Russian? As to Victor Hugo, in politics as much as in literature he has forfeited the confidence of his countrymen, barring those who do not respect God. Victor Hugo is as much of a political turn-coat as of a literary one. He prostituted his loyalty and gratitude to his King and Royal benefactors in order to obtain a temporary prominence under the Republic, changeable France apparently forgetting the "Grand Old Man's" Conservative Manifesto of former days: "L'histoire des hommes ne présente de poésie que jugée du haut des idées monarchiques et des croyances religieuses."[1]
On July 13th last, at the Hôtel de Ville, the childish old man was replying in the following words to the toast of the Chairman of the Paris Municipal Corporation: "July 14th, is Paris striking Royalty! It is the setting at liberty of men. Ὁ ψευδωμότης! His was a wasted trouble, he too failed because he is no statesman, no philosopher. Moreover, the Republic, like anybody else (this is a logical conclusion), only takes servants of tried fealty.
- ↑ We ventured to say that Victor Hugo is a literary turn-coat. In literature, V. Hugo, until sixty-four years old, was the popular literary man of France. He is a renowned veteran in the republic of letters, the father of the "sweet lyric song" in modern France, undoubtedly a poet of great and original genius. Decidedly the primary consideration of so eminent a genius and leader should have been the respect, at least, of the feeling of France, an essentially religious and Conservative land. Proud and impatient, thirsting for a vast but fleeting popularity, he rushed headlong into the ranks of those he dares to call now his "admirable and generous French people." Regardless of the hopes, faith and love which had endeared him to France in earlier years, and which—as they are to the present Poet Laureate of England—were more than enough to have made his old age beautiful and dignified, the grey-headed old man, tossed upon the black wave of Revolutions, sullied his fame by bringing forth books which only live to swell the torrent of iniquity, and to effect the downfall of many a promising, fair and guileless youth, abroad as well as in France. One understands human frailty; one pities any fallen man; but one wonders at the double baseness of a man who betrays both his political and literary colours, drawing upon himself contempt and rejection from his countrymen. Most Frenchmen, indeed, are good citizens and pious Christian people, and possess national pride and self-respect enough to judge their masters from the higher stand-point of truth and morality as much as of loyalty and honesty. With Englishmen not conversant with French people and French things, we may fairly concede that Frenchmen seem the most restless members of the European family; but Frenchmen, apparently, can endure anything rather than a quiet life, and besides, French news, as generally told to ordinary Englishmen, is the echo of the smallest, most grovelling, and most low-toned portion of the French Press, of the organs of the " gentlemen of the road."
