"j'apprends que je suis un traître j'en prends acte"

Autograph note signed by Victor Hugo in ink on a newspaper cutting:

"Par le Ph.[are] de la L[oire] d'aujourd'hui j'apprends que je suis un traître j'en prends acte"

This modest yet powerful note is emblematic of the mythic Hugolian tradition of the "copeaux", or little "shavings" of paper. As an outlet, a catharsis for this overflow of thoughts and agitation, the writer accumulated ill-fated fragments: "Hugo's writing also has its wild, untamed side. Hugo was a graphomaniac: for him, writing was an imperious gesture, bound to no place or hour. Words, phrases, pages constantly came to his mind, and he hastened to set them down [...] he would literally seize the first scrap of paper that fell into his hand: a letter received, the back of a handbill, a page torn from a book… In itself the best metaphor for the Hugolian literary outpouring and its extraordinary freedom remains the material spectacle of these written fragments, of varied shapes, materials and colors, like confetti scattered the morning after a party" (Thomas Cazentre, "Victor Hugo, l'écriture rituelle", BnF).

A sharp copeau then, a splinter even, an instant and miraculously preserved riposte:  this cry from the heart is thus scribbled from Hugo's exile and written on the corner of a Jersey or Guernsey newspaper, on the verso of which one reads the words "channel islands,". The act of "treachery" mentioned by Hugo already hinted at this. Hugo was surrounded by as many admirers as fierce detractors of his literary and political activities: reviled, parodied, pastiched… How can one not think of his immortal lines from the Contemplations?

"De la chute de tout je suis la pioche inepte ;
C'est votre point de vue. Eh bien, soit, je l'accepte"

 

("Réponse à un acte d'accusation", I, 7)

The tone of this note comes close to the verses in this firm and almost indifferent response from an artist and citizen used to weather countless insults. Here, the one accused of treachery is in fact the very man who worked to support the innocent and denounce the ultimate betrayal of Napoleon's coup which forced him into exile. Hugo experienced it as a betrayal of popular sovereignty and republican principles. In writing Napoléon le Petit, Les Châtiments, and later Histoire d'un crime: "He violently indicts the treachery of President Bonaparte and the baseness of all those, so numerous, who made possible, desired, accompanied or approved the coup d'État." (Stéphane Haber. Découvrir Victor Hugo. Editions Sociales, 2022).

During these years of exile, Hugo also suffered from the divisions and renunciations among the exiled republicans. The amnesty of 1859 brought about the return of many while he chose to remain in Guernsey for as long as the Empire endured. This growing isolation, the indifference of certain former companions, and the internal quarrels of the opposition could be felt as so many defections.

It is thus even among his own supporters that the sharpest criticism arose: although Le Phare de la Loire championed liberal ideas and was subject to numerous prosecutions and judicial convictions, Hugo had several run-ins with this publication, which was nonetheless usually favorable to him. As early as 1845, he responded to an article defending himself against accusations of personal wealth:

"I owe nothing to anyone. I have never made commerce of anything. I give a little alms, as much as I can. No one around me lacks for anything. As for myself, I wear twenty-five franc overcoats, I wear out my hats a little too much, I work without a fire in winter, and I walk to the Chamber of Peers. For the rest, I thank God. I have always possessed the two blessings without which I could not live: a tranquil conscience, and complete independence."

The same publication would later accuse him of having sold volumes from his library given to him by famous authors: "The explanation is this: there was a day in my life after which many of my papers and books were scattered in my absence. That day I left home in the morning without knowing I would not return that evening. What day was it? The 2nd of December 1851." he wrote to the editor-in-chief, Victor Mangin. Earlier in the same letter one also reads: "I have never corrected the errors spread about me, and I shall not begin today; [...] newspapers have better things to do than record petty denials of petty facts." Rather than avenge his wounded pride, he reserved his published letters printed in the newspapers for the causes dear to him or for the defense of his sons targeted by imperial censorship.

 Yet Hugo's great merit lies in his never having separated his political convictions from his craft as poet, novelist, and playwright, instilling those same human qualities into his very characters: "'they are gentle dreamers whom one cannot help but love: generous workers, young intellectuals hungry for justice, lovers seeking to drown their sorrows in action, adolescents enamored of adventure and solidarity…" recalls Stéphane Haber. Yet it is in ambivalent minds that Hugo sometimes shows the most sensitivity, for treachery and heroism can merge within a complex personality:

"Victor Hugo knows that real man, this double being, this multiple being, never ceases to give himself striking contradictions. Into the worst natures the divine ray may descend: into Lucrèce Borgia, lost in crime and lust, maternal love; into Triboulet, a monster in body and soul, paternal love; into Marie Tudor, the bloody queen, and Marion Delorme, the perverse courtesan, chaste, gentle and humble love, made of purity and devotion." (Alfred Rambeau).

A precious fragment of Hugo's"spectacle of writing", an ephemeral display of emotion given by one of literature's greatest geniuses, who tirelessly wrote in the pursuit of progress and freedom:

« Parmi les innombrables fragments laissés par Victor Hugo, une catégorie semble se distinguer par son nom lui-même, associé à l'auteur des Misérables un peu comme les paperoles à celui de La Recherche, ce sont les copeaux. Ils se singularisent par leur brièveté, leur hétérogénéité, et leur relative rareté par rapport à la masse des manuscrits conservés, car ils ont souvent été détruits. » (Jean-Marc Hovasse).