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Hernani

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«Lucréce Borgia» (1833) illustrates the same point. It is a piling
of horror upon horror for the sake, apparently, of bringing into
sufficient relief a few passages of great moral beauty. This is as
undignified as it is useless. Virtue needs no such setting. M. Vinet
says that in this drama Hugo pandered to the false taste of the age,
which demanded horrors and violence and sensuous appeals, instead of
leading it, as he could, to follow better principles of taste.

«Marie Tudor» (1833) is, like «Cromwell», unhistorical. It is not one
of Hugo's greatest plays, nor is «Angelo» (1835), another drama,
in prose, founded on history; but «Ruy Blas» (1838) is generally
acknowledged to be, after «Hernani», the best of his dramas. It was
followed, in 1843, by «Les Burgraves», the last of his plays
written for the stage. My judgment may be too unenthusiastic, and
I acknowledge that only time can sift the true from the false, the
excellent from the second-rate; but I would not exchange the little
volume of Musset's unpretending «Comédies et Proverbes» for all the
«Hernanis» and «Ruy Blas» in the world, and that for the simple reason
that Musset is more sincere.

We have seen that at a very early age Victor Hugo wrote two stories,
«Bug Jargal» and «Han d'Islande». In 1831, while in the full heat of
his dramatic activity, he yet found time, by shutting himself up and
going out but once for six months, to write «Notre Dame de Paris»,
which is one of his masterpieces of prose, an historical novel built
on a scale of gigantic proportions, and presupposing exhaustive
archaeological research. It is a vast picture, full of glaring lights
and awful shadows, of Paris in the Middle Ages, with the cathedral of
Notre Dame as background, and indeed as one of the characters.

A man who had produced so many strong plays and this remarkable novel,
not to mention his lyric poetry, could not longer be refused admission
into the national galaxy of great men, and in 1841 Hugo was elected
a member of the Academy. Two years later he was created a peer of
France. In spite of these anchors to conservatism, as one would
suppose them, a title of rank and a seat among the immortals, Hugo
became more and more radical in politics, drifting gradually
towards the conception of an ideal republic, and bending his course
thitherward. When Louis Bonaparte, not content with his election to
the presidency in 1848, overthrew the government, and proclaimed
himself Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, by the infamous _coup
d'état_ of December 1851, there was no enemy more irreconcilable than
Victor Hugo. The brave poet was banished, and did not touch the soil
of France again till 1870, after Sedan, when the wicked Empire had
ignominiously dissolved. Although included in an amnesty, he had not
been willing to return until the Babylonian woe was past. Most of his
exile he spent on the island of Jersey, under the English flag. From
there he issued a political pamphlet, «Napoléon le Petit», and a
succession of volumes of poetry. His second great work of fiction,
«Les Misérables», appeared in 1862, followed by «Les Travailleurs de
la Mer», in 1866, and by «Quatre-vingt-treize», in 1874. «L'Homme qui
Rit», 1866, was an unsuccessful attempt at an historical novel, with
the scene in England. Of his novels «Les Misérables» is incomparably
the best. «Les Travailleurs de la Mer», while powerful in its unity
and intensity, is too full of technical terms and of idiosyncrasies
to be either easy or pleasant reading. «Notre Dame de Paris» and
«Quatre-vingt-treize» are the most popular, next to «Les Misérables».
In «Les Misérables» Hugo employed that short, choppy style which
has come to be known as Hugoesque. To many readers it is decidedly
wearisome, though by others it is considered the acme of nervous,
terse expression.

But it is as a lyric poet, I fancy, far more than as a dramatist, a
novelist, or a political pamphleteer, that Victor Hugo will be known,

«When time has swept both friends and foes.»

Unfortunately, foreign students of French literature are less likely
to seek acquaintance with his poems than with his plays and novels.
The peculiar character of French versification repels us. We,
accustomed to a more heavily accented line, cannot quickly sharpen our
ears to the delicate modulations we encounter there. But when once the
ear is attuned to these fainter harmonies, a wonderful revelation is
made to us in the long succession of songs that rose from the lips of
Victor Hugo; and I think it is safe to say that lie is at least the
greatest French lyric poet.

His poetry is so intimately the product of his life, that to
appreciate it we must know something more of that life, especially
the emotions and incidents connected with his home and family. His
marriage relation was one of perfect harmony, if one may judge of such
matters; and he was happy in his home. His wife was evidently the
companion of his thought. His children were two sons and a daughter.
In this daughter the poet's deepest love was centred, and her graces
are the theme of many of his loveliest songs, while her premature
death by drowning, with her young husband, in 1843, was the occasion
for that one of his lyrics which contains the fullest portion of moral
grandeur, «A Villequier». It is the heartbroken cry of a strong man
whom the hand of God has at last led back to faith and submission
along paths of darkest sorrow. For it must be remarked that Victor
Hugo, intoxicated with success and the atmosphere of protest which he
himself had done so much to create, had for many years apparently lost
sight of his young manhood's conviction of the immanence of a God
in the lives of men. After his daughter's death it was upon his
granddaughter Jeanne that his affection took root--the same Jeanne
whom he afterwards celebrated, throughout his old age, in the poems
which are found in the volume entitled «L'Art d'être Grand-père», and
who was the idol of the French nation. She was married a few years ago
to a son of Alphonse Daudet.

In the volumes of lyrics from 1822 to 1853, including «Odes et
Ballades», «Les Orientales», «Les Feuilles d'Automne», «Les Chants du
Crépuscule», and «Les Voix intérieures», there is a marked change in
the views of the author as to religion and politics, from conservatism
to radicalism, from conviction to uncertainty and almost indifference;
and there seems to be a loss of energy when we compare the first with
the last productions, though there is a gain, of course, in technical
skill. But in all that time there was only an evolution, not a deep
moral change imposed from without, for the life of his heart was, all
those years, serene. But his exile broke this succession of tranquil
years and growing thoughts, and from 1852 to 1870, from «Les
Châtiments» to «L'Année terrible», there runs through his volumes
a deep undertone of solicitude for the welfare of France, and more
especially of sad personal yearning to be back upon her soil. «L'Année
terrible», the year of the invasion of France, the siege of Paris, and
the Commune, brought him back. The very day that Napoléon le Petit
followed his conquerors out of French territory, Victor Hugo entered,
and proceeding to Paris, threw himself passionately into the national
defence. It may seem a strange thing to say, but this year of disaster
must have been a grand and almost a joyous one in Hugo's life. It was
the vindication of his exile, in so far as that had been voluntary. It
gave him a chance, which he embraced, of translating his heroic words
into deeds. Any true man who had for years been writing about the
glory of his country and the sacred duty of maintaining her honor must
have felt a proud and awful joy in the opportunity to talk now with
deeds and words.

The rest of his life, from 1872 to 1885, was spent in conspicuous
eminence, on a throne of popularity where he sat the autocrat of
republican France, without a rival, and with scarce an enemy. It is
true that his career as an active politician was a failure, but then
it must have been soon apparent to him that he ought never to have
entered upon it, and that he could be more useful and incomparably
more distinguished in his own work. He died in Paris, on the 22d of
May, 1885. His funeral was a demonstration which has seldom been
equalled in the world's history for solemn pomp and the proud grief of
a nation.

The question of the man's personality need not enter into our estimate
of a dramatist, a novelist, or an historian, though as a matter of
fact it does. But we can hardly consider lyric poetry merely with
reference to its intrinsic quality. Lyric poetry is generally a record
of its author's most intimate emotions; it is a sublimation of his
life: and this is peculiarly true in the case of Victor Hugo. For,
after all, his chief subject was himself. It is certainly permissible,
and we can readily understand that it is indeed almost necessary, that
a lyric poet should view the world subjectively. One can therefore
find no fault with Victor Hugo for this. But it is a marked
characteristic of his work that he cannot get outside of himself, that
he is rarely carried away by his passion for the beautiful and the
true, though this passion he did really possess. So although we cannot
blame his egoism as a fault, we must deplore it as a defect; for on
account of it alone he falls short, in the opinion of many critics, of
being a great world-poet, one of the supreme consolers and sustainers
of humanity.

There is a fine essay on Victor Hugo by Mr. Frederic W. H. Myers,
[note:In volume v of _The Nineteenth Century_.] which all students of
the poet ought to read, not only because it is a very thorough criticism
on Hugo as a lyric poet, but also because it is a masterly piece of work
altogether, and full of suggestions. Mr. Myers says: «In his moral nature
we shall find much that is strong, elevated, and tender; a true passion
for France, a true sympathy for the poor and the oppressed, a true
fondness for children. Further than this it will be hard to go; so plain
will it be that the egoism which penetrates M. Hugo's character is a bar
to all higher sublimity, and has exercised a disastrous effect on his
intellectual as well as on his moral character.

«In calling M. Hugo egoistic I am far from accusing him of vulgar
self-seeking--of an undue regard for any tangible form of personal
advantage. What I mean is that he seems never to forget himself; that
whatever truth he is pursuing, whatever scene he describes, his own
attitude in regard to it is never absent from his mind. And hence it
results that all other objects are unconsciously made secondary to the
great object of making an impression of the kind desired. From the
smallest details of style up to the most serious steps in political
conduct this preoccupation is visible. It was the same spirit which
prompted the poet to begin one of his most solemn elegiac poems with
the repeated assertion «that it should never be said that _he_ kept
silence, that _he_ did not send a sombre strophe to sit before his
children's tomb», and which prompted the politician to resign in
a moment the trust which Paris had committed to him, because the
Assembly would not listen to him with the respect which he thought his
due.»

Mr. Myers seems too sparing of his praise for what Hugo did that is
excellent in poetry, passing without mention some of his sweetest
songs and most stirring outbursts of grandeur. His essay came as
antidote to the immoderate eulogy published just before by Mr.
Swinburne, and overdoes its promise of giving us a calmer estimate of
Hugo. Mr. Myers does not do justice to the contents of Hugo's poetry,
and he is perhaps not as susceptible of being ravished by the form as
Swinburne was. Yet there is truth in what Mr. Myers says when he tells
us that he thinks Hugo's «central distinction lies in his unique power
over the French language, greatly resembling Mr. Swinburne's power
over the English language, and manifesting itself chiefly in beauty
and inventiveness of poetical form and melody.» Mr. Edward Dowden
speaks with high praise of Hugo's successful efforts «to reform the
rhythm of French verse, to enrich its rhymes, to give mobility to the
caesura, to carry the sense beyond the couplet, to substitute definite
and picturesque words in place of the _fadeurs_ of classical mythology
and vague poetical periphrasis.» And this is indeed Hugo's chief
distinction and the chief distinction of all the Romanticists, for
their pretended searching of foreign literature and mediaeval history
brought them less poetical material than variety and vigor of poetical
form.

The two most characteristic classes of subjects of Victor Hugo's poems
are politics, in a wide sense of the word, and his own family life.
He is not a great poet of nature, though some of his sea-pictures are
very remarkable. He was prevented by his egoism from being a great
interpreter of the heart or a great preacher of divine truth. But Mr.
Myers, with much reason apparently, finds a fundamental weakness in
Hugo's early political poetry also. He tells, and proves it too, that
Hugo had not fully made up his mind, prior to his banishment, what his
political ideal was. He sang the praises of the Bourbons when they
were on the throne; but then he was a mere boy, and I have shown how
at that time he was under the potent influence of the period, which
made for conservatism. That surely is a part of his history of which
he has no reason to be ashamed, even though he soon emancipated
himself from royalist tendencies. But what is harder to understand,
for a foreigner, is how he could have become a worshipper of Napoleon
and a friend of Louis Bonaparte. It is only the French who could thus
kiss the hand that smote them, and love a tyrant because he brought
them false glory--the glory of victory in unjust wars. Patriotism of
that sort is a national vice, and the French have it in their blood.
We might suppose that when he had not only got rid of his Bourbon
blindness, but recovered from his Napoleonic fever, Victor Hugo
would at last find favor in Mr. Myers's eyes, as a republican, and a
republican who suffered eighteen years of exile for his opinions. But
no; Mr. Myers's praise is strictly qualified, and again he convinces
us that he is right: «We find the same vagueness and emptiness in M.
Hugo's praises of the Republic, and yet there is no subject on which a
political preacher in France needs to be more explicit. For under the
name of Republic are included two forms of government as dissimilar as
forms of government can be. A republic may be constructed, like the
American republic, on individualistic principles, reducing the action
of government to a minimum, and leaving every one undisturbed in the
pursuit of private well-being. Or it may be constructed on socialistic
principles», etc. And he goes on to say that «no real instruction on
these points can be got from M. Hugo's writings or speeches.»

Mr. Myers carries his condemnation even into the sphere of
love-poetry, declaring that Hugo did not write the very best
love-poetry because his love was always a refined egoism, and that his
poetry suffers from «the want which separates patronage and desire
from chivalry and passion.»

I have purposely quoted some of the severest things I could find
in first-class criticism, because I wish to conclude with words of
praise, which will carry more weight if it is perceived that they were
not blindly penned. It is in itself a great achievement to have done
so much honest work of a high character as Hugo did. It is no small
distinction to have guided a people's hopes for eighteen years from
his island of exile. It is a noble end of a zealous life to have worn
for fifteen years the crown of such a nation's kingship. But when even
these proud honors are forgotten, children's voices will still repeat
and men's hearts still echo a hundred songs of the greatest lyric poet
of France.






HISTORICAL NOTE TO «HERNANI».


«HERNANI» is an historical tragedy. Its real hero is that inscrutable
great man upon whom fortune bestowed first the throne of Spain and
presently the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, with the title Charles
the Fifth. Although Hugo, as a dramatist may do with perfect right,
departs in many instances from historical fact, the play demands for
its proper enjoyment some information concerning the nature of the
imperial office and the character of Charles.

An earlier and mightier Charles, king of the German conquerors of
Gaul, was by Pope Leo III, on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, crowned in the
basilica of St. Peter head of the Roman Empire, which was believed to
be still, with unimpaired authority, the same as that of Augustus.
From its connection with the Church as the temporal complement of the
spiritual reign of Christ's vicar, the Empire was thenceforth most
frequently denominated the Holy Roman Empire. Its vitality was never
greater than under Charlemagne himself. Its limits, both in the minds
of men and on the map of Europe, were at no time during the next
seven hundred years really greater than in his reign. In general the
Emperors claimed dominion over Italy, Germany, the Low Countries, and
much of what is now the Austrian Empire, Switzerland, and France,
besides the precedence over all other kings and potentates. They
desired to be considered, and by most men were considered, to be in
temporal things the counterpart of the Popes in things spiritual, and
with jurisdiction no less widespread. It was traditional that the king
chosen by the seven great princes, or electors, of Germany, should
proceed to Rome, there to be crowned Emperor by the Pope. With not a
few exceptions these honors were confined for long periods of time to
certain families. The first member of the house of Hapsburg who won
the election was Rudolf (1272-1292), founder of the present Austrian
dynasty. Another Hapsburger, Albert I, was chosen in 1298, and
another, Albert II, in 1438; since when, until the annihilation of the
Holy Roman Empire in 1806, all the Emperors, with two exceptions, have
been of that house.

None of his successors made such an impression upon the imagination
of contemporary and following generations as was produced by
the stupendous figure of Charles the Great. His reputation was
well-earned. He can be called, better than any other man, the creator
of mediaeval Europe. In his day looked upon as a Roman, the French
have adopted him as the father of their nationality, and he is the
hero of their ancient epic poetry. Yet, as Mr. Bryce declares, he was
entirely German: «No claim can be more groundless than that which the
modern French, the sons of the Latinized Kelts, set up to the Teutonic
Charles. At Rome he might assume the chlamys and the sandals (marks of
a Roman patrician), but at the head of his Frankish host he strictly
adhered to the customs of his country, and was beloved by his people
as the very ideal of their own character and habits. Of strength
and stature almost superhuman, in swimming and hunting unsurpassed,
steadfast and terrible in fight, to his friends gentle and
condescending, he was a Roman, much less a Gaul, in nothing but his
culture and his schemes of government, otherwise a Teuton. The centre
of his realm was the Rhine; his capitals Aachen and Engilenheim; his
army Frankish; his sympathies--as they are shown in the gathering of
the old hero-lays, the composition of a German grammar, the ordinance
against confining prayer to the three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin--were all for the race from which he sprang, and whose advance,
represented by the victory of Austrasia, the true Frankish fatherland,
over Neustria and Aquitaine, spread a second Germanic wave over the
conquered countries.» (Bryce: «Holy Roman Empire», pp. 71 and 72.)

It is a long jump from the crowning of Charles the Great, in A.D. 800,
to the accession of Maximilian I, of the house of Hapsburg, in 1493.
The imperial dignity, as such, had declined. The power of Maximilian
lay in his hereditary possession of the grandduchy of Austria and
his acquisition, by marriage, of the Burgundian lands, including
Franche-Comté, Luxemburg, Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, Brabant, and
Limburg; in other words, a territory which embraced what is now
Belgium, Dauphiny, Burgundy, and parts of Holland, of Provence, of
Languedoc, and of Savoy. Philip, son of this Maximilian, married
Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Ferdinand, head of the
united kingdoms of Aragon and Leon, and Isabella, Queen of Castile,
had by their marriage, in 1469, consolidated Spain into a strong
kingdom. Through their success in promoting industry and conquering
the Moors of Granada, and by the discovery of America, Spain rose to
a dominant position in European politics. Joanna became hopelessly
insane. Philip, for two years King of Castile, after the death of
Isabella in 1504, died in 1506. Charles, son of Philip and Joanna, was
born at Ghent in 1500. From his maternal grandparents he inherited
Aragon (with Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia) and Castile (with the
American colonies). He had been brought up at his father's court in
Brussels, and was not really Spanish in sympathies or culture. On
the death of his grandfather, Ferdinand the Catholic, in 1516, the
Cardinal Ximenes protected his interests until his arrival in Spain,
in 1517. The beginnings of his career as Charles I. of Spain were
weak. His mother, though shut up in a madhouse, was nominally joint
ruler with him, and his Spanish subjects took advantage of this fact
to oppose him and his Flemish favorites.

He unjustly and ungratefully degraded Ximenes, and showed little
indication of tact and small sense of responsibility. In 1519, on the
death of his grandfather Maximilian, Charles became Grand Duke of
Austria, inheriting from him also Burgundy, which had come into the
family with his grandmother, Mary of Burgundy. He immediately set up
his candidacy for election as German King. His opponents were Henry
VIII of England and Francis I of France, the latter a real and
formidable rival.

The electors were the Archbishops of Trier (Treves), Mainz, and
Cologne, the Duke of Saxony, the Count Palatine, the King of Bohemia,
and the Margrave of Brandenburg. The constitution of the electoral
body had been settled in 1356 by an instrument called the Golden
Bull, issued by the Emperor Charles IV and confirmed at the Diet of
Nuremberg: By it Frankfort was made the place of election, and the
Archbishop of Mainz convener of the college.

In June 1519 this body was convoked at Frankfort, and after hearing
the claims of Francis and Charles, offered the imperial crown to one
of their own number, the Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise. He
declined it in favor of Charles, who was then elected. It took nine
days for the news to travel to Barcelona, where the young man was.
Naturally elated at his success he assumed, even in his decrees as
King of Spain, the title of Majesty, which up to that time no mere
king had received; disregarded the appeals of his Spanish subjects
to remain in that country; and hastened to Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle),
where he was crowned German King in October 1520.

After ten years of political and military activity, contests with
Luther and his adherents, wars with Francis I, who laid claim to
Burgundy and Northern Italy, Charles was crowned Emperor, at Bologna,
in 1530. From then until 1555 he filled Europe with the blaze of his
achievements, reviving the almost vanished prestige of the imperial
office. In 1555 he abdicated his throne and retired to the monastery
of San Yuste, near Plasencia, where, in 1558, he died.


[Transcriber's note: notes with numbertags are to be found at the end
of the text, those with lettertags are placed immediately after the
part they refer to.]


PREFACE DE L'AUTEUR.


L'auteur de ce drame écrivait il y a peu de semaines à propos d'un
poëte mort[1] avant l'âge:

«...Dans ce moment de mêlée et de tourmente littéraire, qui faut-il
plaindre, ceux qui meurent ou ceux qui combattent? Sans doute, il est
triste de voir un poëte de vingt ans qui s'en va, une lyre qui se
brise, un avenir qui s'évanouit; mais n'est-ce pas quelque chose aussi
que le repos? N'est-il pas permis à ceux autour desquels s'amassent
incessamment calomnies, injures, haines, jalousies, sourdes menées,
basses trahisons; hommes loyaux auxquels on fait une guerre déloyale;
hommes dévoués qui ne voudraient enfin que doter le pays d'une liberté
de plus, celle de l'art, celle de l'intelligence; hommes laborieux qui
poursuivent paisiblement leur oeuvre de conscience, en proie d'un
côté à de viles machinations de censure[2] et de police, en butte de
l'autre, trop souvent, à l'ingratitude des esprits mêmes pour lesquels
ils travaillent; ne leur est-il pas permis de retourner quelquefois la
tête avec envie vers ceux qui sont tombés derrière eux et qui dorment
dans le tombeau? _Invideo_, disait Luther dans le cimetière de Worms,
_invideo, quia quiéscunt_.

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