The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-04-11
The Home of Victor Hugo.

Victor Hugo has made a wondrous
show-place of his house on the isle of
| Gurnsey. It is a sort of Wardour
street repository drawn from the palaces
of France. When we visited it in 1868
and 1871, we saw table that had been
| the property of Charles the Second :;
part of state bedstead of Francis the
| First; a service of crockery presented
by Charles the Tenth. There were also
| bedroom tapestries from Fontainebleau,
as well as embroidery from the needle
of La Pompadour. Perhaps now, 1872,
Victor Hugo may have added to his
poetical curiosity shop a bit of furni-
ture from the Tuileries, as a memento
of his old enemy, Napoleon le Petit.
What changes and chances these two
men have seen In June, 1S4S, Victor
Hugo, Louis Napoleon, and M. Theirs
were all being voted for together in the
Paris elections. Paris has eoquetted
with the first, has played see-saw with
the second, and is now under the heel of
the last, and, in 1848, the least favored
of the three. What with antique oak
carvings, tapestried walls, Dutch-tiled
fre-places, statues, mirrors, Chinese
porcelain figures, and stray curiosities
of all kinds, Victor Hugo's house bears
very unconventional aspect. We can
quite understand the feeling of the
aristocratic "sixties and "forties" of
Guernsey, in their well-upholstered
mansions, looking upon the great man
in their midst with some disdain, and
as too eccentric to visit with. The
great curiosity of all in Hugo's house
is the number of maxims and notices
one meets with everywhere. Carved on
oak, embroidered on velvet, embossed
on leather, they swarm like Balzac's
creditors They creep out from every
where from behind the stove, from out
of the chest of drawers they scale the
windows, they attack the doors. These
notices represent different sides of Vic
tor Hugo's life and thoughts. On a
great pinnacled chimney-piece we find
a chronological list of earth's benefac-
tors, thus "Moise, Socrates, Christ,
Colomb, Luther, Washington ;" and
Victor Hugo's selection of the greatest
of the poets, viz, "Job, Isaie, Homere,
Eschyle, Lucrece, Dante, Shakespeare,
Moliere." In another place we find an
epigram upon timepiece, relating to
the hours =
They all leave their mark the body well as the
They all wound, alas T! the last one only cures.
Some of the inscriptions have a relig-
ious suggestiveness, as where, under a
deaths head, we find the words, "Nox,
Mors, Lux" Perhaps the article that
strikes q stranger most curiOusly is a
huge wooden chair conspicuously
placed by the table in one of the rooms,
and with chain drawn and fixed across
it's arms. This is known as "The chair
of the ancestors ;" and on it are in
scribed the words, "Les absents sout
la On the arms of the chair are the
names of some departed members of
Hugo family. The great writer's sane
tum is at the very top of the house, n
sort of attic room walled with glass on
two sides, and from which may be seen
the finest view in Guernsey as at this
height one seems to have the blue sea
Immediately below and around. Here,
in corner of the room, is a small deal
writing-table, and here, or just above
on the parapet, M. Hugo, or his great
felt hat, may be discerned very early in
the morning by the passer;! Temple
R0r