oud emotion which he felt as she leaned
upon his arm; he recounts how they wandered, talking softly, along the
shaded walks; he tells how he picked up for her the handkerchief she had
dropped, and was conscious of her hands trembling as they touched his
own. And he recollects how they talked about the birds, the stars, and
the golden sunset,--sometimes, too, about her school-fellows, her
dresses, and her ribbons; they blushed together over the most innocent
of thoughts." Again, in "Les Miserables," Victor Hugo reverts to the
scenes of his youth, and to his child-love.

"Marius" is but a free variation of himself; the circumstances are
changed, but the character is the same, and the garden scenes between
Marius and Cosette are but faint reproductions of passages in the
courtship of the poet and Mlle. Foucher. Victor had begun to write
poetry by this time, and some of his earlier efforts had attracted
considerable attention. His whole ambition lay in this direction. We are
told by his biographer that--

"his greatest pleasure was to accompany his mother to M. Foucher's
house, and there spend long evenings in unspoken admiration of the
maiden to whom his whole heart was devoted. It was not long before
these admiring glances were noticed by the parents, to whom the
danger of encouraging such a passion was apparent, as both the
young people were of an age when marriage was out of the question.
By mutual consent the two families broke off their intimacy for a
time. Victor Hugo found expression for his grief at the separation,
in a poem that is full of sad and gentle dignity. . . . In spite of
apparent resignation, the obstacles placed in the way of his
passion only increased its intensity, and absence, instead of
extinguishing his love, served only to increase it. His fevered
imagination devised a thousand means by which he might catch a
glimpse of one without whom he felt it impossible to exist.
Numberless are the stratagems he contrived, and incredible the
ingenuity with which they were executed; the freshness of his
romance was itself an exquisite idyl. . . . Victor never despaired;
but in the midst of his anticipations he was overwhelmed by a
terrible blow."

Madame Hugo died very suddenly in the summer of 1821, and the grief of
her son was deep and lasting. He could no longer remain away from the
one being he felt could affo