembered as surrounded by a flood; Acquapendente's volcanic peak stood out lit with the lightnings of a storm; the Trajan column in connection with the excavations that were being carried on round it. And yet his recollection was as exact as it could be. Florence, with its embattled inns, its massive palaces, its granite fortresses; Rome, with its leaping fountains, its obelisks which make it look like a town of ancient Egypt, and its colonnade of Bernino, twin-sister to that of the Louvre; Naples, with its promenades, its Pausilippe, its rue de Toledo, its bay, its isles and its Vesuvius. The three children had amused themselves on the long journey by making crosses with straw and putting them in the cracks between the glass doors and the grooves they ran in. When the Italian peasants, especially those who lived in the neighbourhood of Rome, saw these simple Calvaries, faithful in their worship of images, they would kneel down or at least make the sign of the Cross. The young travellers had been much terrified at the sight of bandits' heads stuck on poles by the roadsides, shrivelling up in the sun. For a long time the poor children refused to believe they were really human heads, and persisted that they were bewigged masks like those hung outside all hairdressers' shops at that period; but when they were taken down and shown them, in all their hideous reality, they remained very deeply engraved on Victor's memory.

In the case of a man like Hugo, a genius out of the common run, who has already played and will still play a great part in the literary and political history of his country, it is the duty of those who knew him to depict him for his contemporaries and successors, in the light and shade which formed the character of the man and the genius of the poet. Let us hope that the genius of the poet will stand out flawless throughout our narrative: the character of the man will speak for itself by his line of conduct and his accomplished actions.

A home for Madame Hugo and her sons was not prepared for them at Naples, but at Avellino, capital of the province over which Colonel Hugo had been appointed governor. This home was in a palace, a palace of marble, like most palaces in that country, where marble is more common than stone; but this palace possessed a strange peculiarity which was certain to attract the attention and to remain in the memory of a child.

One of those shocks of earthquake which are common in the Italian peninsula had just shaken Calabria from end to end; the marble palace of Avellino had been shaken like the rest of the buildings; yet, being on a more solid foundation than they, after oscillating and trembling in the balance for a moment, it kept upright, but remained cracked from roof to base. The crack extended diagonally across the wall of Victor's bedroom, so that he could see the country through this most original opening almost as plainly as through his window. The palace was built on a sort of precipice, lined with great nut trees, which produce the enormous nuts called _avelines_ (filberts) from the name of the district in which they are grown. When these nuts reached maturity, the children spent their days wandering among the trees, hung over the abyss, to gather the bunches. No doubt this taught Hugo that familiarity with high places, that scorn of precipices and that indifference to empty space, which he possessed beyond most men and which filled me with admiration, for I turn giddy on the balcony of a first storey.

About this time, one of the bitterest enemies of the French was Michel Pezza, nicknamed Fra Diavolo, about whom my confrère Scribe composed a comic opera, although the life of the original was a most terrible drama! Fra Diavolo had begun as a brigand chief, something after the fashion of Cartouche, but with more cruelty. He practised that romantic profession, until Cardinal Ruffo, another brigand chief, only in a higher sphere of society, conceived the idea of reconquering Naples for his beloved sovereign Ferdinand I., who had abandoned his capital, disguised as a lackey, in consequence of the French invasion, which was provoked by his insolent proclamations.

Everyone knows the terrible story of the Two Sicilies, the orgies of blood presided over by two courtesans, in which a whole generation disappeared, and in which, in order to prevent the ruin of the State, they were obliged to give fixed salaries to the executioners, who had been having ten ducats per execution.

Fra Diavolo joined his band to Cardinal Ruffo's army, with which he marched upon Naples, recapturing it in company with the cardinal, and finally being made colonel (and even count, so I understand) by Ferdinand I. Nevertheless, Ferdinand I. returned to Sicily later, not only a fugitive before the French invasion, but also before a brother of the emperor; and Fra Diavolo, with his rank of colonel and his title of count, started afresh his guerilla warfare and his brigandage. Colonel Hugo was commissioned to take him, and the price of 20,000 ducats was put on his head. He had already escaped once through a prodigious feat of audacity and address. He was pursued, hounded out and hemmed in on every side, with two hundred and fifty to three hundred men, the remnant of his band; but he hoped to be able to escape by a defile that he believed was known only to himself. So he had directed his course towards this defile, but, to his great surprise, he found this final way of escape guarded like the rest. His last hope had vanished! He had no means of turning back; they had tried every gorge and found a wall of bayonets barring the way.

"Come along, then; we have but one way left us!..." exclaimed Fra Diavolo. "Perhaps they may let us take it! Bind me hand and foot to a horse.... You have taken me prisoner, and are leading me to the French colonel to obtain your twenty thousand ducats, the price of my head. Leave the rest to my lieutenant and do as he does."

They had to hasten, for they were within sight of the French detachment, which was growing uneasy as to who the troop of men might be; moreover, they were accustomed, especially in desperate circumstances, to follow Fra Diavolo's instructions with blind obedience. In a second he was strapped and bound down, like Mazeppa, on a horse, and the cortège continued its way, making straight for the French detachment. This detachment was composed of five or six hundred men and was commanded by a major. When they saw the troop marching to them, the French battalion marched to meet it and the two corps came to close quarters. The Calabrian troop halted within a hundred feet of the French, and only the lieutenant, clad like a simple peasant, stepped forward out of the ranks and advanced towards the major.

"What is your business and who is the man you have strapped there?" demanded the major.

"That strapped man is Fra Diavolo," replied the lieutenant, "whom we have caught ... and we want the twenty thousand ducats promised for his head."

Instantly, the name of Fra Diavolo was passed from mouth to mouth.

"You have taken Fra Diavolo?" exclaimed the major.

"Yes," the lieutenant went on, "and, as proof, there he is, bound hand and foot and strapped to the horse."

Fra Diavolo's eyes flashed fire.

"How did you take him?" asked the major.

The lieutenant invented a fable, to the effect that Fra Diavolo, hunted, pursued, hemmed about, had sought shelter in a village which he believed to be friendly to him; but he had been arrested, seized and bound during the night, and the whole village had formed his escort for fear he should escape.

"Bandits! wretches! traitors!" exclaimed Fra Diavolo.

The explanation was all sufficient for the major; besides, the chief thing was that Fra Diavolo was caught; any accompanying explanations concerning the capture were mere questions of curiosity.

"Very good!" he said; "hand me over your bandit."

"Certainly; but first hand over to us the twenty thousand ducats."

"How is it likely I should have twenty thousand ducats with me?" retorted the major.

"In that case," said the lieutenant, "no money, no Fra Diavolo!"

"Humph!..." said the major.

"Oh! I am well aware that you are the stronger force," remarked the lieutenant, "and that you can take us if you wish; but, if you do take us, you will have stolen twenty. thousand ducats from our pockets."

The major was a logical soul, and he realised the justice of the reasoning.

"Very well," he said, "take your prisoner to the headquarters; I will give you a hundred men to accompany you."

The lieutenant and Fra Diavolo exchanged a sly glance which implied that the major had played into their hands.

The hundred men of the escorting party and the two hundred and fifty Calabrian peasants set off for the headquarters six leagues away. But the headquarters never received news of Fra Diavolo, and the hundred men of the escort never reappeared. When a defile was reached, the hundred Frenchmen were slaughtered, and Fra Diavolo and his two hundred and fifty men regained the mountains! Colonel Hugo meant to go on with the pursuit; and, from henceforth, there was a constant series of outwittings and marches and counter-marches between him and the Calabrian chief, which ended in Fra Diavolo being defeated. Taken a second time, Fra Diavolo was sent to Naples, where his trial was to take place, and the 20,000 ducats were immediately paid over to those who had taken him. One morning Colonel Hugo learnt that Fra Diavolo was condemned to be hung.

"Hung!" The word sounded odd to French ears. Colonel Hugo at once started off for Naples and obtained an audience of the king, from whom he wished to solicit a commutation, not of the penalty, but of the manner of execution. He asked that, as Fra Diavolo had been a soldier, he might be shot. Unluckily, Fra Diavolo had been a bandit before he became a soldier, and he had served his own ends before enlisting in the services of Cardinal Ruffo and Ferdinand I. The documentary evidence shown to Colonel Hugo by King Joseph was so crammed with wilful crimes, murders and incendiary fires that Colonel Hugo was the first to withdraw his proposition. Consequently, Colonel Michel Pezza, otherwise Fra Diavolo, and Count of I know not what title, was summarily hung.

In 1808, Napoleon having declared that the Bourbons of Spain had ceased to reign, Joseph Bonaparte passed from the throne of the Two Sicilies to that of Spain, where Colonel Hugo followed him. Upon his arrival in Madrid, Colonel Hugo was made brigadier-general, governor of the Cours de Tagus, first major-domo and first aide-de-camp to the king, a grandee of Spain, Count of Cogolludo and Marquis of Cifuentes and of Siguença! These were high proofs of favour; but there was one among them all which Colonel Hugo accepted with some aversion: and that was the title of marquis.

"Sire," he said to Joseph, when the King of Spain condescended to announce his intentions towards him, "I thought that the emperor had abolished the title of marquis?"

"Not in Spain, my dear colonel ... only in France."

"Sire," insisted the new general, "if the emperor has only abolished it in France, Molière has abolished it everywhere else."

And General Hugo contented himself with using the title of count, and never bore that of marquis. But, in spite of this, he was none the less be-marquised and be-majordomoed. Among the privileges which accompanied this latter office was that of presenting people to the king. On one occasion the new major-domo had to present to King Joseph the Archbishop of Tarragona, who had come to profess his allegiance to the king. The Archbishop of Tarragona had a reputation for ugliness, which left far behind it that which General Hugo's son later bestowed on the bell-ringer of Notre-Dame. So, when the major-domo looked at the worthy prelate and recognised that his ugliness had not only not been exaggerated but that it was, perhaps, even worse than people had said, ignorant that the archbishop could speak and understand French, he could not refrain from adding, after he had pronounced the all-important formula in pure Castilian, "_Señor, presento á vuestra Magestad el se señor arzobispo de Tarragona_," the following words in French: "The most villainous-looking brute in your Majesty's kingdom!"

The archbishop respectfully saluted the king; then, turning to the major-domo, he said in the purest French, with a faultless accent--

"I thank you, general!"

In the precarious state of unsettlement through which Spain was then passing, General Hugo felt it to be out of the question, when he left Naples, to bring his family with him. So Madame Hugo, Abel, Eugène and Victor returned to France. Directly Madame Hugo returned to Paris, she took an old convent that had belonged to the Feuillantines; for, during the two years spent in the palace of Avellino, she had learnt to appreciate the effect on the health of her children of an airy residence, where they had room to run wild and play at liberty. We shall see, later, in connection with this convent, what recollections its large garden, its glorious sunshine and its cool shade left on the mind of the poet. Here the three children were allowed full liberty, as I had been allowed in the great park of Saint-Remy whose splendours I have described. Here Hugo managed to avoid going through the university treadmill, and learnt his Latin fairly well and his Greek scarcely at all, thanks to the care of a married priest, an ex-Oratorian, named Larivière.

"_Il savait le latin très-bien, très-mal le grec!_" his pupil said of him, in a scrap of verse yet unpublished.

Madame Hugo dwelt in this retreat, which sheltered her fine brood, from 1808 until 1811. In the early part of 1811 she received a letter from her husband. The government of King Joseph seemed settled, and therefore it became necessary to go to Madrid, where her three children could be attached to the court as pages.