Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-11-08
Hugo's Unpublished Works.
OLD MANUSCRIPTS IN THE HANDS OF HIS LITERAR
EXECUTOR

OLD MANUSCRIPTS IN THE HANDS OF HIS LITERARY
EXECUTOR.
I craved the favor of personal interview
with NJ. Jules Teller, the literary executor of
the poet, writes Lucy Hooper in the Philadel-
phia Telegraph. This favor was at once ac-
corded to me, and on a dreary autumn morn
ing few days ago found myself seated before
the writing table of NJ. Teller in his Office on
the Rue de verneuil. He is quite young man,
with well-cut features, brown, earnest eyes,
and pointed, dark-brown beard. 1t was his
enthusiasm and deep admiration for the genius
OF Victor Hugo that led to his being selected
for the responsible task of editing and arrang-
ing for publication the great poets unpub-
lished works.
- am afraid, Madame" he began, &" that /
can tell you very little more than has already
been given to the public. You want to know
some particulars respecting the lost drama of
The Twins and its final discovery? Oddly
enough, ii never was really lost 1t was ALWAYS
in full view among Victor Hugo's papers, but
the cover to the Ms bore the title Count jean
and nobody imagined that the drama of Count
Jean had anything to do with the piece entitled
The Twins Victor Hugo commenced the
work in 1888, just after he had finished 'Ruy
Bias
with his usual impetuosity and energy as a
worker, he never stopped writing till he had
completed one-half of the play. Just at this
Coincide Franchise, and was Kissed from the
stage with such tokens of malignity and per-
sonal enmity that Victor Hugo, deeply wounded
declared that he would never give another
drama to the Partisan stage. So The Twins,
under the provisional title of Count JEAN was
thrown aside, and the great dramatist turned
greater novelist, and devoted his whole time
and thoughts to Les Miserables.' Meantime
he incautiously gave full account of his nm
finished play and its plot to the recently de-
ceased painter, NJ. Gustave Boulanger, who
with singular want of delicacy, repeated the
description to Alexandra Dumas, who forthwith
shaped from it the plot of his 'yiscount de
Bragelonne.'
This fact still further discouraged the poet
from occupying himself with his drama. But
IN his later years Victor Hugo was very anxious
to finish The Twins He deputed his best
friends, Messrs. Paul Meurice and Augusse
Vacquerie, to look for the missing manuscript;
but II was not to be found. There before thei
eyes was the MS. of Count JEAN but none of
the searchers imagined for a moment that this
work was the one for which they were looking.
IL was not till after Victor Hugo's death,
when his literary remains came to be set in
order, that the true state of the case was dis
covered. And so, by the incautious use of a
subtitle by the poet himself, the stage is de-
prived of another drama from the pen of Vic
tor Hugo.
None of his other dramatic works that re-
main unpublished are, think suited to the
atrlcaI representation. There is. indeed a
comedy in four acts, called Five Thousand
Francs Reward, which has been enormously
announced as being in one act only and as
bearing the title of 'One Hundred Thousand
Francs Year But even this is better suited,
should imagine, to the closet than the stage.
The one-act comedy called Perhaps Ga
vroche's Brother has suffered from not being
published when it was first written. Its action
turns on the old-fashioned method of sending
messages by means Of signals, which has long
since been entirely superseded by the electric
telegraph. SO, too, some of his finest invec-
tives against the Second Empire-such as his
poems respecting the Mexican expedition and
the war with China, have lost much of their
force by losing their actuality"