THE political significance of Victor Hugo's obsequies was chiefly negative. There was no rioting, as it was very generally expected that there would be. The German Ambassador was absent, although the enemies of Mr. Gladstone's Government are never tired of asserting that there is now an intimate alliance between France and Germany. The representation of Metz and Strasburg yesterday explains why Prince Hohenlohe did not come, and why the theory of such as alliance is nonsense. The representatives of Continental despotism naturally did not throng to the funeral of an illustrious preacher of democratic equality. Victor Hugo had not for some time taken any part in politics, and he only spoke in the Senate to support the amnesty of the Communists. He was indeed, in the minds of Frenchmen and by virtue of his genius, placed on a pinnacle above parties and factions. He was not, as some French journals have made themselves slightly ridiculous by saying, above Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare. He was below them. But he is the supreme glory of French literature in the nineteenth century, perhaps in all the nineteen centuries of our era. M. Emile Augier, the eminent dramatist, represented the Academy yesterday in place of M. Masime Ducamp, whose strictures upon the Commune, oddly glorified by the President of the Municipal Council, were supposed to make his public appearance undesirable. Nothing, however, occurred to mar the decorum of the ceremony, which resembled rather a theatrical display then a scene of mourning. The homage of the masses to the poet was very striking. Victor Hugo never wrote down to the uneducated. When he appeals to all minds it is by the inspiration of his genius, and not by any elaborate effort to be simple. The most fastidious and cultivated tastes have yielded to his charm, as well as the class to which Cosette and Marius belong. Mr. Disraeli, borrowing without acknowledgment from M. Thiers, said that the sublimest of all spectacles was the spectacle of a Senate mourning a hero. The worship of Victor Hugo by the French nation will strike many people as greater in its simplicity then the most elaborate function.
Daily News, June 2
Victor Hugo's Funeral
Victor Hugo's Funeral
Table of Contents
Miracles of healing - Christian Miracles or Healing
History of Russia: Christian Versus Barbarian
History of Japan: Early Christian Martyrs
The Jesus of History
The Assyrian Origin of Devil Worshippers
The Christ Of Dogma
The early history of Constantinople
