HUGO, VICTOR MARIE, a celebrated French poet and novelist, born at Besançon, February 26, 1802; died in Paris, May 22, 1885. His father was an officer devoted to Napoleon; his mother an ardent Royalist. Before he was seven years old he accompanied his parents to Elba, Corsica, Switzerland, and Italy. In 1809 Madame Hugo took her sons to Paris and placed them under the instruction of a priest. At the end of two years they joined their father, who had been made a general, and appointed to the service of Joseph Bonaparte at Madrid; they then returned to Paris, under the care of their former instructor. On the separation of his parents, after the fall of the Empire, Victor passed into his father's exclusive charge. He was placed in an academy preparatory to the Polytechnic School, but prevailed on his father to permit him to devote himself to literature. His first volume, Odes et Ballades (1822), was followed by two novels, Han d'Islande (1823), and Bug-Jargal (1824). A second volume of Odes et Ballades appeared in 1826. In conjunction with Sainte-Beuve and others he founded a literary society and established a periodical, La Muse Française. His drama Cromwell (1827) was accompanied by a preface setting forth the literary reforms aimed at by La Jeune France, as the new school styled themselves. Les Orientales, a volume of poems (1828), and Le Dernier Tour d'un Condamné (1829), added to the |