The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1875-02-17
MISCELLANY.
A BEA UTIFUL TRIB UTE.
WHAT VICTOR HUGO SAID AT THE GRAVE OF
MADAME MEURIcE, IN PARIS.

The woman to whom we come to pay the
supreme tribute has honored her sex +; she had
all the charms of love, and all the strength
for suffering She leaves behind her the COM
panion of her life, Paul Meurice spirit lu-
minous and proud, one of the nobest men of
our time. Let us bow before this sacred
tomb.
l witnessed their marriage. So pass the
years | saw them both young, she SO beau
tiful, he SO radiant, unite their fortune before
the human law and before the law divine, and
give their hands to each other in hope and
morning. | saw that ell rance of two souls
into love, which is the true entrance into life.
To-day is it the exit that we see No; for
the heart that remains continues to love- and
the soul that has flown continues to live !!
Death Is another entrance, not into mere love,
for the love below was complete, but into
more light.
From that radiant hour of the beginning,
to the stern hour where we are now, these
two beautiful souls sustained each other
Life, whatever it may be, is good, travelled
thus She, admirable woman, painter, mu-
sician, artist, had received every gift, and was
made for every pride; but she was above all,
proud of the reflection of his fame upon her.
self she took part in his success she felt
herself honored by the applause which hailed
him she participated, smiling, in those
splendid ovations at the theatre where the
name of Meurice was shouted amidst accla-
nations and enthusiasm she had the sweet
pride to see unfolded for the future, and tri-
umph before the multitude, that series Of
works, strong and exquisite, which shall have
in the literature Of our age place of light
and glory.
Then came the times Of trial she accepted
them with stoicsm. In our day the writer
should be at need combatant woe to the
talent behind which is not seen conscience
A poetry should be virtue. Paul Meurice
is one Of those clear souls in whose depths is
seen duty He wanted liberty, progress, truth
/ and justice, and he bore the consequences -
| This is why, one day, he went to prison. His
wife comprehended this new glory, and from
that day she, who till then had been only good,
became great.
And later, when disasters came, when trial
took the proportions of public calamity, she
was ready for every abnegation and every de-
yoton.
The history of this age has some neycr-to-
be forgotten days
AT times, in humanity, a certain sublimity
of the woman appears in the hours when
history becomes terrible, one would say that
her soul seizes the occasion, and seeks to give
an example to the soul of man.. Antiquity
had the Roman women the modern ages will
have the French woman. The seige of Paris
has shown all that woman can be dignity,
firmness, acceptance of privations and miser-
les, gaiety in anguish. The bottom of the
soul of the French woman is an heroic mix
ture of family and country.
The generous woman in this tomb had all
these grandeurs. / have been her guest in
those tragic days; / have seen her. While
her husband did his double and rude task of
writer and soldier, she also rose before the
dawn. She was, while it was yet night, in
the rain in the frost, her feet in the snow, to
wait long hours, like the other noble women
of the people, at the doors of the butchers
and bakers, and she brought us back food and
joy.
For the truest of all joys is duly performed.
| There is an ideal or woman in Isaiah ; there
is another in Juvenal these two ideals the
women of Paris have realized. They have
had the courage which is more than bravery,
and the patience which is more than courage.
They have shown, before peril, intrepidity
and sweetness. They gave to the despairing
combatants the encouragement Of the smile.
Nothing could conquer them. Like their hus-
bands, like their children, they wanted to
struggle to the last hours and in the face Of
a savage enemy, under the grapeshot and She
shells, under the furious blast of five
months Winter, they refused, even to the
Seine loaded with blocks of ice, even to fam.