CHAPTER IX

The college and the garden of the Feuillantines--Grenadier or general--Victor Hugo's first appearance in public--He obtains honourable mention at the Academy examination--He carries off three prizes in the Jeux Floraux--_Han d'Islande_--The poet and the bodyguard--Hugo's marriage--The _Odes et Ballades_--Proposition made by cousin Cornet

That wretched year 1813 was a strange period of introspection. _Un jour_ ... But we will let the poet himself describe matters, in the verses below:--

"J'eus, dans ma blonde enfance, hélas, trop éphémère, Trois maîtres: un jardin, un vieux prêtre et ma mère. Le jardin était grand, profond, mystérieux, Fermé par de hauts murs aux regards curieux, Semé de fleurs s'ouvrant ainsi que des paupières, Et d'insectes vermeils qui couraient sur les pierres; Plein de bourdonnements et de confuses voix; Au milieu presqu'un champ, dans le fond presqu'un bois. Le prêtre, tout nourri de Tacite et d'Homère, Était un doux vieillard; ma mère était ma mère. Ainsi, je grandissait sous un triple rayon! _Un jour_ ... Oh! si Gauthier me prêtait son crayon, Je vous dessinerais d'un trait une figure Qui, chez ma mère, un soir entra, fâcheux augure! Un docteur au front pauvre, au maintien solennel; Et je verrais éclore a vos bouches sans fiel, Portes de votre cœur qu'aucun souci ne mine, Ce rire éblouissant qui parfois m'illumine.

Lorsque cet homme entra je jouais au jardin, Et rien qu'en le voyant je m'arrêtai soudain. C'était le principal d'un collège quelconque; Les tritons que Coypel groupe autour d'une conque, Les faunes que Watteau dans les bois fourvoya, Les sorciers de Rembrandt, les gnomes de Goya, Les diables variés, vrais cauchemars de moine, Dont Callot, en riant, taquine saint Antoine, Sont laids mais sont charmant; difformes, mais remplis D'un feu qui, de leur face, anime tous les plis, Et parfois, dans leurs yeux, jette un eclair rapide! Notre homme était fort laid, mais il était stupide!

Pardon, j'en parle encor comme un franc écolier; C'est mal; ce que j'ai dit, tachez de l'oublier. Car de votre âge heureux, qu'un pedant embarrasse, J'ai gardait la colère et j'ai perdu la grâce.

Cet homme chauve et noir, très effrayant pour moi, Et dont ma mère aussi d'abord eut quelque effroi, Tout en multipliant les humbles attitudes, Apportait des avis et des sollicitudes: Que l'enfant n'était pas dirigé; que, parfois, Il emportait son livre en rêvant dans les bois; Qu'il croissait au hasard dans cette solitude; Qu'on devait y songer, que la sévère étude Était fille de l'ombre et des cloîtres profonds; Qu'une lampe pendue à de sombres plafonds, Qui de cent écoliers guide la plume agile, Éclairait mieux Horace et Catulle et Virgile, Et versait à l'esprit des rayons bien meilleurs Que le soleil qui joue à travers l'arbre en fleurs; Et qu'enfin, il fallait aux enfants, loin des mères, Le joug, le dur travail, et les larmes amères. Là dessus le collège, aimable et triomphant, Avec un doux sourire, offrait au jeune enfant, Ivre de liberté, d'air, de joie et de roses, Ses bancs de chêne noir, ses longs dortoirs moroses, Les salles qu'on verrouille et qu'à tous leurs pilliers Sculpte avec un vieux clou l'ennui des écoliers; Les magisters qui font, parmi les paperasses, Manger l'heure du jeu par les pensums voraces, Et, sans eau, sans gazon, sans arbres, sans fruits mûrs, Sa grande cour pavée, entre quatre grands murs!"

Here I would fain break off the quotation and continue in prose; but, to tell the truth, I have not the courage to do so. Oh! what fine lines yours are, my friend, and what a joy it is to me, not simply to cause them to be read--all the world has read them--but to cause them to be re-read by the hundred thousand readers whose eyes will travel over this chapter and who will sigh, with looks turned towards England--

"Soupir qui va vers toi sur la brise du soir, Fait d'un quart de tristesse et de trois quarts d'espoir."

Let us pick up the thread of Hugo's lines, into the middle of which I had the temerity to venture to put a couple of my own:--

"L'homme congédié, de ses discours frappée, Ma mère demeura triste et préoccupée. --Que faire? que vouloir? qui donc avait raison, Ou le morne collège ou l'heureuse maison? Qui sait mieux de la vie accomplir l'œuvre austère, L'écolier turbulant ou l'enfant solitaire?-- Problèmes! questions! Elle hésitait beaucoup. L'affaire était bien grave. Humble femme après tout, Ame par le destin non pas les livres faite, De quel front repousser ce tragique prophète Au ton si magistral, aux gestes si certains, Qui lui parlait au noms des Grecs et des Latins? Le prêtre était savant, sans doute; mais, que sais-je, Apprend-on par le maître ou bien par le collège? Et puis enfin,--souvent ainsi nous triomphons,-- L'homme le plus vulgaire a de grands mots profonds; _II est indispensable! il convient! il importe!_ Qui trouble quelquefois la femme la plus forte ... Pauvre mère, lequel choisir des deux chemins? Tout le sort de son fils se pesait dans ses mains. Tremblante, elle tenait cette lourde balance, Et croyait bien la voir, par moment, en silence, Pencher vers le collège, hélas! en opposant Mon bonheur à venir à mon bonheur présent. Elle songeait ainsi, sans sommeil et sans trêve; C'était l'été vers l'heure ou la lune se lève, Par un de ces beaux soirs qui ressemblent au jour, Avec moins de clarté, mais avec plus d'amour. Dans son parc, où jouaient le rayon et la brise, Elle errait toujours triste et toujours indécise, Questionnant tout has l'eau, le ciel, la forêt, Écoutant au hasard les voix qu'elle entendrait. C'est dans ces moments là que le jardin paisible, La broussaille où remue un insecte invisible, Le scarabée, ami des feuilles, le lézard Courant au clair de lune au fond du vieux puisard, La faïence à fleur bleue où vit la plante grasse, Le dôme oriental du sombre Val-de-Grâce, Le cloître du couvent, brisé mais doux encore, Les marroniers, la verte allée aux boutons d'or, La statue où sans bruit se meut l'ombre des branches, Les pâles liserons, les pâquerettes blanches, Les cent fleurs du buisson, de l'arbre, du roseau, Qui rendent en parfums les chansons à l'oiseau, Se mirent dans la mare ou se cache sous l'herbe, Ou qui, de l'ébénier chargeant le front superbe, Au bord des clairs étangs, se mêlant au bouleau, Tremblent en grappes d'or dans les moires de l'eau, Et le ciel scintillant derrière les ramées, Et les toits répandant de charmantes fumées; C'est dans ces moments-là, comme je vous le dis, Que tout ce beau jardin, radieux paradis, Tous ces vieux murs croulants, toutes ces jeunes roses, Tous ces objets pensifs, toutes ces douces choses Parlèrent à ma mère avec l'onde et le vent, Et lui dirent tout has: 'Laisse-nous cet enfant!' Laisse-nous cet enfant, pauvre mère troublée; Cette prunelle ardente, ingénue, étoilée, Cette tête au front pur qu'aucun deuil ne voilà, Cette âme neuve encor, mère, laisse-nous la, Ne va pas la jetter au hasard dans la foule: La foule est un torrent qui brise ce qu'il roule. Ainsi que les oiseaux, les enfants ont leurs peurs. Laisse à notre air limpide, à nos moites vapeurs, A nos soupirs légers comme l'aile d'un songe, Cette bouche où jamais n'a passé le mensonge, Ce sourire naïf que sa candeur défend. O mère au cœur profond, laisse-nous cet enfant! Nous ne lui donnerons que de bonnes pensées; Nous changerons en jours les lunes commencées; Dieu deviendra visible à see yeux enchantés; Car nous sommes les fleurs, les rameaux, les clartés; Nous sommes la nature, et la source éternelle Où toute soif s'étanche, où se lave toute aile; Et les bois et les champs, du sage seul compris, Font l'éducation de tous les grands esprits; Laisse croître l'enfant parmi nos bruits sublimes, Nous le pénétrerons de ces parfums intimes Nés du souffle céleste épars dans tout beau lieu, Qui font sortir de l'homme et monter jusqu'à Dieu, Comme le chant d'un luth, comme l'encens d'un vase, L'espérance, l'amour, la prière et l'extase! Nous pencherons ses yeux vers l'ombre d'ici bas, Vers le secret de tout entr'ouvert sous ses pas. D'enfant nous ferons homme, et d'homme poëte; Pour former de ses sens la corolle inquiète, C'est nous qu'il faut choisir, et nous lui montrerons Comment, de l'aube au soir, du chêne aux moucherons; Emplissant tout, reflets, couleurs, brumes, haleines, La vie aux mille aspects rit dans les vertes plaines; Nous te le rendrons simple et des cieux ébloui, Et nous ferons germer de toute part en lui, Pour l'homme, triste d'effet, perdu sous tant de causes Cette pitié qui naît du spectacle des choses. Laisse-nous cet enfant, nous lui ferons un cœur Qui comprendra la femme; un esprit non moqueur, Où naîtront aisément le songe et la chimère; Qui prendra Dieu pour livre et les champs pour grammaire; Une âme pour foyer de secrètes faveurs, Qui luira doucement sur tous les fronts rêveurs, Et, comme le soleil dans les fleurs fécondées, Jettera des rayons sur toutes les idées.' Ainsi parlaient, à l'heure où la ville se tait, L'astre, la plante et l'arbre,--et ma mère écoutait. Enfant! ont-ils tenu leur promesse sacrée? Je ne sais, mais je sais que ma mère adorée Les crut, et m'épargnant d'ennuyeuses prisons, Confia ma jeune âme à leur douces leçons!"

We see from what the poet tells us himself, what a struggle his mother had to keep up (having for ally the beautiful garden of the Feuillantines) against a master of the college, sent by M. de Fontanes, who was uneasy, after the fashion of Napoleon, that a child should grow up wild in the depths of an old cloister, thus escaping the university training which, in all ages and in every reign, has had for its object the breaking in of high-stepping colts. Thus, at fifteen, the old convent of the Feuillantines had fulfilled its promises, and made the child a poet. We shall see more of this presently, but for the moment let us go back to General Hugo, who, at the very time when the mother and son conflict was proceeding was assisting at the retreat from Spain, after the two great battles of Salamanca and Vittoria, the Leipzig and Waterloo of the South. He had with him, as aide-de-camp, his son Abel, who, when only fourteen, had already been present at and taken part in three pitched battles and seventeen skirmishes. He had no need to envy his old schoolfellow Lillo, of the Séminaire des Nobles, who was an officer at fifteen years of age.

When the remnant of the army of Spain returned to France they found a French _corps d'observation_ awaiting them with Imperial orders to incorporate the Spanish army with the French army. But those four years of service in Spain, that arduous campaign during which they had had to struggle not only against two armies, but also against the entire population; those dreadful sieges rivalled only in ancient warfare, when women and children defended every corner of the ramparts, every home and every stone, with musket and poignard in hand; those sierras, recalling the wars of the Titans, when fires were lit on every high peak; those jagged mountains taken by charges of cavalry; those rock fortresses defended and carried one after another; those scores of passes each like another Thermopylæ; that butchery in which torture and death awaited anyone taken prisoner, all went for nothing, was forgotten, had ceased to exist, had never existed directly Spain was evacuated. It might have been asked of Napoleon why he evacuated Russia. But it had taken a very god to bend the invincible one beneath him; like Thor, son of Odin, he had struggled with Death itself; he had not been vanquished like Xerxes, he had been crushed like Cambyses. The distinction is subtle, but one no more dreamt of disputing with the conqueror of Austerlitz than with the hero vanquished at Beresina. So the services of the French in Spain were regarded as of naught, and--except the 200,000 men left upon the battlefields of Talavera, Saragossa, Bayleu, Salamanca and Vittoria--all was as though nothing had occurred.

Consequently, General Hugo found this order addressed to himself at Bayonne:--

"_Major_ Hugo will at once put himself under the command of General Belliard."

On the following day, General Hugo presented himself at the house of General Belliard in the uniform of an ordinary grenadier with woollen epaulettes. Belliard did not recognise him. General Hugo gave his name.

"What does this private soldier's uniform mean?" Belliard inquired.

"Grenadier or general," was Hugo's response.

And Belliard flung his arms round him. That very day he sent back the order to the emperor. It was returned with this correction in the margin in Napoleon's handwriting:--

"_General_ Hugo will immediately take up the command at Thionville."

History has related the details of that siege in which General Hugo defended the citadel and governed the town. The citadel of Thionville was one of the latest to float the tricoloured flag. But it had to yield, though to the Bourbons, not to the enemy. General Hugo could not stop in Paris: there were too many heart-breaking scenes for the old soldier in the capital, where women strewed flowers in front of the Cossacks, where the people shouted "_Vivent les allies!_" and where the statue of the emperor was dragged through the gutters.

He bought the château of Saint-Lazare at Blois and retired there. Means did not allow of the beautiful convent of the Feuillantines being kept any longer. Madame Hugo remained at Paris in modest apartments, to look after her children, Eugène and Victor being placed in the abbé Cordier's boarding school, rue Sainte-Marguerite No. 41. Abel, an officer exempt from these things, was left free. Eugène and Victor were destined for the École polytechnique.

We have already pointed out that the convent of the Feuillantines had kept its word and turned Victor into a poet. Now let us hear about the boy's first attempts.

How grateful would I have been to-day to any contemporary of Dante, Shakespeare or Corneille who would give me similar details of their lives, that twenty years of friendship with Victor Hugo enables me to give here!

It was just at the height of the Restoration. The Académie had announced as the subject for its annual prize, to be awarded on 25 August, Saint Louis's Day, "The happiness that study brings in all situations of life."

Victor went in for the competition without saying a word to anyone about it. He put his name down, according to the rules of the competition, in a sealed paper together with his piece of verse; but, after his name, he added his age, fourteen and a half. Besides giving his age thus, there were these lines in the course of the poem:--

"Moi qui, toujours fuyant les cités et les cours, De trois lustres à peine ai vu finir le cours."

Think of this future philosopher, who, at fourteen, had _fled from cities and courts!_ What delicious childish naïveté! But, strange to relate, it was this admission of fourteen years of age that condemned the poet, and prevented him from winning the prize. M. Raynouard, the _rapporteur_, declared that the competitor, by allowing himself _trois lustres à peine_--this was the method of counting in 1817 and is still used by the Académie--had intended to make game of the Académie. And, as though it were not a customary thing for the Académie to be made fun of, the prize was divided between Saintine and Lebrun. However, they read the whole piece composed by the impudent person who made fun of the Académie by speaking of his fourteen years and a half. The assembly, which enjoyed the Académie being thus made game of, highly applauded the lines of the young poet, who at the very moment he was being praised at the Académie was playing prisoners'-base in the college courtyard.

The following stanza was specially applauded, and would have been encored if encores were allowed at the Académie:--

"Mon Virgile à la main, bocages verts et sombres, Que j'aime à m'égarer sous vos paisibles ombres! Que j'aime, en parcourant vos gracieux détours, A pleurer sur Didon, à plaindre ses amours! Là, mon âme, tranquille et sans inquiétude, S'ouvre avec plus de verve aux charmes de l'étude; Là, mon cœur est plus tendre et sait mieux compatir A des maux que peut-être il doit un jour sentir."

It had been a remarkable contest; for, among the competitors, besides those we have named who won the prize--Saintine and Lebrun--were Casimir Delavigne, Loyson, Who has since acquired a certain popularity which has been interrupted by death, and Victor Hugo. Loyson obtained the _accessit_, and Victor Hugo, in spite of M. Raynouard's contention that he had made game of the Académie, was the first to have honourable mention.

Casimir Delavigne, who had really committed the crime of poking fun at the Académie by treating the subject in exactly the opposite way, had a separate honourable mention apart from the competition.

Victor was playing at prisoners'-base, as we have said, whilst he was being applauded at the Académie. The first news he heard of his success was brought him by Abel and by Malitourne, who came rushing in, leapt on him and told him what had just happened and that he would in all probability have obtained the prize if the Académie had been ready to admit that a poet of fourteen could have written the lines. The supposition--not that he had wished to mock the Académie, but that he could lie--hurt the child exceedingly, and he procured his birth-certificate and sent it the Académie.

_Vide pedes! vide latus!_

They then had to believe it. And the indignation of that worthy grandmother changed to admiration.

M. Raynouard, the perpetual secretary, sent the honoured poet a characteristic letter. There was a deliciously fine mistake in spelling in the letter sent by the perpetual secretary: he told Victor Hugo that he should be pleased to make (_fairait_) his acquaintance. Two other members of the Académie wrote to the young poet without suggestion from outside. These were François de Neufchâteau and Campenon.

"Tendre ami des neuf sœurs, mes bras vous sont ouverts, Venez, j'aimie toujours les vers!"

wrote François de Neufchâteau.

"L'esprit et le bon goût nous ont rassasiés; J'ai rencontré des cœurs de glace Pour des vers pleins de charme et de verve et de grâce Que Malfilâtre eut enviés!"

wrote Campenon.

And Chateaubriand called Hugo "_l'Enfant sublime._" The appellation stuck to him.

From that moment the youth was no longer his own master, but was given over to that consuming tyrant we call Poetry.

In those days, people still went in for the _Jeux Floraux_, and Hugo competed in two successive years, 1818 and 1819. He won three prizes. The successful pieces were _Moïse sur le Nil_, the _Vierges de Verdun_ and the _Statue de Henri IV._ Besides these, he published two satires and an ode. The satires were the _Télégraphe_ and the _Racoleur politique_; the ode was the _Ode sur la Vendée._ He published these three things at his own expense and, strange to relate, they brought him in 800 francs.

Poetry sold in those days: society was greedy for novelties and, when anything new was offered it, eagerly put its lips to the cup.

Meanwhile, two years of rhetoric in Latin, two years of philosophy and four years of mathematics had prepared the student for entrance at the École polytechnique.

He now began to face the future seriously, for the first time, and it terrified him. The vocation for which he was being educated was not the one for which he was fitted.

Just when he was about to take the leap and present himself for examination, he wrote to his father that he had found a profession: he was a poet and did not wish to enter the École; he would do without his allowance of 1200 francs. General Hugo was a man of decision himself and he realised that the boy had made up his mind; there was no time to be lost: Victor had eighteen months yet to study. He suppressed the allowance and abandoned the poet to his own resources. Victor possessed within himself as inexhaustible a treasure as those in the _Thousand and One Nights_, and he had the 800 francs from his satires and the ode. On these 800 francs he lived for thirteen months, and during these thirteen months he composed _Han d'Islande_. That curious book was the work of a youth of nineteen.

While he was writing _Han d'Islande_ Victor's mother died--an event that influenced the sombre tone of his work considerably. This was his first sorrow and he never forgot it. From the day that that deep sorrow settled on his life, Victor never wore anything but black clothes or a black coat, and he never sealed his letters with aught but black sealing-wax.

And, indeed, we who have seen him grow up, from his childish days at the Feuillantines, at Avellino and at the Séminaire des Nobles, can guess how much his mother was to him. One day, in one of those moments of profound grief when the sorrowful heart seeks for surroundings in harmony with its own mourning, the youth went to Versailles, that most sorrowful and mournful of all places. He breakfasted at the café, holding a paper in his hand which he was not reading, for he was deep in thought. A life-guardsman, who was not given to thought and wanted to read, took the paper out of his hands. Victor at nineteen was fair and delicate of complexion and he looked only fifteen. The life-guardsman thought he was dealing with a boy, but he had insulted a man--a man who was in one of the dark crises of life, when danger often comes as a blessing. So the young man accepted the quarrel that was thrust upon him, coarse and foolish though it was. They fought with swords, almost there and then, and Victor received a slash in the arm. This _contretemps_ hindered the appearance of _Han d'Islande_ for a fortnight. Happily, his grief-stricken heart had its star as every dark night has, and its flower as has every precipice;--he was in love! He was passionately in love with Mademoiselle Foucher, a maiden of fifteen with whom he had been brought up. He married this young girl, and she is to-day the devoted wife who followed the poet into exile. _Han d'Islande_, sold for 1000 francs, was the dowry of the wedded pair, who between them could only add up thirty-five years. The witnesses of the marriage were Alexandre Soumet and Alfred de Vigny, both poets just starting out in life and in art themselves. This thousand francs had to be used for housekeeping.

The first volume of poetry Victor published at this time was printed by Guiraudet, No. 335 rue Saint-Honoré and sold by Pélissier, place du Palais-Royal; it brought him in 900 francs, which were to be spent on luxuries. And out of these 900 francs the poet bought the first shawl he gave his young wife. Other women, wives of bankers and princes, have had more beautiful Cashmere shawls than yours, Madame Hugo, but none were woven out of more precious and valuable tissue!

This first volume was an immense success. I remember hearing about it when I was in the provinces.

Lamartine's first volume, _Méditations poétiques_, had appeared in 1820. It had an enormous and deserved success, and sooner or later it was destined to be superseded by another successful rival. It chanced this time that the rival proved equally successful, and the two successes kept pace with one another, hand in hand supporting each other. Nothing happened that could set the poets at variance, their styles were so unlike; nor did politics, thirty years later, succeed in severing the two men, no matter how different their opinions were.

The wedding took place at the house of M. Foucher, the father of the bride, who lived at the War Office. The wedding feast took place in the very hall where, by a strange coincidence to which we shall presently return, General la Horie, Victor's godfather, was sentenced.

_Han d'Islande_, which we have most unfairly deserted, achieved, by reason of its curious originality, quite as great a success as its admired sisters the fair and fresh _Odes._ But it did not bear its author's name and it was impossible to guess that that bunch of lilies and lilacs and roses called _Odes et Ballades_ grew under the shade of the rugged and dark oak tree called _Han d'Islande._ Nodier read and marvelled at the latter production. Good and worthy Nodier! he was always to be found feeding his mind on everything that could nourish it and on everything that could expand his intellect. He announced that Byron and Mathurin were surpassed and that the unknown author of _Han d'Islande_ had attained the ideal of a nightmare. He, the man who was to write _Smarra_! was, upon my word, very modest. Nodier was not the sort of man from whom an author could long conceal his anonymity, no matter in what disguise he masqueraded. The great bibliomaniac who had made so many discoveries of this kind, quite as difficult to detect, discovered that Victor Hugo was the author of _Han d'Islande._ But who was Victor Hugo? Was he a misanthrope like Timon, a cynic like Diogenes or a mourner like Democritus? He raised the veil and found, as we are aware, a fair-complexioned youth who had only just reached his twentieth year and looked but sixteen. He recoiled in amazement: it was incredible. He expected to find the distorted countenance of an aged pessimist; he found the youthful, open, hopeful smile of a budding poet. The very first time they met each other the foundations of a friendship were laid that nothing ever changed. Nodier always loved and was loved in return after this fashion.

Meanwhile, a competence amounting almost to a fortune, had come to the young housekeepers: the first edition of _Han d'Islande_, which was sold for 1000 francs, had run out, and just when Thiers was making his literary début, under cover of the name of Félix Bodin, with his _Histoire de la Révolution_, Victor was selling his second edition of _Han d'Islande_ for 10,000 francs. Lecointre and Durey were the publishers who thus showered gold upon the nuptial bed of the young people. Honours now knocked at their door. We have spoken before of cousin Cornet, who had been made a senator and count under the Empire, and a peer of France under the Restoration; Victor's growing fame pleased the family pride of the old député of Nantes and member of the _Cinq Cents._ He had no child of his own to whom to bequeath his coat of arms of azure with its three cornets argent and his peer's robes; so he proposed to throw the mantle over the young poet's shoulders on one condition. True, the condition was a severe one: in order that the giver's name should not be forgotten, the young poet was to call himself Victor Hugo-Cornet. The proposition was transmitted by General Hugo to the author of _Han d'Islande_ and of the _Odes et Ballades._ The author of _Han d'Islande_ and of the _Odes et Ballades_ replied that he preferred to call himself simply Victor Hugo; and if he wanted to become a peer of France at some future period he did not require the assistance of another, but would become so through his own unaided efforts. So Comte Cornet's offer was declined.

He had another cousin, Comte Volney, who nearly made him a similar proposal to become his heir; but, unluckily, he discovered that _Han d'Islande_ had been written by the same hand as the _Odes et Ballades_, so he shook his head and buttoned his peer's robes over his own shoulders more tightly than before.