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.