Page 85.
Chanson. Like the thirteen following pieces this poem is an extract from Victor Hugo's masterly work, 'Les Châtiments.' When the Emperor was a prisoner in Germany, and the Empress had fled to England, the appearance of Victor Hugo at the French legislative assembly, gathered to resolve 'that the throne had been abdicated and to form a new Government,' was hailed with one long cry of 'Les Châtiments, Les Châtiments.'
Page 88.
To those who Sleep. The third stanza reminds the writer of Lord Lytton's beautiful lines in Aurora Clair:
'Sword
And shield lack never where'er there be
A soldier ready to use them. He
Who, having a cause for which to fight,
Hath also courage and will to smite,
Finds waiting for him in pebble or reed
Just such a weapon as serves his need.'
Page 99.
Patria. The song is married in the original to Beethoven's glorious music. Vide Appendix.
Page 101.
A Souvenir of the Night of the Fourth. Like Tennyson's 'In Memoriam,' 'Les Châtiments' of Victor Hugo harps upon one subject. A great sorrow inspired the muse of the one, a great public wrong that of the other. But in Tennyson's poem, exquisite as it is, the monotony palls at last, while in Hugo's the variety is infinite; hence the superiority of the latter. Disdainful, sarcastic, pathetic, sublime, by turns, the book is a masterpiece of its kind. The piece translated here is about the child killed in the Carrefour Tiquetonne on the 4th December 1851, during the street-fights consequent on the coup d'état of Napoleon III. Victor Hugo alludes to the event in another piece in the 'Châtiments:'
'Victoire! ils ont tué, carrefour Tiquetonne,
Un enfant de sept ans!'
Page 108
The Retreat from Moscow. For a vivid historical account of the Retreat, see Hazlitt.
Page 112.
The Forts of Paris. The last poetical work of Victor Hugo, 'L'Année Terrible,' from which this piece is taken, shows no diminution of his wonderful powers.
