day of the funeral of Madame Paul Meurice, as the cortege was
going along the exterior boulevards, it passed near a menagerie. Just as
the carriage of Victor Hugo came opposite the door the lions within set
up a tremendous roar. "They know that the _other one_ is passing by,"
said an old workingman beside the carriage ("Ils sentent que l'autre
passe"). The fondness of Victor Hugo for riding about Paris on the top
of an omnibus is well known. It has sometimes happened that on tendering
his fare the conductor has put the coin aside with the remark, "I shall
keep that as a relic." One day, on returning from a session of the
senate at Versailles, he arrived late at the station. It was a snowy
day, the train was full, and he was obliged to climb into a fourth-class
place, a seat on the top of the cars. The benches were covered with
snow. A workingman who recognized the poet would not let him sit down
till with his blouse he had wiped the seat clean and dry. Victor Hugo
thanked him and offered him his hand, and with a naive delight the good
fellow cried, "Ah, monsieur, ah, citizen, how proud I am to have seen
you and touched you!" More than once the cabman employed to take the
poet to his house has refused to accept his fare, declaring that the
honor of having driven Victor Hugo was recompense enough. On the day of
the funeral of M. Thiers so dense a crowd surrounded the carriage of the
poet that it remained for a long time motionless and imprisoned, and the
shouts that greeted him were so wildly enthusiastic that the coachman
who was driving his carriage fairly shed tears, remarking, however, in a
shame-faced manner, "A crying coachman! what a silly sight!"

Naturally, beside this passionate love stands a hate as passionate. The
vindictive fury of the Bonapartists against Victor Hugo can easily be
understood. No writer more than he has contributed to render a
restoration of the Empire impossible. Hence insults of all kinds, from
the calumny openly printed in an imperialist newspaper to the anonymous
letter overflowing with menaces. One of these, received in September,
1877, threatened the poet in no doubtful terms. "Do not imagine,
scoundrel, that we will let you escape us a second time:" so ran one of
its paragraphs. Under the Second Empire all letters written to or by
Victor Hugo were compelled to pass through the ordeal of the Black
Cabinet. Many of his Parisian correspondents evaded this surveillance by
sending their let