Except that he does not share these secrets of the Heart of God, it is of Victor Hugo among moderns that I have been most reminded when working through Jeremiah's charges against the king, the priests, the prophets and the whole people of Judah—Victor Hugo in his Châtiments of [pg 231] the monarch, the church, the journalists, the courtiers and other creatures of the Third French Empire. There is the same mordant frankness and satiric rage combined with the same desire to share the miseries of the critic's people in spite of their faults. I have already quoted Hugo's lines on Napoleon III as parallel to Jeremiah's on Jehoiakim.[468]
Here are two other parallels.
To Jeremiah's description of his people being persuaded that all was well, when well it was not, and refusing to own their dishonour, VIII. 11, 12, take Hugo's “on est infâme et content” and
Et tu chantais, en proie aux éclatants mensonges
Du succès.
And to Jeremiah's acceptance of the miseries of his people as his own and refusal to the end to part from them take these lines to France:—
Je te demanderai ma part de tes misères,
Moi ton fils.
France, tu verras bien qu'humble tête éclipsée
J'avais foi,