Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Miscellaneous Victor Hugo Victor Hugo “Oh Memories! Treasures in darkness born! Murky horizon of our ancient dreams! Dear brilliance of a past that brightly beams! Casting a radiance on things dead and gone” (Hugo 116)! In a foreign land, in a foreign era, an extinct sound resides in the atmosphere. It’s the sound of a world that has never experienced or conceived of anything like an automobile or a jet, a television or a radio, a microwave or even an alarm clock. It’s the sound of a small population, people that live on the amusement they find in polite conversation, art, theatre, and primarily literature. When night falls, the only illumination casting a glow on this world comes from the flickering of a lantern or a small bedside candle. In the midst of this existence a war was brewing amongst the citizens of France, and the peaceful simplicity is interrupted. Republican armies in conflict with the aristocracy lace the country in tents and encampments by night and in battlefields by day. Soldiers regularly intrude upon the homes and properties of rural citizens to stay for weeks or even months. Life is one interruption after another. On one fateful occurrence a charming young general led his troops across the French countryside in search of temporary shelter. They came upon a small farm, home to a family of devout royalists by the name of Trebuchet. Here the troops would stay for over a year. Over the course of that time the young general became infatuated with the young daughter of the household, Sophie. Sophie was strong willed and opinionated. She could hold her own ground in the midst of masculine politics and war. But despite their differences the two were married. They would become the parents of three children – Abel, Eugene, and Victor. A small, quiet house lay nestled amid the commotion of Paris. Its décor was the reflection of a woman independent of her husband. Young Victor was enveloped only in the life that his mother created for him. He barely knew his father, but the meaning of the General’s perpetual absence was unbeknownst to the small boy at the time. The only male figure present in his life was his mother’s “friend” General Lahorie. He lived his childhood with the world as his playground. The family frequently moved, spending one moment in France and hopping to Italy or Spain the next. He breathed the culture that surrounded him taking in ever detail with his childish eyes, as he always would. In his later years Victor would write beautiful poetry about childhood. He cherished this time in his life, and he held a great deal of gratitude for the life that his mother provided for him and his brothers. Victor spent his adolescent years studying law in the home of the Foucher family. His brothers resided there as well. Monsieur Foucher was not a kind man, especially toward Victor, and Victor had no ambition in law. He missed the life that he had had with his mother, and he wrote to her of the Fouchers. My dear mamma – since you went away we have all been very bored here…Come back soon. Without you we do not know what to talk about nor what to do. We are all at a loose end. We never cease thinking of you. Mamma! Mamma! The true passion that occupied his life was actually the Foucher’s daughter, Adele. Victor expressed an amazingly deep love for this young girl when he was only 15 years of age. At this time he was beginning to develop greatly as a writer, and the eloquence of his words shines brightly in the love letters sent to Adele. Victor’s mother discouraged her son’s obsession with this young beauty. She wanted her son to marry into a finer family. The Foucher’s were equally opposed to the attraction that the two seemed to have for one another. It was the classic case of forbidden love. The following is Victor’s first letter to Adele. At the end he refers to himself as her husband. Though they are not yet married, he feels this deep devotion to her. Whatever may happen, accept my inviolable promises to have no other wife but you, and to become your husband as soon as it may be my power. Burn all my other letters, but keep this one. They may be part of us, but I am thine - thine for eternity. I am thine -thine property, thine slave. Do not forget that. You may always make use of me as if I were a thing and not a person. Wherever I may be, near or far, write to me and tell me what I am to do for you. I will obey you or die. This is what I want to say to you before I cease to see you, that you may at all times point out the way in which you think I can serve you, if you think proper to keep any relations with me. Yes, my Adele, I foresee I must soon give up all meetings with you. Encourage me al little . . . I am constantly engaged in bitter reflections. Since you have loved me you have learned to think yourself less estimable (that was your own word), and I from day to day since I loved you, find myself growing better. It is because, dear Adele, I owe everything to you. It is the wish to make myself worthy of you which makes me conscious of my faults. I owe everything to you. I love to repeat this. If I have always kept myself free from excesses sadly too common among young men of my age, it was not because I have had no opportunities to go astray, but thoughts of you have protected me. Thanks to you, I have kept unstained the only things that I can offer you, my body pure, and an unsullied heart. Perhaps I ought not to have said all this, but you are my wife; this will prove that I have hidden nothing from you, and how great is the influence you exert, and always exert, upon your faithful husband. (Maurois 11) This type of forbidden love is remarkably similar to the love that occupies the theme of Victor’s two most famous and beloved works, Les Miserables and Notre Dame de Paris. In Les Miserables the love between Marius and Cosette is inhibited by the silent objections of Cosette’s guardian, Jean Vanjean. Cosette, like Hugo, resided with a family that treated her unkindly, a family similar to the Fouchers. Her mother, a prostitute who had died, left her to Jean Vanjean. Jean Vanjean had cared for Cosette, and he loved her as if she were his own daughter. In return, Cosette loved and respected Jean Vanjean despite his objections to her romance with Marius. After Marius enlists in the military in a kind of prolonged suicide attempt, Vanjean joins the army to save Marius for his beloved Cosette. Because of the battle he is fatally wounded, and the two young lovers spend his last moments by his side. After which, they live on together. (Les Miserables) Despite Madame Hugo’s objections to Victor’s obsession with Adele, Victor loved and respected his mother. She provided for him and offered him the education and opportunities that opened up his writing career. He said, “I learned, from a strong-minded mother, that one can be the master of events.” (Maurois 59) He despised the way that his father treated her, and he voiced his disgust freely. In a letter to his father he states: We have seen your correspondence with mamma. What would you have done to anyone who had dared use such language to her in the days when you first knew her, when it was your delight to find happiness in her company? She is still, and always has been, the same, and we shall ever think of her as you though of Shortly after the death of his dear mother, Victor secretly wedded his beloved Adele. Their marriage would remain a secret for almost a year. During that time Victor underwent a great deal of agony because of his separation from his wife. Now, it is said that Victor and Adele, because of their youth, did not know the meaning of true love, that their words to each other were merely frivolous sayings, that they were simply playing a childish game. It was said that their talk of love was silly and ludicrous. Adele wanted to find out what was the meaning of his silent admiration. She said: "I am sure you have secrets. Have you not one secret, greater than all?" When Victor admitted to possession of this secret, Adele gleefully cried out, "Just like me! Well, come now, tell me your greatest secret, and I will tell you mine." My greatest secret,” Victor replied, "is that I love you." Adele echoed back, "And my great secret is that I love you" (Maurois, 10). Despite the difficulties that their marriage would endure, Victor and Adele remained remarkably close. Until the time of Adele’s death all correspondence between the two were addressed to “My dear, great friend.” If this is not a term of everlasting true love of some form, then such a love does not exist. The pain that Victor felt in the absence of Adele during the first year of their marriage was true and real. He expressed this pain in a letter to Adele. It seems to me that from now on we must show in public an extreme reserve towards one another: it is only after much struggling that I have brought myself to the point of advising you to be cold to me, your husband, your Victor, the man who would give everything to spare you a moment’s pain. I must needs condemn myself never to sit beside you, and, Oh! My dear love, I beg you to have pity on my wretched jealousy, and avoid all other men as you must avoid me. I will never approach you; but let me, at least, hove the consolation of never seeing others enjoy the happiness which only on your account I have renounced. Stay with your mother: sit with other women. You can have no idea, my Adele, how much I love you. If I so much as see another man draw near you, I tremble with longing and impatience: my muscles grow tense, my breast swells, it is all that I can so to keep a hold upon myself . . ..(Maurois 51) As Victor moved forward through his career as a novelist, poet, and dramatist, his feelings for Adele changed slowly. While working on one of his dramatic pieces, Victor met a young actress by the name of Juliette Drouet. Juliette was far more exotic and dramatic than Adele. Her nature fed Victor’s imagination and inspired his writing. She taught Victor the actress’s proverb (Which he seemed to take to heart. For, later he would take another, less significant, mistress.) "A woman who has one lover is an angel, a woman who has two lovers is a monster, and a woman who has three lovers is a woman" (Robb 181). Juliette referred to herself as Victor’s wife, for that is how she felt toward him. Victor would sign all of his letters to her “Your friend, lover, and father” (Maurois 193). Actually, Victor used the same hopelessly romantic language in writing to Juliette that he once used in his letters to Adele. “You are enchanting!” he says, “I love you more than I have words to tell, my Juliette” (Maurois 378). This behavior, I’m sure, led some to believe that the love Victor and Adele felt in their youth was simply a childish game, but Victor continued to have a very deep and loving relationship with his wife. They still shared a powerful love that could not be broken by Victor’s vile behavior. In fact, during his affair with Juliette Drouet Victor wrote and published Les Miserables, the story that was practically the reflection of his romance with Adele. Victor respected his wife as he had respected his mother. He cherished what she had given him, and he wrote to her a poem entitled, “A toi, toujors a toi.) or “The Poet to His Wife”. In it he refers to her as his “idol in shrine of curtained home.” (Maurois 398) She is his angel, and his idea of everything heavenly and virtuous. That never changed throughout his relationship with Juliette. Though Adele must have been deeply hurt by Victor’s actions she maintained a selfless love and an extreme amount of tolerance for his behavior. Saint-Beuve, a dear friend of Victor’s and Adele’s, abandoned Victor because of his affair with Juliette. But Adele held onto their relationship. She understood her husband well. In a truly amazing letter to Victor she expresses her acceptance of his activities. I don’t want to deprive yourself of anything. I, for my part, feel no need of pleasures; all I want is peace and quiet. I am very much the old lady. I have but one wish, that those whom I love shall be happy. The joy of life is for me a thing of the past. I seek it only in satisfying others. There is, in spite of everything, much sweetness to be found in their contentment. You speak very truly when you say that I have an indulgent smile. Heaven knows I don’t mind what you do. So long as you are happy I shall be so, too. I would not have you think that this attitude of mine is due to indifference. No, it is the form that devotion takes in me, and it makes it possible for me to live detached from life…I shall never take advantage, where you are concerned, of the rights bestowed upon me by marriage. It is my wish that you should feel yourself as free of all constraint as a bachelor; you, my dear friend, who entered on matrimony at the age of twenty! I do not wish you to be bound to a poor woman like me. What you give me, you will at least give freely and frankly . . . (Maurois 195) What a magnanimous woman that can handle such situations with such love and compassion, without hate and contempt! It seems ironic to look at the words of Victor in his first letter to Adele now. You may always make use of me as if I were a thing and not a person. Wherever I may be, near or far, write to me and tell me what I am to do for you. I will obey you or die. (Maurois 11) Victor continued his affair with Juliette, and he continued correspondence with his wife, his “dear, great friend.” During a break a break in his literary career, Victor turned to politics. Over the years he had converted from his mother’s devout royalist views to more of a Republican position. He began to advocate his views in public, and because of his severity he was exiled for some time. With him he took his mistress, Juliette Drouet, and his wife, Adele Hugo. Victor’s family and Mademoiselle Drouet lived with him together throughout his period of exile. (Now isn’t that something for Jerry Springer?) In 1868, when Victor was 66 years old, his beloved Adele died. Though there is not much documentation illustrating his feelings about the death of his wife, he no doubt endured a great deal of suffering. He had lost his other half, the one person that knew him far better than anyone ever could. He continued to write fervently, publishing an enormous amount in the following decade. However, in 1878 Hugo experienced a devastating stroke. He no longer could write, and his wife and children were dead. In 1883 his long time mistress and friend, Juliette Drouet passed away. Victor was literally left with nothing. “Oh Memories! Treasures in darkness born! Murky horizon of our ancient dreams! Dear brilliance of a past that brightly beams! Casting a radiance on things dead and gone” (Hugo 116)! Now, it’s interesting to wonder if Victor Hugo lying on his deathbed thought of these words that he had once spoken. Did he look back the memories of his life? Surely he did. The dreams that he once had of becoming a writer, of sharing a deep and passionate love with Adele Foucher, of moving the world with his ideas – did these dreams come true, and are they dead and gone? Three million people attended the funeral of Victor Hugo. Though it was thought that he would be laid to rest near the grave of his father or perhaps his long-time mistress, Victor was buried next to his dear wife. He had composed his own epitaph, as a writer should. Je veux qua son tombeau, le mien soit ressemblant. Ainsi mourir n'aura pour moi rien de troublant. Et ce sera reprendre une habitude ancienne que de ravoir ma chambre a cote de la sienne. I want my tomb resembling hers. Thus, my death will not be disconcerting. And again I will take the old practice and have the dimensions of my room those of hers (Maurois 446). The epitaph supposedly refers to his mother, but one might assume that he speaks of his wife as well since he did choose to spend eternity resting by her side. Hugo once said, “Immaterial love is eternal, because he who feels it cannot die. It is our souls, then, that love, and not our bodies.” (Maurois 66) In a new era, a noisy era, someone wanders through an oversized book emporium. They find their way to the “literature” section. Browsing the shelves they come across a thick novel with a pretty cover. They leaf through the pages wondering whether it’s the story they want, and after a hasty decision they purchase it for only $9.95. They return to their home and sit in their chair with a bright lamp glowing beside them. It doesn’t flicker as the candlelight that once illuminated the world did. The cars rush past in the street outside creating hum that with adaptation can be ignored. The reader scans the words across the page. He becomes involved with the story of a man from so long ago, and he smiles. He is moved by the work, for the work will never perish. It will never be dead and gone. Bibliography: Word Count: 3098
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