Romantic Adventure

Ninety-Three 

by Victor Hugo

Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo is a glorious romantic imagining of an episode from the year 1793, during the French Revolution and the year of the Great Terror. The scene is in Brittany, where the leaders of the Revolution are being opposed by counterrevolutionary forces. The elderly Marquise de Lantenac, the group's leader, is a romantic hero in the purest sense. After arriving on the western coast, this Breton noble assumes the identity of a peasant. His goal is to lead the rebels, use them for the royalist cause, and create a chance for an English military invasion. He pursues this goal with ruthless determination.

The Revolutionary forces under the command of Gauvain, his grand-nephew, appear to be in control of his destiny. Gauvain, the former Vicomte de Gauvain, is facing Lantenac after giving up his aristocratic background to support the republican cause. Gauvain is in charge of the republican forces that support Marat and are entrusted with finding and eliminating Lantenac.

Cimourdain, a former priest and Gauvain's tutor who is now an ardent revolutionary, is the third main character. The political principles that Gauvain has embraced were initially taught to him by Cimourdain. Cimourdain has a secret—the one weak point in his ideological armor—because he has loved Gauvain since he was a young child, treating him like the son he never had. Marat, the revolutionary leader, sends Cimourdain to the Vendée as a special agent to make sure Gauvain stays loyal. Marat has heard unsettling rumors that Gauvain might be able to show mercy, which the revolutionary leaders consider to be a cardinal sin.

In addition to the intensely thrilling action, the story's ideas also contribute to its tension. Gauvain tells Cimourdain at one point:
"Among the lions, Louis XVI was a sheep. He made an attempt to escape in order to protect himself. . . But not everyone can be a lion who wants to. His feeble attempt was regarded as a crime."
He asks Cimourdain, "Lions? What are they?"
"This made Cimourdain think. He raised his head and said, 'Those lions are consciences. Those lions are ideas. Those lions are principles.'" (pp. 197-98)

While Gauvain is a man of action, a revolutionary for the republic, he is also a thinker, and it is his thoughts about the humanity of men that lead him to his ultimate actions.
The grandeur of this novel is superb, while Hugo builds suspense in every section. Some scenes are so vivid that you are unlikely to forget them. One scene that is sometimes excerpted from the novel is the great cannon episode, depicting a loose cannon on a ship of anti-revolutionary French Royalists sailing towards Brittany to aid the anti-revolutionary Chouannerie rebellion.
The whole of the novel is like this, filled with one astonishing experience after another, keeping this reader spellbound.

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The Eternal Man

Ninety-Three 

by Victor Hugo

“History has its truth, and so has legend. Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality. Furthermore, history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath momentary man.”  ― Victor Hugo, Ninety-Three






Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo is a glorious romantic imagining of an episode from the year 1793, during the French Revolution and the year of the Great Terror. The setting is Brittany where counter-revolutionary forces have risen up to oppose the Revolutionary leaders. The leader of this group, the aged Marquise de Lantenac, is a romantic hero in the grandest sense. A Breton noble, he disguises himself as a peasant after landing on the western coast. His mission, which he pursues with ruthless single-mindedness, is to act as a leader to the rebels, harness them to the royalist cause, and contrive an opportunity for an English military invasion.

His fate seems to be determined by the Revolutionary forces which are led by his grand-nephew, Gauvain. Pitted against Lantenac, Gauvain, formerly the Vicomte de Gauvain, has renounced his noble heritage and embraced the republican cause. Gauvain commands the republican troops allied with Marat and tasked with hunting down and killing Lantenac.

The third protagonist is Cimourdain, once a priest and Gauvain’s tutor, now a fervent revolutionary. It was from Cimourdain that Gauvain first learned the political ideals he has adopted. Cimourdain has a secret, the one weak spot in his ideological armour, for he loves Gauvain, has loved him since childhood, like the son he himself never had. Cimourdain is sent by the revolutionary leader, Marat, as a special agent to the Vendée to ensure that Gauvain does not waver in his loyalty, for Marat has heard disturbing rumors that Gauvain may be capable of mercy, and revolutionary leaders view this as a cardinal sin.

The tension of the story is provided not only by the action, which is fiercely exciting, but by ideas. At one point Gauvain says to Cimourdain:
"Louis XVI was a sheep thrown among lions. He tried to flee, to save himself . . . But not everyone can be a lion who wants to. His feeble attempt was regarded as a crime."
He asks Cimourdain, "lions? What are they?"
"This made Cimourdain think. He raised his head and said, 'Those lions are consciences. Those lions are ideas. Those lions are principles.'" (pp 197-98)

While Gauvain is a man of action, a revolutionary for the republic, he is also a thinker and it is his thoughts about the humanity of men that lead him to his ultimate actions. 
The grandeur of this novel is superb, while Hugo builds suspense in every section. Some scenes are so vivid that you are unlikely to forget them. One scene that is sometimes excerpted from the novel is the great cannon episode; depicting a loose cannon on a ship of anti-revolutionary French Royalists sailing towards Brittany, to aid the anti-revolutionary Chouannerie rebellion. 
The whole of the novel is like this, filled with one astonishing experience after another, keeping this reader spellbound.


Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo. Bantam Books, 1962 (1874)

Quote for Today

Notre-Dame de Paris

by Victor Hugo

"a vast symphony in stone, so to speak; the colossal work of a man and a people, at the same time one and complex, like its sisters the Iliads and the Romanceros; the prodigious result of contributions made from all the resources of an age, where every stone displays in hundreds of ways the workman's imagination disciplined by the artist's genius; a king f of human creation, in a word, as mighty and fruitful as the divine creation whose dual character it seems to have abstracted: variety, eternity."

(from the opening of Book Three: "Notre Dame")

Historical Romance

Notre-Dame of Paris 

by Victor Hugo

“Love is like a tree: it shoots of itself; it strikes it's roots deeply into our whole being, and frequently continues to put forth green leaves over a heart in ruins. And there is this unaccountable circumstance attending it, that the blinder the passion the more tenacious it is. Never is it stronger than when it is most unreasonable.”  ― Victor Hugo, The Huntchback of Notre Dame

Several years ago I both read this book and saw an adaptation of it for the stage as a musical! They were both great productions. The original began appearing in the bookshops of Paris on March 16, 1831 as a new novel from the pen of Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris. This novel, which is now popularly known as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", tells the emotionally exhausting tale of the penniless poet, Gringoire the demonic, lecherous priest, Frollo, the handsome, empty-headed, guardsman, Captain Phoebus, the deaf bell-ringer, Quasimodo, with his hump and his wart-obscured eye, and the beautiful gypsy girl they all fall in love with: Esmeralda, whose only friend in the world is her performing goat, Djali (the name Emma Bovary gives to her lap-dog twenty-six years later).
The epicenter of the novel is the Gothic cathedral. In the minds of progressive Parisians, it was a shabby relic of the barbarian past. Hugo himself explored the cathedral climbing the bell-towers and it is there that he discovered his inspiration for the story. The story is sited in 1482 at the historical crossroads when the modern world was struggling to be born and when the printed word began to dominate and annihilate that older form of writing--architecture. Hugo's own "basketful of rubble" is reminiscent of the Renaissance novelist whose tale, though gargantuan, was also thought by some to be no better than rubble (The opposite is true and the wise reader should explore the beauty of Rabelais if he has not already done so).
Hugo's novel is one of the great historical romances of all time with characters in the Hunchback Quasimodo, Esmeralda and Frollo who you will never forget. The City of Paris and the Cathedral of Notre Dame also come alive in Hugo's story and you see the power of love and loyalty that can persevere in the face of evil. The theme of justice also resounds in this novel almost as much as in Les Miserables. It is clear that this was an important concept for Hugo. For lovers of romantic historical literature this is a great read.

Notre-Dame of Paris by Victor Hugo. Penguin Classics, 1978 (1831)

Infinity

“It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe.”

Victor Hugo (French Romantic Poet, Novelist and Dramatist, 1802-1885)

While running in the park early this morning I noticed the clouds. Clouds have infinite combination of appearance; at least in my memory I continually am noticing new patterns even among recognizable types. The infinity of clouds would seem to stem from the nature of the universe itself which also appears to be infinite. While some would lay the source of that infinity outside nature, positing a supernatural cause, I merely relax in wonder at the infinite, consider the "mysterious transaction" of life, and look forward to the answers why.

Quote for Today

Be as a bird

perched on a frail branch

that she feels bending beneath her,

still she sings away all the same,

knowing she has wings.

- Victor Hugo