Victor Hugo's description of a fire in Notre-Dame de Paris | The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

At the time of writing, 10:30 on Wednesday 17 April 2019 in England, the above Livre de Poche edition of Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) stands at number 1 on Amazon's sales chart in France, with other editions at numbers 3, 4, 6 and 9. This is of course nothing to do with syllabus, and a non-fiction book of the same French name (priced at 85 euros!) stands at number 8.  As France and indeed the rest of the world mourns the awful destruction to perhaps Paris's second major tourist attraction, it is bizarre to read in Victor Hugo's novel Notre-Dame de Paris the imaginary description of a fire in the church. Hugo wrote the book in defence of the church, which at the time was in decay and there was talk of demolishing it:

'Tous les yeux s'étaient levés vers le haut de l'église. Ce qu'ils voyaient était extraordinaire. Sur le sommet de la galerie la plus élevée, plus haut que la rosace centrale, il y avait une grande flamme qui montait entre les deux clochers avec des tourbillons d'étincelles, une grande flamme désordonnée et furieuse dont le vent emportait par moments un lambeau dans la fumée. Au-dessous de cette flamme, au-dessous de la sombre balustrade à trèfles de braise, deux gouttières en gueules de monstres vomissaient sans relâche cette pluie ardente qui détachait son ruissellement argenté sur les ténèbres de la façade inférieure. À mesure qu'ils approchaient du sol, les deux jets de plomb liquide s'élargissaient en gerbes, comme l'eau qui jaillit des mille trous de l'arrosoir. Au-dessus de la flamme, les énormes tours, de chacune desquelles on voyait deux faces crues et tranchées, l'une toute noire, l'autre toute rouge, semblaient plus grandes encore de toute l'immensité de l'ombre qu'elles projetaient jusque dans le ciel. Leurs innombrables sculptures de diables et de dragons prenaient un aspect lugubre. La clarté inquiète de la flamme les faisait remuer à l'oeil. Il y avait des guivres qui avaient l'air de rire, des gargouilles qu'on croyait entendre japper, des salamandres qui soufflaient dans le feu, des tarasques qui éternuaient dans la fumée. Et parmi ces monstres ainsi réveillés de leur sommeil de pierre par cette flamme, par ce bruit, il y en avait un qui marchait et qu'on voyait de temps  en temps passer sur le front ardent du bûcher comme une chauve-souris devant une chandelle.'

A version of this in English:

'All eyes were raised to the top of the building. They beheld a sight of an extraordinary kind. In the upper-most gallery, above the central rose window, a vast body of flame, accompanied by showers of sparks, ascended between the two towers — a fierce and irregular flame, patches of which were every now and then carried off by the wind along with the smoke. Below this fire, below the sombre balustrade, with its glowing red open-work ornaments, two spouts, in the shape of the jaws of monsters, vomited without cessation those silver streams, which stood out distinctly against the dark mass of the lower facade. As they approached the ground, those two streams spread like water poured through the holes of the spout of a watering-pot. Above the flames the enormous towers, each showing two sides deeply contrasted, the one quite black, the other quite red, appeared still larger from the immense shadows which they threw toward the sky. Their numberless sculptures of devils and dragons assumed a doleful aspect. The flickering of the flame gave to them the appearance of motion. Gorgons seemed to be laughing, waterspouts yelping, salamanders puffing fire, and griffins sneezing in the smoke. And among the monsters thus wakened from their sleep of stone by the flames and by the din, there was one that moved from place to place, and passed from time to time in front of the fire, like a bat before a candle.'

Paris 2017: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise #2: Léopold Hugo

The tomb of (General) Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1773–1828), father of Victor Hugo. He wrote several works under the name of Genti, among them: Mémoires sur les moyens de suppléer à la traite des nègres par des individus libres, etc. (1818) and Mémoires du general Hugo (1820).

Paris 2017: Cimetière Nord de Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne (94) #1: Juliette and Claire Drouet

This plaque is outside the entrance to Saint-Mandé cemetery (Nord), and explains the reason for the twin tombs here relating to Victor Hugo. Before becoming Hugo's mistress, Juliette Drouet had a relationship with Jean-Jacques (or James) Pradier, from which Claire was born in 1826. Hugo loved her as his own daughter, was inspired by her when writing Les Contemplations, and she grew up in Saint-Mandé but died there in 1846 at the age of twenty. Juliette died in 1883 and, according to her wishes, was buried next to her daughter. The plaque says that Hugo, devastated, could not lead the procession and that it was Auguste Vacquerie who gave the farewell speech.

Victor Hugo in Candie Gardens, St Peter Port, Guernsey

The notice in Candie Gardens, St Peter Port, explaining the history of the statue of Hugo:

'Statue of Victor Hugo Unveiled on 7^th July 1914. This statue was produced c.1913 by Jean Boucher for the Société Victor Hugo and was purchased by the French government for 30,000 francs (£1,291). The statue was shipped to Guernsey and was transported from the harbour to Candie Gardens on a trolley pulled by a steamroller. It was mounted on a block of Guernsey granite carved by local stonemasons.'

Around the statue:

'....... AU ROCHER D'HOSPITALITÉ ET DE LIBERTÉ
À CE COIN DE VIEILLE TERRE NORMANDE
OÙ VIT LE NOBLE PETIT PEUPLE DE LA MER
A L'ÎLE DE GUERESEY SÉVÈRE ET DOUCE.....

                                                                                 V.H.'

'DON DE LA FRANCE À L'ANGLETERRE

ET À L'ÎLE DE GUERNESEY

––––––––––––

CE MONUMENT, ŒUVRE DE JEAN BOUCHER,

À ÉTÉ ÉRIGÉ

LE 7 JUILLET 1914,

PAR LES SOiNS DE LA SOCIÉTÉ VICTOR HUGO,

EN PRÉSENCE DE

MAUGAGNEUR, MINISTRE DE L'INSTRUCTION PUBLIQUE,

REPRÉSENTANT LE GOUVERNEMENT DE LA

RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE'

A mural on Best Western Moores Central Hotel, Le Pollet, St Peter Port,  shows important figures in the history of Guernsey. Victor Hugo, of course, is one of them:

Victor Hugo's Hauteville House, St Peter Port, Guernsey

Hauteville House, St Peter Port, Guernsey, the Channel Island where Victor Hugo lived in exile between 1855 and 1870. Exile is written throughout the house, where Hugo installed a collection of his findings, making this a treasure trove, indeed a museum, where he wrote and drew, carved out the names of great authors, welcomed the poor and fed them, and above all wrote many of his great works from his 'look-out'. It has belonged to the city of Paris since 1927.

Hauteville House from the back garden.

The billards room.

Shakespeare's name is misspelt.

Hugo's dark room.

The red room.

Hugo's bedroom.

'The Look-Out'.

'"Hauteville Fairy"

Première maison

de Victor Hugo à Guernesey

de 1855 à 1856

et demeure de Juliette Drouet

à partir de 1864'

Hugo's mistress lived just a few houses down from the Hugo household.

My Victor Hugo posts:
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Victor Hugo's Hauteville House, Guernsey
Victor Hugo, Place des Vosges
Victor Hugo in Bièvres
Victor Hugo in Candie Gardens, St Peter Port, Guernsey
Émilie de Putron in Foulon Cemetery, Guernsey

Émilie de Putron in Foulon Cemetery, Guernsey

'À

la mémoire

de

ÉMILIE,

FILLE DE

MATTHIEU DE PUTRON,
ET DE MARTHE BOURGAIZE

SA FEMME.

DÉCÉDÉ LE 14 JANVIER 1803,

AGÉE DE TRENTE ANS.'

The importance of this grave is not only that Émilie de Putron was the fiancée of Victor Hugo's son François-Victor, but also that Victor Hugo wrote the inscription, which is unfortunately now virtually illegible. I found most of the inscription in a large and very informative fold-out leaflet at Hugo's Hauteville House, St Peter Port, Guernsey: 'Victor Hugo's Guernsey' by Gérard Pouchain and The Victor Hugo in Guernsey Society, and although some of that too is illegible, very kindly Dinah Bott, chairman of the society, has made a comment below, including a link to the content of Hugo's original words about Émilie. These words I include below, and interestingly they show that the inscription on the grave is a somewhat abbreviated version of what Hugo in fact wrote. Also interesting is that Hugo wrote the girl's forename in the English form 'Emily' as opposed to the French 'Émilie':

'Emily de Putron était le doux orgueil d’une respectable et patriarcale famille. Ses amis et ses proches avaient pour enchantement sa grâce, et pour fête son sourire. Elle était comme une fleur de joie épanouie dans la maison. Depuis le berceau, toutes les tendresses l’environnaient ; elle avait grandi heureuse, et, recevant du bonheur, elle en donnait ; aimée, elle aimait. Elle vient de s’en aller !

'Où s’en est-elle allée ? Dans l’ombre ? Non. C’est nous qui sommes dans l’ombre. Elle, elle est dans l’aurore.

'Elle est dans le rayonnement, dans la vérité, dans la réalité, dans la récompense. Ces jeunes mortes qui n’ont fait aucun mal dans la vie sont les bienvenues du tombeau, et leur tête monte doucement hors de la fosse vers une mystérieuse couronne. Emily de Putron est allée chercher là-haut la sérénité suprême, complément des existences innocentes. Elle s’en est allée, jeunesse, vers l’éternité ; beauté, vers l’idéal ; espérance, vers la certitude ; amour, vers l’infini ; perle, vers l’océan ; esprit, vers Dieu.

'Va, âme !'

Dinah Bott mentions that the founder of The Victor Hugo in Guernsey Society, Dr Gregory Stevens Cox, states that Victor Hugo's son François-Victor – whose project was to translate Shakespeare – arrived in Guernsey in 1855, found Emily de Putron to help him, and fell in love with her. They were engaged, although in January 1865, on near completion of the project, Emily died from tuberculosis.

Hugo's full text is here .

My Victor Hugo posts:
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Victor Hugo's Hauteville House, Guernsey
Victor Hugo, Place des Vosges
Victor Hugo in Bièvres
Victor Hugo in Candie Gardens, St Peter Port, Guernsey
Émilie de Putron in Foulon Cemetery, Guernsey

Victor Hugo in Bièvres, Essonne (91)

The Château des Roches, or Maison littéraire de Victor Hugo as it is now better known in Vauboyen, Bièvres, was the property of Louis-François Bertin (1766–1841) – also known as Bertin l'Aîné (the Elder) – who was a journalist, the founder of the Journal des débats and a patron of the arts.

He acquired the property in 1804 and from 1815 until his death in 1841 held a literary salon to which many people from the world of the arts came, such as Berlioz, Ingres, Liszt, his neighbour Chateaubriand, and above all Victor Hugo. Hugo stayed here on a number of occasions.

Hugo's statue stands in the entrance hall. The Maison littéraire de Victor Hugo was founded by Daisaku Ikeda in 1991 and contains many original manuscripts, first editions, etc, of Hugo's work.

Louis-François Bertin's statue is opposite Hugo's.

The medallion inscribed 'A mon célèbre ami Victor Hugo | P. J. David', by David d'Angers.

The bust is also by David d'Angers.

The plaque at the side of the tower was inscribed in the same year as the Maison littéraire was founded, and fittingly the verse is an extract from Hugo's 'Bièvre' [sic], written in 1831, dedicated to 'Mademoiselle Louise B[ertin]', and published in Les Feuilles d'automne:

'Oui, c'est un de ces lieux où notre cœur sent vivre
Quelque chose des cieux qui flotte et qui s'enivre;
Un de ces lieux qu'enfant j'aimais et je rêvais,
Dont la beauté sereine, inépuisable, intime,
Verse à l'âme un oubli sérieux et sublime
De tout ce que la terre et l'homme ont de mauvais.'

Hugo's ecstasy is understandable. This is a hidden gem, a superb place, you get a fascinating guided tour, but of course no photography beyond the entrance hall. Photos in the garden are allowed, although I was unaware of Hugo's bust at the side of the lake. This will have to do:

Somewhere on the Maison Littéraire's website – and I can't remember who said it or how recently – there is a claim that Hugo is the most famous and the most read French writer in the world. Well, certainly he can't be anywhere near the most read French writer these days – how many people have actually read (as opposed to watched a dire distortion of) Les Misérables, for instance? But most famous? The mind almost automatically leaps to Balzac or Zola, but are there really no other serious contenders? There must be, surely? Voltaire! Rousseau! Sartre, Camus?

My Victor Hugo posts:
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Victor Hugo's Hauteville House, Guernsey
Victor Hugo, Place des Vosges
Victor Hugo in Bièvres
Victor Hugo in Candie Gardens, St Peter Port, Guernsey
Émilie de Putron in Foulon Cemetery, Guernsey

Vassilis Alexakis: L'enfant grec (2012)

Vassilis Alexakis's lovely novel L'Enfant grec makes many digressions, and I shall be making some of my own to illustrate the areas he covers, putting in brackets things he doesn't mention.

Alexakis's novel is also very autobiographical. It concerns an (unnamed) old man who has had a major leg operation in Aix-en-Provence and must now walk on crutches until his leg heals. Due to his mobility problems he can't immediately return to his flat in the 15th arrondissement, so he is temporarily living in L'hôtel Perreyve in rue Madame, very close to rue Fleurus and close to a western entrance to the Jardin du Luxembourg in the 6th arrondissement. The name of the hotel and the streets are real, as are the narrator's geographical details.

At one point the narrator and his companions turn from rue Guyemer (which borders the western edge of Luxembourg), cross rue de Vaugirard and take a few steps into rue Napoléon, where the narrator becomes very interested in the bronze woman with the hat and even joins her on her seat outside L'Institut hongrois.

 

We can see more clearly here that the girl's eyes are closed.

(On her ankle is the creator's signature: it is by Andràs Lapis and there's a copy of it in Szeged in Hungary. The original was made in 1975, although this particular sculpture dates from 1992.)

(And 'Kala palati', inscribed on the brim of the hat, is the title of the sculpture, which apparently means something like 'Under the Hat'.)

 

Much of L'Enfant grec – along with the memories of the narrator on crutches – is set in the Jardin du Luxembourg. The recuperating man now sees things at a much slower pace, a world in a grain of sand: he has time to reflect on his now slow present, and on his past.

 

The narrator often mentions L'Auberge des Marionnettes in the Jardin du Luxembourg, although there is no such establishment. But there is a place called La Buvette des Marionnettes, which is very near the marionnette theatre.

 

And the Buvette even has a menu including two puppets Alexakis frequently mentions in the novel: Guignol and Gnafron.

 

L'Enfant grec is a wonderful (if often wildly imaginative) guide to the Jardin du Luxembourg. The narrator mentions the statue of a boy ('Le Marchand des masques') to the south-east of Luxembourg near L'École des Mines, with its several masks at the boy's feet.

 

There, Balzac – who the narrator says disliked the Jardin (and implies that that is a reason why there's no statue or bust of him here) – makes an obscure appearance as a mask.

 

Alexandre Dumas is also there.

 

And so too is Barbey d'Aurevilly.

 

Significant here is that the boy holds up a mask of Victor Hugo. The title of Alexakis's book, L'Enfant grec, comes from Hugo's poem 'L'Enfant', about a child left in the ruins of Thios after its destruction by the Turks in 1822. Several times in this novel, Alexakis mentions the Sénat in the Jardin du Luxembourg, to which Hugo belonged from 1876–85. And throughout the novel we are reminded of the young Greek narrator's reading habits – Hugo's Les Misérables, or Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, or Stevenson's Treasure Island, or many more classics. (He also speaks of the financial ruins of contemporary Greece.)

 

The novel is a cross between a guide – historical and modern – to the Jardin du Luxembourg, a guide to the narrator's thoughts and memories, and to his fantasies. It may be immensely digressive, but so too are many good books. And this is undeniably a very good book.

 

 

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The Monuments to Writers in Le Jardin du Luxembourg