Georges Victor-Hugo, schoolboy

The death of Georges Hugo, who has just passed away discreetly, aged fifty-six (1868-1925), reminds me of a distant memory of my youth: I knew, when he was only seventeen and a half, the unforgettable grandson of the author of The Art of Being a Grandfather; and since then, I have only seen him once, in 1897 at the funeral of Alphonse Daudet.

It was in the spring of 1886 that chance made me his ephemeral master, his professor of literature for a fortnight, in the chair of rhetoric of Mr. Emile Aublé, at Janson-de-Sailly, where I was completing, as was customary, four months before the agrégation exams, my teaching internship as a normalien. The Janson high school had just opened, a few years before (the first stone was laid in front of Victor Hugo, who lived nearby, and whose funeral we had attended the year before this internship). Georges was then finishing his studies there, without much fanfare he was part of this fairly large Parisian rhetoric class, of this temporary audience, willingly turbulent with the regular teacher, whom I confronted, according to the consecrated formula, with the emotion that is said to be inseparable from a beginning.

Things went well, and our relations were cordial. I can still see the amiable adolescent he had become, similar, with his round, slightly large head, his slightly stocky stature, his abundant brown hair, his superb eyes, to the portraits of children that so many images, so many postcards have popularized, as well as those of his sister Jeanne. He was neither proud nor difficult, but he kept the correct, attentive, and supervised demeanor of a true gentleman: in truth, the administration, the headmaster (Mr. Kortz) considered him a little like that, and they turned a blind eye to his absences or his delays (he was already going out into society!). He worked... in his own time. Not very scholarly, I imagine he had little taste for Greek and Latin, but he succeeded passably in French. I had to correct a composition: the first of this long series (nearly a thousand) that was to pass before my eyes during my thirty-nine-year university career. It so happened that he was ranked first among the newcomers (the first among the veterans was Guignébert, today an excellent professor at the Sorbonne).
When he left me, he graciously offered me, with a dedication from his hand, a beautiful copy of Théâtre en Liberté, which I still have.

We know the rest. An amateur writer, without pretension, having served in the fleet, he wrote his notes and impressions as a young sailor, plus memories of his illustrious ancestor. He also leaves an interesting album of prints and sketches relating to the Great War, during which, having volunteered in his full maturity, he behaved nobly. In certain respects, he showed an original complexion, had personal, political and religious ideas, moreover almost opposed to those of his ancestors, a nature a little melancholic and withdrawn. He certainly had no genius, but did not lack talent. He was content to bear with modesty, with simplicity, a very glorious name, I was going to say overwhelming; but Mr. Léon Daudet (1), who knew Georges better than I, and who gives his fraternal friend a complete eulogy, affirms that by this great name he was in no way crushed. He had, in any case, the good taste not to set himself up as a poet, instead of moaning in vain, like others whom no one pities, and who are distressed at the thought that the Muse will never say to them before posterity: "Tu Marcellus eris!"

Victor GLACHANT.