r--historical and intimate.
The life of a period, the XIX Century, is bound up in the life of a man,
VICTOR HUGO. As we follow the events set forth we get the impression
they made upon the mind of the extraordinary man who recounts them; and
of all the personages he brings before us he himself is assuredly not
the least interesting. In portraits from the brushes of Rembrandts there
are always two portraits, that of the model and that of the painter.

This is not a diary of events arranged in chronological order, nor is it
a continuous autobiography. It is less and it is more, or rather, it is
better than these. It is a sort of haphazard _chronique_ in which only
striking incidents and occurrences are brought out, and lengthy and
wearisome details are avoided. VICTOR HUGO'S long and chequered life was
filled with experiences of the most diverse character--literature and
politics, the court and the street, parliament and the theatre, labour,
struggles, disappointments, exile and triumphs. Hence we get a series of
pictures of infinite variety.

Let us pass the gallery rapidly in review.

It opens in 1825, at Rheims, during the coronation of CHARLES X, with
an amusing _causerie_ on the manners and customs of the Restoration.
The splendour of this coronation ceremony was singularly spoiled by the
pitiable taste of those who had charge of it. These worthies took upon
themselves to mutilate the sculpture work on the marvellous facade
and to "embellish" the austere cathedral with Gothic decorations of
cardboard. The century, like the author, was young, and in some things
both were incredibly ignorant; the masterpieces of literature were then
unknown to the most learned _litterateurs_: CHARLES NODIER had never
read the "Romancero", and VICTOR HUGO knew little or nothing about
Shakespeare.

At the outset the poet dominates in VICTOR HUGO; he belongs wholly to
his creative imagination and to his literary work. It is the theatre;
it is his "Cid", and "Hernani", with its stormy performances; it is the
group of his actors, Mlle. MARS, Mlle. GEORGES, FREDERICK LEMAITRE, the
French KEAN, with more genius; it is the Academy, with its different
kind of coteries.

About this time VICTOR HUGO questions, anxiously and not in vain, a
passer-by who witnessed the execution of LOUIS XVI, and an officer who
escorted Napoleon to Paris on his return from the Island of Elba.

Next, under the title, "Visions of the Real", come some sketches in