Imaginary interview with Victor Hugo
by Charactorium · Victor Hugo (1802 — 1885) · Literature · Politics · 5 min read
It is in the darkened drawing room of the avenue d'Eylau, in this winter of 1882, that Juliette finds the man she has accompanied for fifty years. The fire crackles, a dried pen still lies near the inkwell on the desk. They have nothing left to hide from each other: she has shared the exile, the nights of writing, the hidden outlaws. Tonight she comes, not for the public, but to hear the man behind the monument.
—My dear, I have seen you speak so often of the people. But in 1832, what did you see with your own eyes in those burning streets?
You, who have known me haunted by those images, Juliette, know that I invented nothing. In 1832, near the rue Saint-Méry, I saw the barricades, the bodies, the hunger that drives a man to die for a crust of bread. These are not battles I imagined in my study: I breathed them in. Les Misérables came out of that mud. When I write Jean Valjean, I am only giving back to the people what the people showed me. A writer who does not go down into the streets writes fables; I wanted to write the truth of the century. Misery is not a backdrop; it is an accusation.
Misery is not a backdrop; it is an accusation.
—It was whispered that your manuscript was worth a fortune. Tell me the truth: were you really paid three hundred thousand francs?
It is true, and it still makes me smile. Three hundred thousand gold francs for pages written about the misery of the poor — what irony, is it not? Lacroix bet on the book before even reading it in full. But understand me well: that money was never my goal. It only proved that the public awaited Les Misérables as one awaits justice. I wanted this novel to be read by everyone, from the salon to the workshop. If the sum was immense, it is because the expectation was. Money passes; what remains is that a worker could recognize himself in Fantine or Gavroche. That is my only wealth.
Three hundred thousand gold francs for pages written about the misery of the poor — what irony.
—Do you remember, in Guernsey, those men we hid under our roof? Why take such a risk?
How could I forget, you who kept watch with me when someone knocked at the door at night? Those outlaws were fleeing the coup d'état of Napoleon III, hunted for having loved the Republic. To turn them away would have been to betray everything I wrote. What good were Les Châtiments if I refused bread to those they targeted? Exile is not only a pain, Juliette; it is a brotherhood. We were poor in homeland but rich in conscience. I risked being driven from the island in turn, so be it. But a man who closes his door to the persecuted no longer has the right to hold a pen. My verses and my house said the same thing.
Exile is not only a pain; it is a brotherhood.
—There, facing the sea, your anger against the Empire filled your notebooks. Where did that rage that never left you come from?
From December 1851, from the perjury. A man had sworn loyalty to the Republic, and he slit its throat in the night to make himself emperor. I saw passers-by shot on the boulevards. How could my hand remain calm? Les Châtiments are not poems; they are blows. I wanted each verse to be a slap on that imperial face. As long as that man reigned, I swore not to return. They thought me proud; I was only faithful. Exile cost me France, but it gave me back my full voice. Far from Paris, I spoke louder than in Paris.
Far from Paris, I spoke louder than in Paris.
—You have often told me your horror of the scaffold. Since when has this war against the death penalty inhabited you?
Since long before you knew me, from Le Dernier Jour d'un condamné, in 1829. I had crossed paths, at the Place de Grève, with a man about to be executed, and the image never let go of me. Cutting off a man's head is telling him "walk" after cutting off his legs. In 1848, at the Assembly, I shouted it to the representatives: death is not a punishment, it is a negation. Society has no right to do what it forbids. You do not correct crime with crime. This cause I will carry to my last breath, for a people that kills its guilty renounces saving them.
You do not correct crime with crime.
—You who spoke before the Assembly as before a crowd, were you never afraid of being alone against everyone?
Yes, a thousand times, and that is precisely why I had to speak. Before the deputies of 1848, many shrugged: abolishing the death penalty seemed a poet's dream to them. But a truth remains true even alone. I learned, Juliette, that you do not convince an assembly in a day; you plant an idea, and generations make it germinate. I sowed. That my opponents find me naive matters little to me: the future will decide, and the future, I know, will abolish the scaffold. The tribune is only a patient sower. Better to be alone with justice than numerous with the executioner. That is what kept me standing at the rostrum.
Better to be alone with justice than numerous with the executioner.
—Before the barricades and exile, there was the old cathedral. Why did you give a voice to those stones in 1831?
Because they were being left to die, those stones. In my time, they whitewashed, demolished, despised Gothic as barbaric. Notre-Dame de Paris was born of anger at that neglect. I wanted a novel to do what no decree could: give back to the people the love of their heritage. And I slipped into it an intuition that haunts me: this will kill that, the book will kill the building. Printing took from architecture its role as the great book of humanity. Quasimodo, Esmeralda, the cathedral itself — they are my characters, and the greatest of the three is the stone. I wanted people to lift their heads toward the towers rather than toward the pickaxes.
The greatest of my characters is the stone.
—You were made the leader of a battle, that of Hernani. Deep down, what is this Romanticism you defended with such fervor?
Freedom, Juliette, nothing else, but freedom in art. The classicists wanted rules, three unities, verses polished like wigs. In 1830, with Hernani, we brought life onto the stage: the sublime and the grotesque, the king and the bandit, true passion. The audience fought, hisses against bravos — it was a revolution in theater costume. Romanticism is the right of genius not to ask permission. I wanted an art on the scale of the people, broad, free, alive. What 1789 was to politics, Hernani was to letters. You do not put a red cap on the dictionary without disturbing the academies.
Romanticism is the right of genius not to ask permission.
—In 1877, I saw that immense crowd parade under our windows for your birthday. What did you feel, that day, behind the curtain?
I wept, I confess to you alone. Six hundred thousand Parisians, Juliette, passing slowly, children holding flowers, workers in smocks — it was not for the man, but for what that man had defended. The Republic, freedom, the poor. I never sought honors; they came knocking at my door. But that day, I understood that my books were no longer mine: they belonged to that people parading by. A writer dreams of being read; I discovered myself loved. And the love of a people is worth more than all the academic crowns. It is the only triumph that has not made me ashamed.
A writer dreams of being read; I discovered myself loved.
—You became, in your lifetime, a kind of flag. Does that not weigh too heavily on your old shoulders, my friend?
It weighs, yes, and you are well placed to know it, you who see me tired in the evening. They want me a statue, they want me a prophet; I am only a man who has written much and loved much. But if my name can serve as a banner for freedom, for justice, for the child being educated and the condemned man spared, then I bear this weight willingly. I prefer to be a useful flag than a useless bust. What I fear is not the burden, but bearing it poorly. As long as I breathe, I want my name to rhyme with Republic and with pity. The rest, I leave to the marble-cutters.
I prefer to be a useful flag than a useless bust.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Victor Hugo's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.