e French Revolution; books must cease to be exclusively French,
Italian, German, Spanish, or English, and become European, I say more,
human, if they are to correspond to the enlargement of civilization.

Hence a new logic of art, and of certain requirements of composition
which modify everything, even the conditions, formerly narrow, of taste
and language, which must grow broader like all the rest.

In France, certain critics have reproached me, to my great delight,
with having transgressed the bounds of what they call "French taste"; I
should be glad if this eulogium were merited.

In short, I am doing what I can, I suffer with the same universal
suffering, and I try to assuage it, I possess only the puny forces of a
man, and I cry to all: "Help me!"

This, sir, is what your letter prompts me to say; I say it for you and
for your country. If I have insisted so strongly, it is because of one
phrase in your letter. You write:--

"There are Italians, and they are numerous, who say: 'This book, Les
Miserables, is a French book. It does not concern us. Let the French
read it as a history, we read it as a romance.'"--Alas! I repeat,
whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all. Ever since
history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery
has been the garment of the human race; the moment has at length arrived
for tearing off that rag, and for replacing, upon the naked limbs of the
Man-People, the sinister fragment of the past with the grand purple robe
of the dawn.

If this letter seems to you of service in enlightening some minds and
in dissipating some prejudices, you are at liberty to publish it,
sir. Accept, I pray you, a renewed assurance of my very distinguished
sentiments.

VICTOR HUGO.

*****

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Patois of the French Alps: chat de maraude, rascally
marauder.]

[Footnote 2: Liege: a cork-tree. Pau: a jest on peau, skin.]

[Footnote 3: She belonged to that circle where cuckoos and carriages
share the same fate; and a jade herself, she lived, as jades live, for
the space of a morning (or jade).]

[Footnote 4: An ex-convict.]

[Footnote 5: This parenthesis is due to Jean Valjean.]

[Footnote 6: A bullet as large as an egg.]

[Footnote 7: Walter Scott, Lamartine, Vaulabelle, Charras, Quinet,
Thiers.]

[Footnote 8: This is the inscription:--

D. O. M.