ouse. This type of beauty appears almost as
constantly in Victor Hugo's books as the head of La Fornarina did in the
pictures of Raphael. He seems constantly to seek to immortalize her whom
he had chosen for his own. Madame Hugo's picture was painted for the
_Salon_ by their friend M. Louis Boulanger, and was thus described at
the time:--

"A full, well-developed bust, white arms of perfect form; a pair of
plump, delicate hands that a queen might envy; the hips high, and
setting off a figure that was faultless in its contour and
flexibility."

She performed her duties as hostess with infinite grace, and her _salon_
was filled with celebrities like Lamartine, who would write verses in
her album, and with women like Madame de Girardin. The house was always
filled with visitors, attracted by the fascinations of the hostess as
much as by the joyousness of the poet. As Victor Hugo's fame increased,
we are told that--

"the calm serenity of his early years of married life was somewhat
disturbed by the cares and anxieties that glory brings; but at the
time of his residence in the Place Royale, of which we have been
speaking, there was great happiness in the household, with the
young and beautiful children."

The beautiful Madame Drouet, then an actress upon the Parisian stage,
was said to have come between the poet and his wife at a later day; and
it is certain that she shared his banishment, assisting him much in his
literary labor, and finally, after the death of the poet's wife, came to
preside over his home in the last days, cherishing her love for him to
the very close of his life. She is said to have been very beautiful,
even in old age, when her hair, Alphonse Daudet tells us, was as white
as swan's-down.

It is not our purpose to deal with the public life of Victor Hugo, and
we pass over all that occurred up to the time of the exile, after the
_coup d'etat_ of Louis Napoleon. The historian tells us that--

"Victor Hugo had asked the Assembly whether, having had a Napoleon
the Great, they were now to have a Napoleon the Little; he had
inquired of the Royalists how it was that they entered into such
strange fellowship with the Empire, pointing out significantly how
the Imperialists who had murdered the Duc D'Enghien, and the
Legitimatists who had shot Murat, were now grasping each other's
blood-stained hands. From the tribune he had pr