La Legende des Siecles by Victor Hugo

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One of the most marked features of Hugo's poetry is his custom of
attributing human desires and volition to inanimate objects. To Hugo,
the whole universe seemed to be alive, both as a whole and in each of
its separate parts, and his way of humanizing the inanimate is not
so much a conscious literary artifice as the natural habit of his
imagination. The tendency is not confined to his poetry; readers of his
romances will remember the gargoyles of Notre-Dame and the cannon
which got loose in the hold of the _Claymore_ and became 'une bete
surnaturelle.' But the instances in his romantic poetry are naturally
more numerous and more vivid. The swords of the heroes are always alive;
in the duel between Roland and Olivier:

Durandal heurte et suit Closamont.

In the combat between Roland and his enemies in the _Petit Roi de
Galice_, the hero staggers and Froila leaps forward to crush him:

Mais Durandal se dresse et jette Froila
Sur Pacheco, dont l'ame en ce moment hurla.

The statues in the hall at Final are moved at the gentle tread of
Fabrice and his little ward, and seem to bow to them as they pass.

Chaque statue, emue a leur pas doux et sombre,
Vibre, et toutes ont l'air de saluer dans l'ombre,
Les heros le vieillard, et les anges l'enfant.

But the most striking instance of this tendency occurs in _Eviradnus_,
where, from beginning to end, all that surrounds the actors in the
story lives with a passionate life. The trees that overhear the plot of
Sigismond and Ladislas tremble and moan, and the words that issue from
the lips of the miscreants are dark with shadow or red with blood. The
half-ruined castle of Corbus fights with the winter, like a strong man
with his enemies; the gargoyles on its towers bark at the winds, the
graven monsters on the ramparts snarl and snort, the sculptured lions
claw and bite the wind and rain[4]. In the gloomy halls the griffins
seize with their teeth the great beams of the roofs, and the door is
afraid of the noise of its own opening. The very shadows feel fear and
the pillars are chilled with terror. The armour of the horses and the
men is terribly alive, and charger and knight make but one monster,
clothed in scales of steel.

[Footnote 4: With this picture in verse of the fight between the castle
and the storm should be compared the prose picture of the fight between
the fire and the water in _Le Rhin_ (Lettre xix).]

Hugo loves especially to endow with life objects that suggest a
struggle. It is the wrecked and broken ship of _Pleine Mer_ rather than
the triumphant vessel of _Plein Ciel_ that is animate.

Ce Titan se rua, joyeux, dans la tempete;
* * * * *
Quand il marchait, fumant, grondant, couvert de toile,
Il jetait un tel rale a l'air epouvante
Que toute l'eau tremblait.
* * * * *
Et pour l'ame il avait dans sa cale un enfer.

Allied with this habit of vivifying the inanimate is the more subtle
artifice of transfiguring or magnifying concrete objects, so that they
become symbolic without ceasing to be real. This blending of the actual
and the figurative is seen in the description of the King and Emperor in
_Eviradnus:_

Leurs deux figures sont lugubrement grandies
Par de rouges reflets de sacs et d'incendies.
* * * * *
Leurs ongles monstrueux, crispes sur des rapines,
Egratignent le pale et triste continent.

In _La Confiance du Marquis Fabrice_ the reality of the wine and the
suggestion of the blood are very artfully mingled

Quelque chose de rouge entre les dalles fume,
Mais, si tiede que soit cette douteuse ecume,
Assez de barils sont eventres et creves
Pour que ce soit du vin qui court les paves.

Another remarkable feature of Hugo's literary art is the feeling for
light and shade which it displays. He likes to wrap his poems in a
physical atmosphere of brightness or gloom, corresponding to the
sentiment which pervades them. How, for instance, in _Les Orientales_,
that exquisite little gem, _Sarah la Baigneuse_, flashes and sparkles
with light! How striking in _La Fin de Satan_ is the contrast between
the murky atmosphere in which the maker of crosses works and the bright
sunshine in which Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem is bathed!
With what consummate art the darkness of the Crucifixion is made to
accentuate the horror of the event!

L'ombre immense avait l'air d'une accusation;
Le monde etait couvert d'une nuit infamante;
C'etait l'accablement plus noir que la tourmente,
La morne extinction de l'haleine et du bruit.

Contrast the radiance of the dawn in which the Satyr, the emblem of
strong and joyous Nature, is first seen:

C'etait l'heure ou sortaient les chevaux du soleil;
Le ciel tout fremissant du glorieux reveil,
Ouvrant les deux battants de sa porte sonore,
Blancs, ils apparaissaient formidables d'aurore;
Derriere eux, comme un orbe effrayant, couvert d'yeux,
Eclatait la rondeur du char radieux
* * * * *
Les quatre ardents chevaux dressaient leur poitrail d'or;
Faisant leurs premiers pas, ils se cabraient encor
Entre la zone obscure et la zone enflammee;
De leurs crins, d'ou semblait sortir une fumee
De perles, de saphirs, d'onyx, de diamants,
Dispersee et fuyante au fond des elements,
Les trois premiers, l'oeil fier, la narine embrasee,
Secouaient dans le jour des gouttes de rosee;
Le dernier secouait des astres dans la nuit.

In _La Confiance du Marquis Fabrice_ light and shadow are very skilfully
managed. We see the little princess Isora making her toilet in the early
morning, when everything is fresh and bright. It is in the dawn that she
loves to play. But the banquet of death takes place at night in a dimly
lighted hall, when the lack of clear light adds to the horror of the
scene. Note the Rembrandtesque effects in such phrases: 'aux tremblantes
clartes,' 'l'ombre indistincte,' 'a travers l'ombre, on voit toutes les
soifs infames,' and it ends in 'le triomphe de l'ombre,' a phrase in
which the literal and the figurative are subtly blended together. On
the other hand, how everything sparkles and gleams in _Le Mariage de
Roland_! Olivier's sword-point glitters like the eye of a demon, while
Durandal shines as he falls on his foeman's head; the sunshine is all
round them in the day, and the night passes quickly; sparks fly from the
weapons as they strike one another, and light up the very shadows with
a dull flash. Take again _La Rose de l'Infante_. Everything round the
little princess is bright: 'le profond jardin rayonnant et fleuri,' 'un
grand palais comme au fond d'une gloire,' 'de clairs viviers,' 'des
paons etoiles.' The very grass, too, seems to sparkle with diamonds and
rubies. But Philip is a dark shadow, half hidden in mist:

On voit d'en bas une ombre, au fond d'une vapeur,
De fenetre a fenetre errer, et l'on a peur.

He is always dressed in black:

Toujours vetu de noir, ce tout-puissant terrestre
Avait l'air d'etre en deuil de ce qu'il existait.

No light is ever seen in his palaces:

L'Escurial, Burgos, Aranjuez, ses repaires,
Jamais n'illuminaient leurs livides plafonds.

His eye shines, it is true, but it is a gleam that suggests a darkness
beneath:

Sa prunelle
Luit comme un soupirail de caverne.

Note again the oppressive darkness of the opening lines of _Pleine Mer_,
in which the only touch of light is the winding-sheet of the waves, and
contrast it with the atmosphere of light which surrounds the ship in
_Plein Ciel_, where even the night is bright:

La Nuit tire du fond des gouffres inconnus
Son filet ou luit Mars, ou rayonne Venus.

_Le Crapaud_ is wrapped in the light of sunset:

Le couchant rayonnait dans les nuages roses;
C'etait la fin d'un jour d'orage, et l'occident
Changeait l'ondee en flamme en son brasier ardent.
* * * * *
Les feuilles s'empourpraient dans les arbres vermeils;
L'eau miroitait, melee a l'herbe, dans l'orniere.

And this because sunset is the hour for gentle thoughts and quiet
feeling:

Dans la serenite du pale crepuscule,
La brute par moments pense et sent qu'elle est soeur
De la mysterieuse et profonde douceur.

So strong is Hugo's feeling for light and shadow that he often seems to
solidify them, as it were, into concrete objects. When the trap-door in
the hall of Corbus is opened

Il en sort de l'ombre, ayant l'odeur du crime,

and in the pit are seen

D'ombres tatant le mur et de spectres reptiles.

In _Les Pauvres Gens_

La morte ecoute l'ombre avec stupidite.

In _Fabrice_

L'aieul semble d'ombre et de pierre construit.

The light seems solid in this line from _Le Satyre_:

Son pied fourchu faisait des trous dans la lumiere.

Again, in _La Conscience_, shadow is vast and oppressive:

L'ombre des tours faisait la nuit dans les campagnes.

And in _Au Lion d'Androcles_ it is the fitting emblem of the human race
in a degenerate age:

La creature humaine, importune au ciel bleu,
Faisait une ombre affreuse a la cloison de Dieu.

Very curious is the connexion between the legends of a countryside and
the smoke of its cottages in the lines:

Les legendes toujours melent quelque fantome
A l'obscure vapeur qui sort des toits de chaume,
L'atre enfante le reve, et l'on voit ondoyer
L'effroi dans la fumee errante du foyer. (_Eviradnus_.)

Of the infinite variety of Hugo's poetic gifts such a selection as is
contained in this volume can of course give but a very inadequate
idea. The extraordinary versatility and fecundity of his genius can be
appreciated only by those who have read all, or at least much, of his
output. But the first series of the _Legende_ is perhaps that part of
the poet's work in which substance and beauty, original thought and
vivid expression, are found in the most perfect combination. Written in
middle life, it stands midway between his earlier poetry with its more
lyric note and his later work with its deeper and more prophetic tones.
In point of expression the poet's powers had attained their full
development; he has perfect command of rime; the versification is free
and shows no trace of the stilted style of his first volumes; the
language is copious and eloquent, but exhibits few signs of that
verbosity and tendency to vain repetition which, as has been already
remarked, marred some of his later poetry. In the _Legende_, no
doubt, are a thousand extravagances, _bizarreries_, anachronisms, and
negligences. But the greatest poet is not, like the greatest general, he
who makes fewest mistakes, but he who expresses the noblest and truest
feeling in the noblest and truest language. So judged, the _Legende_
will take its place amongst the best that the nineteenth century
produced in poetry.

G. F. BRIDGE.

LONDON, _March_, 1907.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Victor-Marie Hugo, son of an officer in Napoleon's army, was born
at Besancon on February 26, 1802. He spent a roving and unsettled
childhood, for wherever the father was sent the mother and children
followed. The first three years of his life were spent in Elba, where he
learnt to speak the Italian dialect spoken in the island in addition
to his mother tongue. Then for three years the family was in Paris and
Victor got a little education in a small school. But in 1805 the father
was appointed to a post in the army of Naples, and in the autumn of 1807
his wife and children joined him at Avellino. Two years later General
Hugo was invited by Joseph Bonaparte to fill an important position in
the kingdom of Spain, and, desirous that his sons should receive a good
education, he sent his family to Paris, where his wife chose for their
home the house in the Rue des Feuillantines which has been so
charmingly described by the poet in the lines _Ce qui se passait aux
Feuillantines_. There he learnt much from an old soldier, General
Lahorie, who, obnoxious to Napoleon for the share he had taken in
Moreau's plot, lived secretly in the house, and from an old priest named
Lariviere, who came every day to teach the three brothers. There too
he played in the garden with the little Adele Foucher, who afterwards
became his wife. But this quiet home life did not last long. In 1811
Madame Hugo set off to join her husband at Madrid, and the boys went
with her. At Madrid they were sent to a school kept by Priests where
Victor was not very happy, and from which he got small profit. Next year
the whole family returned to Paris, and in 1815, at the age of thirteen,
he was definitely sent to a boarding-school to prepare for the Ecole
Polytechnique. But his was a precocious genius, and he devoted himself,
even at school, to verse-writing with greater ardour than to study.
He wrote in early youth more than one poem for a prize competition,
composed a romance which some years later he elaborated into the story
_Bug-Jargal_, and in 1820, when only eighteen, joined his two
brothers, Abel and Eugene, in publishing a literary journal called _Le
Conservateur Litteraire_. About the same time he became engaged to
Adele Foucher, and wrote for her the romance of _Han d'Islande_, which,
however, was not published till later. In 1822 he and Adele were
married, and in the same year he published his first volume of _Odes_.
He was now fully launched on a literary career, and for twenty years or
more the story of his life is mainly the story of his literary output.
In 1827 he published his drama of _Cromwell_, the preface to which, with
its note of defiance to literary convention, caused him to be definitely
accepted as the head of the Romantic School of poetry. _Les Orientales_,
_Le dernier jour d'un condamne_, _Marion de Lorme_, and _Hernani_
followed in quick succession. The revolution of 1830 disturbed for a
moment his literary activity, but as soon as things were quiet again he
shut himself in his study with a bottle of ink, a pen, and an immense
pile of paper. For six weeks he was never seen, except at dinner-time,
and the result was _Notre-Dame de Paris_. During the next ten years
four volumes of poetry and four dramas were published; in 1841 came his
election to the Academy, and in 1843 he published _Les Burgraves_, a
drama which was less successful than his former plays, and which marks
the close of his career as a dramatist. In the same year there came to
him the greatest sorrow of his life. His daughter Leopoldine, to whom
he was deeply attached, was drowned with her husband during a pleasure
excursion on the Seine only a few months after their marriage.

In 1845 Hugo began to take an active part in politics. Son of a Vendean
mother, he had been in early life a fervent royalist, and even in 1830
he could write of the fallen royal family with respectful sympathy. Yet
by that time his democratic leanings had declared themselves, and he
accepted the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe only as a step
towards a republic, for which he considered France was not yet ripe. In
1845 the king made him a peer of France, but this did not prevent
him from throwing himself with all the ardour of his nature into the
revolution of 1848. Divining the ambition of Louis Napoleon, he resisted
his growing power, and when the Second Empire was established the poet
was among the first who were exiled from France. He took refuge first in
Jersey, and afterwards in Guernsey, where he lived in a house near the
coast, from the upper balcony of which the cliffs of Normandy could
sometimes be discerned. Thence he launched against the usurper a bitter
prose satire, _Napoleon le Petit_, and a still bitterer satire in verse,
_Les Chatiments_, and there he wrote two of his greatest novels, _Les
Travailleurs de la Mer_ and _Les Miserables_, two of his finest volumes
of poetry, _Les Contemplations_, the greater part of the first series of
_La Legende des Siecles_, and the two remarkable religious poems, _Dieu_
and _La Fin de Satan_. He returned to France on the fall of Napoleon in
1870, to be for fifteen years the idol of the people, who regarded him
as the incarnation of the spirit of liberty. Several volumes of poetry
were issued during those fifteen years, notably _L'Annee Terrible_,
_Les Quatre Vents de l'Esprit_, and a second series of _La Legende des
Siecles_, none perhaps equal as a whole to the best of his earlier
volumes, but all, especially the second-named, abounding in beautiful
and striking poetry. He died in 1885, and was buried in a manner
befitting one who had filled Europe with his fame, and had been for so
many years the 'stormy voice of France.'

PREFACE
DE LA PREMIERE SERIE

_Hauteville-House, Septembre 1857,_

Les personnes qui voudront bien jeter un coup d'oeil sur ce livre ne
s'en feraient pas une idee precise, si elles y voyaient autre chose
qu'un commencement.

Ce livre est-il donc un fragment? Non. Il existe a part. Il a, comme on
le verra, son exposition, son milieu et sa fin.

Mais, en meme temps, il est, pour ainsi dire, la premiere page d'un
autre livre.

Un commencement peut-il etre un tout? Sans doute. Un peristyle est un
edifice.

L'arbre, commencement de la foret, est un tout. Il appartient a la vie
isolee, par la racine, et a la vie en commun, par la seve. A lui seul,
il ne prouve que l'arbre, mais il annonce la foret.

Ce livre, s'il n'y avait pas quelque affectation dans des comparaisons
de cette nature, aurait, lui aussi, ce double caractere. Il existe
solitairement et forme un tout; il existe solidairement et fait partie
d'un ensemble.

Cet ensemble, que sera-t-il?

Exprimer l'humanite dans une espece d'oeuvre cyclique; la peindre
successivement et simultanement sous tous ses aspects, histoire, fable,
philosophie, religion, science, lesquels se resument en un seul et
immense mouvement d'ascension vers la lumiere; faire apparaitre dans
une sorte de miroir sombre et clair--que l'interruption naturelle des
travaux terrestres brisera probablement avant qu'il ait la dimension
revee par l'auteur--cette grande figure une et multiple, lugubre et
rayonnante, fatale et sacree, l'Homme; voila de quelle pensee, de quelle
ambition, si l'on veut, est sortie _La Legende des Siecles_.

Le volume qu'on va lire n'en contient que la premiere partie, la
premiere serie, comme dit le titre.

Les poemes qui composent ce volume ne sont donc autre chose que des
empreintes successives du profil humain, de date en date, depuis Eve,
mere des hommes, jusqu'a la Revolution, mere des peuples; empreintes
prises, tantot sur la barbarie, tantot sur la civilisation, presque
toujours sur le vif de l'histoire; empreintes moulees sur le masque des
siecles.

Quand d'autres volumes se seront joints a celui-ci, de facon a rendre
l'oeuvre un peu moins incomplete, cette serie d'empreintes, vaguement
disposees dans un certain ordre chronologique, pourra former une sorte
de galerie de la medaille humaine.

Pour le poete comme pour l'historien, pour l'archeologue comme pour
le philosophe, chaque siecle est un changement de physionomie de
l'humanite. On trouvera dans ce volume, qui, nous le repetons, sera
continue et complete, le reflet de quelques-uns de ces changements de
physionomie.

On y trouvera quelque chose du passe, quelque chose du present et comme
un vague mirage de l'avenir. Du reste, ces poemes, divers par le sujet,
mais inspires par la meme pensee, n'ont entre eux d'autre noeud qu'un
fil, ce fil qui s'attenue quelquefois au point de devenir invisible,
mais qui ne casse jamais, le grand fil mysterieux du labyrinthe humain,
le Progres.

Comme dans une mosaique, chaque pierre a sa couleur et sa forme propre;
l'ensemble donne une figure. La figure de ce livre, on l'a dit plus
haut, c'est l'Homme.

Ce volume d'ailleurs, qu'on veuille bien ne pas l'oublier, est a
l'ouvrage dont il fait partie, et qui sera mis au jour plus tard, ce que
serait a une symphonie l'ouverture. Il n'en peut donner l'idee exacte et
complete, mais il contient une lueur de l'oeuvre entiere.

Le poeme que l'auteur a dans l'esprit n'est ici qu'entr'ouvert.

Quant a ce volume pris en lui-meme, l'auteur n'a qu'un mot a en dire. Le
genre humain, considere comme un grand individu collectif accomplissant
d'epoque en epoque une serie d'actes sur la terre, a deux aspects,
l'aspect historique et l'aspect legendaire. Le second n'est pas moins
vrai que le premier; le premier n'est pas moins conjectural que le
second.

Qu'on ne conclue pas de cette derniere ligne--disons-le en
passant--qu'il puisse entrer dans la pensee de l'auteur d'amoindrir la
haute valeur de l'enseignement historique. Pas une gloire, parmi
les splendeurs du genie humain, ne depasse celle du grand historien
philosophe. L'auteur, seulement, sans diminuer la portee de l'histoire,
veut constater la portee de la legende. Herodote fait l'histoire, Homere
fait la legende.

C'est l'aspect legendaire qui prevaut dans ce volume et qui en colore
les poemes. Ces poemes se passent l'un a l'autre le flambeau de la
tradition humaine. _Quasi cursores_. C'est ce flambeau, dont la flamme
est le vrai, qui fait l'unite de ce livre. Tous ces poemes, ceux du
moins qui resument le passe, sont de la realite historique condensee ou
de la realite historique devinee. La fiction parfois, la falsification
jamais; aucun grossissement de lignes; fidelite absolue a la couleur des
temps et a l'esprit des civilisations diverses. Pour citer des exemples,
la _Decadence romaine_ n'a pas un detail qui ne soit rigoureusement
exact; la barbarie mahometane ressort de Cantemir, a travers
l'enthousiasme de l'historiographe turc, telle qu'elle est exposee dans
les premieres pages de _Zim-Zizimi_ et de _Sultan Mourad_.

Du reste, les personnes auxquelles l'etude du passe est familiere
reconnaitront, l'auteur n'en doute pas, l'accent reel et sincere de
tout ce livre. Un de ces poemes (_Premiere rencontre du Christ avec le
tombeau_) est tire, l'auteur pourrait dire traduit, de l'evangile.
Deux autres (_Le Mariage de Roland_, _Aymerillot_) sont des feuillets
detaches de la colossale epopee du moyen age (_Charlemagne, emperor a la
barbe florie_). Ces deux poemes jaillissent directement des livres de
geste de la chevalerie. C'est de l'histoire ecoutee aux portes de la
legende.

Quant au mode de formation de plusieurs des autres poemes dans la pensee
de l'auteur, on pourra s'en faire une idee en lisant les quelques lignes
placees en note avant la piece intitulee _Les Raisons du Momotombo_;
lignes d'ou cette piece est sortie. L'auteur en convient, un rudiment
imperceptible, perdu dans la chronique ou dans la tradition, a peine
visible a l'oeil nu, lui a souvent suffi. Il n'est pas defendu au poete
et au philosophe d'essayer sur les faits sociaux ce que le naturaliste
essaie sur les faits zoologiques, la reconstruction du monstre d'apres
l'empreinte de l'ongle ou l'alveole de la dent.

Ici lacune, la etude complaisante et approfondie d'un detail, tel
est l'inconvenient de toute publication fractionnee. Ces defauts de
proportion peuvent n'etre qu'apparents. Le lecteur trouvera certainement
juste d'attendre, pour les apprecier definitivement, que _La Legende des
Siecles_ ait paru en entier. Les usurpations, par exemple, jouent un tel
role dans la construction des royautes au moyen age et melent tant de
crimes a la complication des investitures, que l'auteur a cru devoir les
presenter sous leurs trois principaux aspects dans les trois drames, _Le
Petit Roi de Galice, Eviradnus, La Confiance du Marquis Fabrice. Ce qui
peut sembler aujourd'hui un developpement excessif s'ajustera plus tard
a l'ensemble.

Les tableaux riants sont rares dans ce livre; cela tient a ce qu'ils ne
sont pas frequents dans l'histoire.

Comme on le verra, l'auteur, en racontant le genre humain, ne l'isole
pas de son entourage terrestre. Il mele quelquefois a l'homme, il heurte
a l'ame humaine, afin de lui faire rendre son veritable son, ces etres
differents de l'homme que nous nommons betes, choses, nature morte, et
qui remplissent on ne sait quelles fonctions fatales dans l'equilibre
vertigineux de la creation.

Tel est ce livre. L'auteur l'offre au public sans rien se dissimuler
de sa profonde insuffisance. C'est une tentative vers l'ideal. Rien de
plus.

Ce dernier mot a besoin peut-etre d'etre explique.

Plus tard, nous le croyons, lorsque plusieurs autres parties de ce livre
auront ete publiees, on apercevra le lien qui, dans la conception de
l'auteur, rattache _La Legende des Siecles_ a deux autres poemes,
presque termines a cette heure, et qui en sont, l'un le denoument,
l'autre le commencement: _La Fin de Satan, Dieu_.

L'auteur, du reste, pour completer ce qu'il a dit plus haut, ne voit
aucune difficulte a faire entrevoir, des a present, qu'il a esquisse
dans la solitude une sorte de poeme d'une certaine etendue ou se
reverbere le probleme unique, l'Etre, sous sa triple face: l'Humanite,
le Mal, l'Infini; le progressif, le relatif, l'absolu; en ce qu'on
pourrait appeler trois chants, _La Legende des Siecles, La Fin de Satan,
Dieu_.

Il publie aujourd'hui un premier carton de cette esquisse. Les autres
suivront.

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