Victor Hugo: His Life and Work

by George Barnett Smith

CHAPTER VII. LAST DRAMATIC WRITINGS.

In some respects, no man of equal genius was ever so unfortunate as Victor Hugo in his relations with the stage. I refer, of course, to the earlier part of his career, for there came a time when the appreciation of him as a dramatist was as high and universal as was the admiration of his literary excellence. But during the long struggle between the old and the new drama there were always enemies ready to denounce and hiss whatsoever he produced; and had he given them a Romeo and Juliet or a Hamlet, the result would have been precisely the same.

We have seen the alternations of failure and success which attended the plays already passed in review; and the same mixed reception was awarded to those final efforts in connection with the drama which led him to adopt the resolution to quit the stage for ever. An operatic venture into which the poet was drawn in 1836 resulted in the same ill-fortune which had marked more regular dramatic compositions. Meyerbeer and other celebrated musicians had begged Victor Hugo to make an opera of Notre-Dame de Paris, but he had steadfastly declined all such proposals. At length he yielded to friendship, and wrote the libretto of an opera called La Esmeralda, the music being composed by Mademoiselle Bertin, daughter of the conductor of the Journal des Débats. Curiously enough, the libretto ended with the word 'fatality,' and this represented the misfortune of the piece and its performers. Though boasting a singular array of talent in its production and representation, it was hissed. Mademoiselle Falcon, the leading singer, lost her voice; M. Nourrit, the tenor, subsequently went to Italy, and killed himself; the Duke of Orleans gave the name of Esmeralda to a valuable mare, which was killed at a steeplechase; and finally, a ship called the Esmeralda was lost in crossing from England to Ireland, and every soul on board perished.

A domestic grief visited the poet in the following year, when his brother Eugène died. For some time before his death he had been insane, and towards the end his one favourite relative, Victor, even could not visit him, as the sight of his brother conjured up illusions which made him dangerously violent. Though of strong constitution naturally, when the sufferer's mind gave way his physical health began to fail also, and he gradually wasted away until death released him in February, 1837. This was the brother who had been Victor Hugo's constant companion in early life, and the news of his death deeply agitated the survivor, keenly awakening the slumbering recollections of childhood.

Louis Philippe gave a grand fête at Versailles in the summer of 1837, on the occasion of the marriage of the Duke of Orleans. Victor Hugo, Dumas, Balzac, and other men of letters were invited, and were obliged to appear in fancy dress, the result being ludicrous in some cases, as in that of Balzac, who had on the dress of a marquis, which, it was jokingly said, fitted him as badly as the title itself would. Hugo was an object of special distinction by the Royal family. The King conversed with him, and the Duchess of Orleans paid him marked attention. There were two people, she said, with whom she wished to become acquainted—M. Cousin and himself. She had often spoken of him to Monsieur de Goethe; she had read all his works, and knew his poems by heart. Her favourite book was the Chants du Crépuscule; and she added, 'I have visited your Notre-Dame.' Hugo was promoted to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honour, and he received from the Duchess a painting by M. Saint-Evre representing Inez de Castro. It was a valuable work, and on the gilding of the frame was inscribed, 'Le Duc et la Duchesse d'Orléans à M. Victor Hugo, 27 Juin, 1837.'

At this juncture the poet brought a second action before the Board of Trade, to compel the Comédie Française to fulfil its agreement with him by producing his plays. He also claimed compensation for past neglect. Hugo's advocate, M. Paillard de Villeneuve, in an effective speech, demonstrated the injustice of a theatre supported by the State becoming the monopoly of a clique; showed how the existing state of things pressed heavily upon such men of genius as his client; and asserted that not only had no pieces ever realized greater profits, but that actually at that moment, while they were prohibited in France, they were drawing large and appreciative audiences in London, Vienna, Madrid, Moscow, and other important cities. Victor Hugo himself also spoke, complaining that the manager of the French theatre had deceived him, and that he wore two masks—one of which was intended to deceive authors, and the other to elude justice. The Board gave judgment in the poet's favour, sentencing the Comédie Française to pay 6,000 francs damages, and to perform Hernani, Marion de Lorme, and Angelo without delay. An appeal was entered against this judgment, and when it came on for hearing Hugo pleaded his cause in person, asserting that there was an organized effort to close the stage against the new and rising school of literature. The appeal was dismissed, and justice was at length done to the dramatist. In conformity with the judgment, Hernani was first produced, and the play was brilliantly successful.

I must refer in this place to some of Victor Hugo's lyrical efforts. Not without reason has the volume entitled Feuilles d'Automne held a high place in the regard of his admirers. It is the poetry of the emotions expressed in such graceful lyric verse as has rarely been penned. In these tender and exquisite poems, as M. Alfred Nettement observed, the poet's 'lay is of what he has seen, of what he has felt, of what he has loved: he sings of his wife, the ornament of his home; of his children, fascinating in their fair-haired beauty; of landscapes ever widening in their horizon; of trees under which he has enjoyed a grateful shade.' Nature and personal experiences—from the opening thoughts of the child to the greater aspirations of the man—are blended in beautiful harmony in these poems, which may be turned to again and again for their sweetness and melody. In 1835 appeared Les Chants du Crépuscule, which truly represent a kind of twilight of the soul. 'As compared with what had gone before, the book exhibits the same ideas; the poet is identically the same poet, but his brow is furrowed by deeper lines, and maturity is more stamped upon his years; he laments that he cannot comprehend the semi-darkness that is gathering around; his hope seems damped by hesitation; his love-songs die away in sighs of misgiving; and when he sees the people enveloped in doubt, he begins to be conscious of faltering too. But from all this temper of despondency he quickly rallies, and returns to a bright assurance of a grand development of the human race.' The volume has tones of gentleness and also tones of lofty scorn. To the suffering and the unfortunate the poet was ever tender and pitiful; but to the mean, the base, and the vicious he was as a whip and a scourge. He always endeavoured to separate the worthy from the unworthy, and wherever the latter were to be found, whether in the ranks of friends or foes, they were never suffered to escape the lash of his indignation.

Another volume of poems, Les Voix Intérieures, was published in 1837. 'The poet in this production,' says one of his biographers, 'regards life under its threefold aspect, at home, abroad, and at work; he maintains that it is the mission of the poet not to suffer the past to become an illusion to blind him in the present, but to survey all things calmly, to be ever staunch yet kind, to be impartial, and equally free from petty wrath and petty vanity; in everything to be sincere and disinterested. Such was his ideal, and in accordance with it Victor Hugo spared no effort to improve the minds and morals of men in general, and by his poetry, as well as by his romances and his plays, he desired to constitute himself the champion of amelioration.' This same desire for the elevation of the race ran through all his efforts—social, literary, and political. He may have been mistaken in his means sometimes, never in the honesty and purity of his intent.

Returning to the stage, Victor Hugo had become so impressed with the idea that the French nation had a right to have a theatre in which the higher drama should be performed, that he was brought to consent to several interviews on the subject with M. Guizot. The latter admitted that there never was a more legitimate request; he agreed with the poet that a new style of art required a new style of theatre; that the Comédie Française, which was the seat of Tradition and Conservatism, was not the proper arena for original literature of the day; and that the Government would only be doing its duty in creating a theatre for those who had created a department of art. A scheme was perfected for a new theatre, and M. Anténor Joly was named as manager. No building but a very old one was to be had, however, and this—which was in a bad situation—was transformed into the Théâtre de la Renaissance. For this theatre Hugo wrote his Ruy Blas, a drama which, as is well known, deals with the love of a queen for a valet who subsequently becomes a minister. The play was in five acts, and the leading character was sustained by Lemaître. The actor strongly approved the first three acts, but was more than dubious about the fourth and fifth. During the final rehearsals of this piece Victor Hugo had a marvellous escape of his life. Two of the actors happening to station themselves awkwardly, he got up in order to indicate their right positions. Scarcely had he left his chair when a great bar of iron fell upon it from an arch above, smashing it to atoms. The author would undoubtedly have been killed on the spot but for this momentary rising to correct the mistake of the actors.

The body of the theatre being incomplete when the play came to be produced, difficulties beset the representation. It was winter, and many of the audience were chilled by violent draughts. But the play soon warmed them into enthusiasm. In the fifth act, we are told by one who was present, Lemaître rivalled the greatest comedians, and success was more decided than ever. 'The way in which he tore off his livery, drew the bolt, and struck his sword on the table, the way in which he said to Don Sallustre: