by Napoleon. He it was who conducted the terrible
retreat from Spain just before the fall of Napoleon. His soldiers were
the only protection to the lives of twenty thousand French fugitives,
who were fleeing from Madrid wild with terror; for the pursuing
Spaniards would not have hesitated to massacre the helpless multitude,
had they found it in their power to do so. From every bush projected the
muzzle of a gun, charged with the death of an invader; every pass
concealed an ambush; every height bristled with guns in the hands of the
patriots. But General Hugo conducted the fugitives through in safety,
and proceeded to take command of the fortress at Thionville, soon to be
besieged.

He defended this outpost of the Empire with great gallantry, and it was
the last citadel over which the tri-color waved. But at last General
Hugo was forced to surrender it to the Allies, and the star of Napoleon
had set forever. Madame Hugo had been a royalist always, although she
had not been allowed to influence the minds of the children in that
direction; but after the fall of the Emperor she openly proclaimed her
sympathy with the Bourbons, and was so demonstrative in her enthusiasm
that it led to a complete estrangement between herself and her husband.
Victor as a boy sided with his mother, and was royalist to the core; but
as soon as he became a man he gravitated at once to his father's side.
The years which he passed with his mother and brothers, and the priest
who was their tutor, in the old garden of the Feuillantines, were as
peaceful and happy as the years of childhood should always be. It was in
an almost deserted quarter of Paris, and the grounds were spacious,
being the remains of a park once attached to the convent. They were,
however, neglected; and everything had run wild here, until it seemed to
the city children almost like a forest. A ruined chapel was in this
wood, which always excited the imagination of the boys, who were
thoughtful and fanciful beyond their years. Beautiful horse-chestnut
trees cast their shadows round this ruin, and were the home of
innumerable birds who nested there. Upon the walls among the cankered
and unnailed espaliers were niches for Madonnas and fragments of
crucifixes; and vines hung there in ragged festoons to the ground.
Through these dismantled cloisters and spacious abbey-chambers the
imagination of the boys ran riot, and it cast a sort of poetic glamour
over their young and solitary lives