HUGO, We (Fr. irgo), Victor Marie, French poet and novelist: b. Besancon, 26 Feb. 1802; d. Paris, 22 May 1885. Major Hugo, his father, having entered the service of Joseph Bonaparte, king of Italy and afterward of Spain, Victor's earlier years were partly spent in these countries. At the age of 12 he was already writing Iterses of considerable promise, and in 1823 his first novel, 'Han d'Islande,) appeared, followed in 1825 by 'Bug Jargal.' In 1828 a complete edition of his 'Odes et Ballades' appeared. In these pro ductions Hugo's anti-classical tendencies in style and treatment of his subject had been very visible, but the appearance of his drama. 'Cromwell' (1827), with its celebrated preface. gave the watchword to the anti-classical or ro mantic school. was too long for representation, and it was only in 1830 that 'Hernani,' over which the great contest be tween Classicists and Romanticists took place, was brought on the stage. Other dramas fol lowed— 'Marion Delorme) (1831); 'Le Roi s'amuse' (1832) ; (Lucrice Borgia) (1833); 'Marie Tudor' (1833) ; 'Angelo) (1835); 'Ruy Bias' (1838); 'Les Burgraves' (1843). Dur ing those years he had also published a novel, 'Notre Dame de Paris) (1830), and several volumes of poetry, 'Les Feuiiles d'Automne) (1831); 'Les Chants du Crepuscule) (1835); 'Les Voix interieures) (1837); 'Les Rayons et les Ombres) (1840). The poetry of this period has a melody and grace superior perhaps to any that he afterward wrote, but wants that deep and original sense of life characteristic of his later poems. During the same period he also wrote critical essays on Mirabeau, Voltaire, and a number of articles for the Revue de Paris. In 1841, after having been four times previously rejected, he was elected a member of the French Academy; made shortly afterward a tour in the Rhineland, of which he wrote a brilliant and interesting account in 'Le Rhin' (1842). In 1845 he was made a peer of France by Louis Philippe. The Revolution of 1848 threw Hugo into the thick of the political struggle. At first his votes were decidedly Conservative, but afterward whether from suspicion of Na poleon's designs or from other reasons, he be came one of the chiefs of the Democratic party. After the coup d'itat, 2 Dec. 1851, he was one of those who kept up the struggle in the streets against Napoleon to the last. He then fled to Brussels, where he published the first of his bitter satires on the founder of the Second Empire, 'Napoleon le Petit.' In August 1852 he went to live in Jersey, but finally settled in Guernsey, where he bought an estate called Hauteville House. In the following year
(1853) the famous volume (Les Chatiments.) a wonderful mixture of satirical invective, lyrical passion and pathos, appeared. It was in the comparative solitude and quietness of the Channel Islands that he wrote most of the great works of his later years. 'Les Contem plations) (1856); 'La Legende des Slides,' 1st series (1859); 'Chansons des Rues et des Bois' (1865), and his celebrated series of social novels, 'Les Miserables) (1862); 'Les Travail leurs de la Mer' (1866) and 'L'Homme qui Mt' (1869). In 1870, after the fall of the empire, Victor Hugo returned to Paris, where he spent his remaining years in occasional at tendances at the Senate, and in adding to the already long list of his literary works. Among these latest productions may be cited, Vingt-Treize (1873); (L'Art d'ętre Grand pere' (1877) ; 'L'Histoire d'un Crime' (1877): 'Le Pape' (1878) ; 'La Pitie Supreme' (1879); 'Religions et Religion' (1880); 'Les Quatre Vents de l'Esprit) (1881); La Legende des Siecles' (last series, 1883); 'Torquemada' (1882). If not the greatest writer that France has produced, certainly he is her greatest poet. But he had grave defects and limitations, the chief being an entire want of humor, a too fre quent straining after effect through the abnor mal and bizarre, an overweening belief in his own infallibility and an ever-present conviction that he was a sage, all of whose sayings might be regarded as priceless teachings, to be eagerly caught up by a listening world. His death was the occasion of an imposing public funeral in the Pantheon, preceded by his body tying in state and guarded for several days under the Arc de'Triomphe. Posthumous works include 'Le Theatre en liberte) • 'La finde Satan' ; and 'Tonte la lyre.' An edition of his complete works in 40 volumes appeared at Paris in 1886. The house in which Victor Hugo lived, on the Place des Vdsges was transferred to the city of Paris, and now forms a Victor Hugo Mu seum, full of interesting relics of the poet. (See HERNANI; Lea CHATIMENTS; MISERADLES, Las; NOTRE DAME BE PARIS; RUY BLAS). Con sult Swinburne, 'Study of Victor Hugo' (1886); Barbou, 'Victor Hugo et son Temps) (1882); Mabillesu, 'Victor Hugo' (1893); Nichol, 'Victor Hugo, a Sketch of his Life and Work' (1894); Dupuy, 'Victor Hugo, l'Homme et le Poitea (1887); Bire, 'Victor Hugo apres 1852' (1894); Stager, 'Victor Hugo et ht grande poisie lyrique en France) (1901); Claretie, 'Victor Hugo, souvenirs intimes' (1902); Mack, 'Romance of Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet) (1905).