1. The Everlasting Call
At noon on a scorching summer day, sixteen-year-old Hugo was passing by the square in front of the Paris Court of Justice when he suddenly noticed a group of people making noisy noises. Surrounded there. Hugo squeezed in and saw a girl in ragged clothes tied to a thick wooden stake. A shiny black iron ring was locked around her neck, and a notice was nailed to her head. There was a pot of red-hot coals at her feet, and a wooden-handled branding iron was inserted into the fire.
Hugo was about to read the notice when he suddenly heard the church bell ringing twelve times. A shirtless man walked up behind the girl, untied the rope from the girl's back, exposing her back to her waist, then picked up a hot red iron and quickly burned it from the girl's shoulders down. White smoke rose up, and the girl's screams echoed in the air mixed with the smell of burning. Hugo quickly closed his eyes.
This human tragedy is the epitome of the brutal society at that time, and it left a deep imprint on Hugo's soul. More than forty years later, Hugo still said with lingering fear in a letter to a friend: "The painful cry of the tortured woman still rings in my ears - a cry that can never be erased from my soul." We can often find the shadow of this poor woman in the characters in Hugo's novels.
2. The Troubles at the Théatre Fran?aise
On the evening of February 25, 1830, the Théatre Fran?aise in Paris was performing Hugo's new romantic play "Onani". But there was chaos off the stage: cheers, applause, quarrels, scolds and boos came and went, making it a chaotic scene. The conservative opposition said: "Your stage is the Plaza de Espa?a for one moment and a German city for another. Is Spain just a few steps away from Germany?"
Because according to the pedantic principles of classicism, a stage is only a few steps away from Germany. can represent a place. Most of those who support Hugo are enlightened young people, including writers, musicians, painters, sculptors and architects, including Balzac, another French literary giant. The conservatives collected the garbage from the whole hospital, climbed to the roof and fell on Hugo's supporters. Balzac suffered a cabbage root.
But these indignant young people did not give in and cheered for the performance desperately. There were not many of them, but one was as good as ten, and they overwhelmed the conservative camp. The successful performance of "Onani" marked the decisive victory of romanticism over classicism in the history of French literature.
3. "Notre Dame de Paris" and "Les Misérables"
After the turmoil in the theater, Hugo moved to a new house and concentrated on the creation of the novel "Notre Dame de Paris". A year later, a Romantic masterpiece was born. This novel tells the story of the archdeacon of Notre Dame de Paris who attempted to possess Esme Halda, a street singer, but when he failed to do so, he falsely accused her of being a murderer and sentenced her to death.
Quasimodo, the ugly bell ringer of Notre Dame, rescued Esmehalda from the execution site and hid her in Notre Dame. But the church falsely accused Esmehalda of being a witch, and the court decided to arrest her. Tramps and beggars came to besiege Notre Dame after hearing the news. In the melee, the archdeacon kidnapped Esmehalda and forced her to submit to him. When she refused, he handed her over to the soldiers and sentenced her to hanging.
The angry Quasimodo pushed the imprisoned archdeacon off the roof and fell to his death. He finally committed suicide in front of Esmehalda's grave. The plot of "Notre Dame de Paris" is tense and tortuous, full of positive romanticism, reflecting the dark reality of feudal autocracy in the Middle Ages, and exposing the licentiousness and hypocrisy of the reactionary church. As soon as the novel was published, it immediately caused a sensation in the literary world in France and around the world.
"Les Misérables" is another romantic masterpiece that Hugo spent nearly twenty years writing. There are five parts in the book. The protagonist of the novel, Jean Valjean, was forced to steal a piece of bread because of life constraints, but was sentenced to five years of hard labor. He failed to escape four times, but his sentence was increased to 19 years. After his release, Jean Valjean stole the bishop's silverware. As a result, he was influenced by the bishop, so he changed his name to Madeleine, ran an industry, and sympathized with the poor.
He did a lot of good things to improve society, and was finally elected mayor. Soon Valjean was recognized by the new police chief Javert, and was forced to surrender to the court and was arrested again. The resourceful Jean Valjean escaped from prison, fulfilled his promise, paid a large sum of money to redeem Fantine's daughter Cosette, who was persecuted to death, and lived in seclusion in Paris. When Cosette grew up, she fell in love with the young Marius, who later participated in the uprising of the Communists.
In order to facilitate their marriage, Jean Valjean risked his life to find Marius, but he met his enemy Javert on a narrow road. He repaid evil with kindness and let Javert go, causing Javert to commit suicide in shame. After the uprising failed, Jean Valjean rescued the seriously injured Marius, and passed away suddenly after consummating the marriage between Marius and Cosette.
"Les Misérables" depicts a broad range of social life and historical scenes with colorful strokes, effectively exposes and criticizes the social morality and legal system of capitalism, and becomes an epic-style novel. His masterpiece occupies an extremely important position in world literature.
4. The Fall of a Star
Politically, Hugo was a humanitarian. After the British and French forces burned the Old Summer Palace, he denounced France and England in a letter to Captain Butler as "two robbers" who "will be punished by history." Hugo is a friend of the Chinese people. France failed in the Franco-Prussian War. Under the strong demand of the masses, France reestablished the communist and republican government. Hugo returned from overseas and signed up to join the National Guard.
He was sixty-eight years old at this time. Hugo also used his royalties to donate two cannons to the Guards, one of which was named "Hugo". Soon Hugo arrived in Belgium for business. At this time, a proletarian revolution that shocked the world broke out in Paris - the "Paris Commune" uprising. Although Hugo did not agree with this revolution, after the failure of the Commune. Out of a humanitarian stance, he boldly protected the persecuted commune members.
They were advised to take refuge in their own homes. As a result, the windows of his home were quickly smashed, and he was ordered to leave the country by the Belgian government. Hugo passed away due to illness in 1885, and the entire French nation mourned the loss of a generation of literary superstars. Participants of the Paris Commune also issued a manifesto calling on their members to attend Hugo's funeral. Hugo won the respect of people all over the world with his great personality and immortal works.
5. After Hugo finished writing "Les Miserables", he submitted the manuscript to a publisher. There was no response after sending the manuscript for a long time, so he drew a big "?" on the paper and sent it to the publisher. A few days later, the publisher replied. Hugo opened it and saw that there was no word on it, only a "!" was drawn on it. He knew there was hope.
Sure enough, his "Les Misérables" was published soon and became a great success. Once when Hugo traveled abroad and reached the border, the gendarme wanted to check his registration and asked him: "Name?" "Hugo." "What do you do?" "Writer." "What do you do for a living?" "A pen." So the gendarme asked him: Just write in the register: "Name: Hugo, occupation: Selling pen holders."