The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-04-18
JULES VALLEs AND VICTOR
 HUGO.
IExehange.l

[Exehange.l
 The Parisians are always athirst for ight-seeing and play acting or, as they 'sy in their own language, tbe spectacle. l The other day, when, on the occasion | of the anarchist manifestation on the | Place de rOpera, the cavalry began to sweep the boulevard and things became more or less threatening, I noticed, says the Paris correspondent of the New York SHn, tn at the shopkeepers in the neigh borhood had no sooner put up their shut ters and locked up, than they rushed to the scene of action to see what was going on. The Parisian tradition holds that maintenance of order in the streets is the affair of the police and the military, and that individual citizens are in no way bound to help. Their privilege is to look on and mark the strokes. So, too, the politicians and all other French public characters are regarded as actors on that great stage, where, as Heine says, the Parisians are perpetually acting tragi- comedy for the distraction of humanity and 6 bon DieN. The ministers, the deputies, the journalists, and the men of letters may all be regarded, more or less, as gladiators fighting among themselves for the amusement of skeptical crowd, themselves skeptic and conscious of their role. No more striking instance of this phenomenon could be found than the famous communist Jules Valles, who died on February I4th, just on the eve of the carnival. Valles made great deal of noise in his life, and yet when you asked what he did, it is not easy to find the answer. Under the empire he was in opposition, like all of the young men of the day, He was poor, and had a strong appetite for all that money could buy. He had received an education which enabled him to earn his living with his pen, and he turned round and cursed the university which had given him that education. He was the noisiest and most bowling of the cafe orators of the Latin Quarter at the time when Gambetta was . formidable rival. He became a yevo!!s against everything, and demanded in the same afternoon the burning of the works of Homer, Moliere, and the classics, and the abolition of society. Valles adopted under the empire the role of truculent Socialist, and his main purpose in life was to gain money. His talent as a writer and his reputation as revolks caused Villemessant of the Figaro to offer him $o 900 year 10 write daily article in place of Rochefort. Valles kept up his articles for two months. The readers then began to complain that he was monotonous, and so he was requested to retire. Under the commune he was covered with gold lace, and vastly puffed up with the importance of his position but his conduct was not especially valor- Ous and toward the end he managed to escape to England, where he lived until the amnesty. After the amnesty he re- turned to Paris. About a year ago he started a paper called Le Cyi dN PeHble, a paragraph in which was the cause oi police officer Norbert Ballerioh.
 Since his return from exile have ire quently seen and talked with Valles. My impression of him is that he is writer oi talent and a truculent and bombastic humbug. Despite all his preaching about Socialism, anarchy, aud fraternity, and about the dignity of the poor man, Valles was personally almost wealthy. He in- herited some money; he gained other money in stock and industrial specula- tions; and his habits and tastes were entirely those of capitalist. In the presence of literary acquaintances Valles never attempted to maintain the serious ness of his newspaper rhetoric about dis. emboweling the Capitalists and shooting the lawyers any more than the actor of the stage attempts to keep up the role which he has been interpreting before the public.
 It is to this love ot the spectacle J that we must largely attribute the posi- ton held by Victor Hugo in the eyes oi the French public. On the occasion oi his. eighty.third birthday, on February bands, and flowers in front of the poets house in the avenue d'Eylau. Hugo, by his long life of labor, by his activity as a poet, prose writer, politician, and a militant exile, and also by the marvellous manner in which he has managed his genius from the commercial and adver. Using point of view, has become sort of idol. In France, Hugo may be said to be the personi6cation of literature abroad he may be said to be the personi. tication of France. The old poet is still hale and hearty. Only the other day had long talk with his old friend Paul Meurice about him. "The master" said M. Meurice, "is we'll, and absolutely without any malady or infrmity except a certain deafness. Often he will sec us laughing at table, and with his generous voice he will say with pretended anger 'Ahl you are laughing down there. May know what it is all aboutp' Then we tell him, and he joins in the gayety Some days Victor Hugo is brilliant and talks good deal; on other days he is dull weary, and says little. He still reads the newspapers and takes an interest in what is going on, and whenever there is a serious vote to be taken he goes to the senate. He goes to bed much earlier than he used to, and gets up later. A, halfpast nine or ten on reception nights he is in bed, and he does not rise until ten in the morning |; but he works in bed two or three hours before getting up."
 Meurice described the poets bed as As T. = | !