New-York tribune., 1905-06-24

Sannee Illustrated. Emo PIP. xviii l52- q. +
PitnamS Sons
Soiourners in Paris who strol peiea'ii ~
.,.Sor, of the statue of Strasburg, in the Place
de la Concorde, have not hitherto hio"i '
,bs saated figure represents the heroine OF
.-,,,s ron,ance The model who sat to
,,-a5ier for this statue was Juliette DroueI WHO
5a ~, for the austerity of her childhood IN d
,.-s;ng school under the control of a religious
order by defying the convenuonahtles Iloiii
ahopt her nineteenth year to the Gay oi Hei
death as an old woman. Pradiers starue uoe'
mot make the lady out a goddess ana Hei''te-
does the drawing by Villain which is Reproduced
;n tbe volume before But Gautler' no mean
5udee of such matters, wrote of her appear ailOe
as a Young woman in these favoraole terms
..tJer head is of a regular and delicate beauty
her nose is clean cut and well shaped ana hei
evas brilliant and clear. Her lips remain very
.,.,r o,,er, when she laughs heartily and are OF
. vivid and humid red These charming feat
,,res are surrounded by a most harmonious ana
sof- oval contour; her forehead is clear anu
serene. and she has an abundance of black halr
Of an admirable lustre Her neck, shoulders ana
arms are of a perfection thoroughly antique
In 1888 she made Hugos acquaintance; ne gave
ber q part to play in his 'Iucretia Borgla ne
fell head over heels in love with her, and thehce
.orfb for fifty years, she occupied the hrst place
yr, y; aft
The story is not a pretty one. and it is made
III. less ingratiating by Mr.. Wack's way OF tell
sng # He seems to be aware of the fact that
Hugo's transactions with Juliette Drouet were
not precisely beyond reproach- He admits that
the subject is regarded by the Anglo-Saxon
mind as one of extreme delicacy. But he has
all of the Grass hero worshippers faculty for
throwing glamour Of high sounding words over
issues simple enough to the reader who is con-
tent 10 see that right is right. that wrong Is
wrong. and that It is idle to attempt to confuse
the two. Mr.. Wack approaches his sublime
theme in this manner:
Hugo Of powerful sensationspS5ysiff at ddpa5 ST.
oy as Te Sern as Of tbe incdens the desires and
the dreams of each day ne efpployeo, ciA6 ms = Ti
pulse and tsomeumes) with an arrogance that ht
provoked hostility. After a4, 4o NE did Dof Dof
sse virtue nor feed vice so much he vvitied
a3fies oTfh N Mrs CrTndy had no dominion his
transcendental genius The caTil OF Ihe MOI ars
eu I'D me- narfornances. who amongst US shall decry
the beauty of his love for Juliette Droret!
In the face of this solemn warning we
shrink, Of course, from laying violent hands on
the tender, rainbow hued fabric OF victor HUGO
romance. If anything could give US pause II
would be wack on atomic agitation Never
theIess we must glance at the facts Jullette
person When Pradier cast her off. with her child
abe found consolation with more than one other
Parisfan AIphonse Karr figured in the list OF
her admirers Then she turned her attenuon 10
ga wealthy Russian nobleTnan,' and even a1ter
she had begun her intrigue with Hugo she
found it difficult to abandon her Northern lover
But the poet furious; she melted at Ihe
sight of his distress, and presently we ma MN
taking conclusive charge of her affairs. Ihe
faithful Nack thus relates the upshot of the
nrst fearful crisis in his hero's romance Victor
Hugo. famous, but still poor in purse. got Pra-
der, the sculptor. and one two others to as
sst him in scraping up a few thousand francs
wherewith TO pay his lady's most pressing cred
itors This accomplished, the furniture at her
finer apartment at No. 35bis Rue de rEchiquier,
was sold. and she went TO five in the modest
apartment that the poet had rented and fur
nished for her in Rue Saint Anastase, a few
steps from his own house" Obviously, the in
cident is full Of beauty In fact, it simply
reeks with it. But where, wonder, is Mr..
wack's sense of humor? It has been utterly
swamped, perhaps, by his theory Of atomic
agitation
There was good deal of the charlatan in Vic
tor Hugo. and the lowest qualities of that part
of his nature are brought to the surface in the
history of his dealings with Juiette Drouet. Mr..
Wack observes that she was the regnant god
dess Of Victor Hugo's poetry after 1884" and
that ''in some phases of this remarkable rela-
tionship the sublimest chords of earthly
istence are made to fntone every shade Of ro-
mantle song and feeling. She was the inspra-
tion of much that widened his vision not only
in his flights Of fancy, but in what he met in
the actual world around him. Mr. Ellis was
saying the same sort of thing about Wagner
and Mathilde Wesendonck the other day. Tall
tall abOTlf ViC or it
virtue. There is nothing beautiful in the cpl
sode which Mr.. wack handles with such awe
struck care; it is merely nauseous. He may re-
peat until he himself is wearied the sapient re-
mark that what Beatrice was TO Dante, that
and more was Juliette Drouet to Victor Hugo"
the unquestionable fact remains that when the
novelist made this woman his mistress and
Haunted her in his wife's face year after year
he wrote himself down 'bounder" of the first
water. The letters printed In this volume are
the sentimental vaporings of a vulgar woman.
One OF them, in which this precious Juliette
talks about being ''delirious with love-" winds
up with appeal for five francs to be invested
in the lottery. The passage is significant. The
rhapsodical stuff in these letters cannot cover
the offence to good morals underlying them all
It is pleasant to turn from the squalor Of this
love story TO the pages in which Mr.. Wack or
NJ Coppee gives US anecdotes Of Hugo among
his friends. NJ. Coppee tells how the poet once
talked OF sending a challenge to the King Of
Prussia, whose armies were then besieging
Paris I'VE both old" he said He is
powerful sovereign. and it is agreed that am
a great poet We are, therefore, equal. Why
should we not decide the quarrel which divides
cur two nations by single combat and spare so
many lives?" His self-conceit was more than
colossal; it was apocayptic. destroying in him
all sense of T1roporfiOr1 and coropJefelv