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.