Home Life of Great Authors

by Hattie Tyng Griswold

Meanwhile, all was happiness in the poet's household. The wife of his youthful dreams presided with tact and grace over his home and her dark Spanish beauty was much admired by the crowds of youthful friends who now began to frequent the house. This type of beauty appears almost as constantly in Victor Hugo's books as the head of La Fornarina did in the pictures of Raphael. He seems constantly to seek to immortalize her whom he had chosen for his own. Madame Hugo's picture was painted for the Salon by their friend M. Louis Boulanger, and was thus described at the time:—

"A full, well-developed bust, white arms of perfect form; a pair of plump, delicate hands that a queen might envy; the hips high, and setting off a figure that was faultless in its contour and flexibility."

She performed her duties as hostess with infinite grace, and her salon was filled with celebrities like Lamartine, who would write verses in her album, and with women like Madame de Girardin. The house was always filled with visitors, attracted by the fascinations of the hostess as much as by the joyousness of the poet. As Victor Hugo's fame increased, we are told that—

"the calm serenity of his early years of married life was somewhat disturbed by the cares and anxieties that glory brings; but at the time of his residence in the Place Royale, of which we have been speaking, there was great happiness in the household, with the young and beautiful children."

The beautiful Madame Drouet, then an actress upon the Parisian stage, was said to have come between the poet and his wife at a later day; and it is certain that she shared his banishment, assisting him much in his literary labor, and finally, after the death of the poet's wife, came to preside over his home in the last days, cherishing her love for him to the very close of his life. She is said to have been very beautiful, even in old age, when her hair, Alphonse Daudet tells us, was as white as swan's-down.

It is not our purpose to deal with the public life of Victor Hugo, and we pass over all that occurred up to the time of the exile, after the coup d'état of Louis Napoleon. The historian tells us that—

"Victor Hugo had asked the Assembly whether, having had a Napoleon the Great, they were now to have a Napoleon the Little; he had inquired of the Royalists how it was that they entered into such strange fellowship with the Empire, pointing out significantly how the Imperialists who had murdered the Duc D'Enghien, and the Legitimatists who had shot Murat, were now grasping each other's blood-stained hands. From the tribune he had proclaimed that the Republic is invincible, and that in France it would prove itself indestructible, as being identical on the one hand with the age, on the other with the people. In lofty language, alike prophetic of the future and condemnatory of the present, he had poured out his indignation in the ears of the nation. The result of all this was that Bonaparte wrote his name at the head of the list of the proscribed."

Feeling that if he remained in Paris his life would be sacrificed to no purpose, he endeavored to get away from the city. This was no easy matter to accomplish, and had it not been for the active and skilful assistance of Madame Drouet, he would doubtless have been imprisoned, with his many friends, who crowded all the jails of Paris. A price was set upon his head; twenty-five thousand francs was offered to any one who would either kill or arrest him, and there were many assassins lurking about in waiting for him. Madame Drouet took him in a fiacre, and secretly started out to seek for him a refuge. She thought she had friends who would shelter him, as Madame Hugo had sheltered Lahorie during the troublous times of the first Empire. She applied to friend after friend in vain. She wept, she implored, she tried to bribe,—in vain. The citizens were too much intimidated to dare shelter one of the proscribed,—even Victor Hugo, perhaps the most honored man in the nation. Madame Drouet, however, would not yield to despair, but pursued her way with undaunted determination. The drive was terrible,—past ruined barricades and pointed cannon, through bloody patrols, and among the police so thoroughly accustomed to the hunting of men. They passed more than one Javert in that fearful ride; and when Victor Hugo afterwards described the sensations of a man pursued like Jean Valjean, he did not have to draw very strongly upon his imagination. The horrible feeling of doubt and distrust, and the cold thrills of dread at every change of circumstance, were well known to his own soul. Madame Drouet's perseverance was at last rewarded by finding a temporary retreat for her charge under the roof of a distant relative of the poet, where he remained five days, filled with the most harrowing anxiety for the friends whom he was endangering, as well as for himself. His two sons were already in prison, and fears for their safety were added to his other burdens. But he escaped at last, in disguise, and fled to Brussels, now filled with French exiles. He managed to communicate with his wife, but his sons in their prison-cells could only conjecture as to his fate. But they heard the roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry outside the walls, and knew that the prison was overflowing with victims; and they feared the worst. Madame Hugo soon joined her husband in Brussels, and he immediately set to work to write "L'Histoire d'un Crime," and completed it in five months. With the power of a Tacitus he describes the scenes of the great historical drama he has taken part in, and with the pen of a Juvenal lashes the betrayers of the Republic. The book was not published till 1877, but it will tell the story of a shameful epoch in French history to the remotest time. He was not allowed to enjoy his refuge in Brussels long; almost as soon as he had printed his "Napoleon the Little," which book he wrote after completing the "History of a Crime," he was requested by the Belgian government to leave the country.

He repaired to the Island of Jersey, where he was joined by his sons upon their release, and by quite a party of friends. He took a small house known as Marine Terrace, on the sea-shore, and there set up his household gods once more. The house was only one story high, but it had a balcony, a terrace, and a garden; and it overlooked the sea, which seemed more than all to Victor Hugo. His income was now but seven thousand francs, and he had nine persons to provide for. No more money could be expected from France, and probably no more from literature, at present. But his busy pen kept at its work, trusting to the future; and the time passed not altogether unpleasantly to the little body of exiles. Jersey is of itself delightful, and the poet found great pleasure in its climate, its scenery, and its luxuriant vegetation. But Napoleon did not at all enjoy the proximity of his great enemy, and soon took measures to drive him from his retreat. Hearing of the new move against him, Victor Hugo took occasion to defy Napoleon, and to "warn him that whether it be from France, from Belgium, from England, or from America, my voice shall never cease to declare that sooner or later he will have to expiate the crime of the 2d of December. What is said is true: there is a personal quarrel between him and me; there is the old quarrel of the judge upon the bench and the prisoner at the bar." They were ordered to quit the Island of Jersey, and were treated to some scenes of violence before departing, which they did with considerable regret, having found life in that favored region comfortable, if not inspiring. They received a warm welcome at Guernsey, whither they retreated, and soon made a new home on that hospitable shore. A large and convenient residence, known as Hauteville House, situated on the top of a cliff, was rented and repaired, and served as a home for the poet and his friends during all the remaining years of his exile, which were destined to be many. Victor Hugo changed and beautified the house according to his own ideas, doing much of the work with his own hands; and the result is something eminently characteristic of the man.