A Wanderer in Paris

by E. V. Lucas

The decay of the Place des Vosges began, of course, when the aristocracy moved over to the Faubourg St. Germain, although it never sank low. The Revolution then took it in hand, and naturally began by destroying the statue of Louis XIII. in the centre, which Richelieu had set up, while its name was changed from Place Royale to its present style in honour of the Department of the Vosges, the first to contribute funds to the new order. In 1825, under Charles X., Louis XIII. in a new stone dress returned to his honoured position in the midst of the square, and all was as it should be once more, save that no longer did lords and ladies ruffle it here or in the Marais.

THE PLACE DES VOSGES
(SOUTHERN ENTRANCE, IN THE RUE BIRAGUE)

The most picturesque associations of the Place des Vosges are historical; but it has at any rate three houses which have an artistic interest. At No. 1 was born that gifted and delightful lady in whose home in later years we have spent such pleasant hours—Madame de Sévigné, or as she was in those early days (she was born in 1626) Marie de Rabutin-Chantal. At No. 13 lived for a while Rachel the tragedienne. According to Herr Baedeker, who is not often wrong, she died here too: but other authorities place her death at Carmet, near Toulon. I like to think that this rare wayward and terrible creature of emotion was once an inhabitant of these walls. The third house is No. 6, in the south-eastern corner, the second floor of which, from 1833 to 1848, was the home of Victor Hugo. It is now a Hugo museum. Although Hugo occupied only a small portion, the whole house is now dedicated to his spreading memory. Let us enter.

There is nothing in England like the Hugo museum. I have been to Carlyle's house in Cheyne Row; to Johnson's house at Lichfield; to Wordsworth's house at Grasmere; to Milton's house at Chalfont St. Giles; to Leighton's House at Kensington; and the impression left by all is that their owners lived very thin lives. The rooms convey a sense of bareness: one is struck not by the wealth of relics but by the poverty of them; while for any suggestion that these men were pulsating creatures of friendship one seeks in vain. But Hugo—Hugo's house throbs with life and energy and warm prosperous amities. Every inch is crowded with mementoes of his vigour and his triumphs, yes, and his failures too.

Here are portraits of him by the hundred, at all ages, caricatures, lampoons, play bills, first editions, popular editions, furniture by Hugo, decorations by Hugo, drawings by Hugo, scenes in Hugo's life in exile, wreaths, busts, portraits of his grandchildren (who taught him the exquisite art of being a grandfather), his death-bed, his death-mask, the cast of his hands. Hugo, Hugo, everywhere, always tremendous and splendid and passionate and French.

Among the more valuable possessions of this museum are Bastien-Lepage's charcoal drawing of the master; Besnard's picture of the first night of Hernani with the young romantic on the stage taking his call and hurling defiance at the gods; Steinlen's oil painting (there are not many oil paintings by this great draughtsman and great Parisian) "Les Pauvres Gens"; Daumier's cartoon "Les Châtiments"; Henner's "Sarah la Baigneuse" from Les Orientales; allegories by Chifflart; beautiful canvases by Carrière and Fantin-Latour; and Devambez's "Jean Valjean before the tribunal of Arras," in which Jean is curiously like Gladstone in a bad coat; Vierge's drawing of the funeral of Georges Hugo, during the siege; and Yama Motto's curious scene of Hugo's own funeral, of which there are many photographs, including one of the coffin as it lay in state for two days under the Arc de Triomphe. There are also a number of Hugo relics which the camelots of that day were selling to the crowds.

Hugo, it is well known, nursed a private ambition to be a great artist, and in my opinion he was a great artist. There are on these walls drawings from his hand which are magnificent—mysterious and sombre fortresses on impregnable cliffs, scenes in enchanted lands with more imagination than ever Doré compassed, and some of the sinister cruelty and power of Méryon. Hugo was ingenious too: he decorated a room with coloured carvings in the Chinese manner and he made the neatest folding table I ever saw—hinged into the wall so that when not in use it takes up no floor-space whatever.

It is amusing to follow Hugo's physiognomy through the ages, at first beardless, looking when young rather like Bruant, the chansonnier of to-day; then the coming of the beard, and the progress of it until the final stage in which the mental eye now always sees the old poet—white and strong and benevolent—the Hugo, in short, of Bonnat's famous portrait.