La Légende des siècles (The Legend of the Ages) is a collection of poems by Victor Hugo, conceived as an immense depiction of the history and evolution of humanity.

Written intermittently between 1855 and 1876 while Hugo worked in exile on numerous other projects, the poems were published in three series in 1859, 1877, and 1883. Bearing witness to the unparalleled poetic talent evident in all Hugo's art, the Légende des Siècles is often considered the only true French epic and, according to Baudelaire's formulation, the only modern epic possible.

The dreaming poet contemplates the "wall of the centuries," indistinct and terrible, on which scenes of the past, present and future are drawn, and along which the whole long procession of humanity can be seen. The poems are depictions of these scenes, fleetingly perceived and interspersed with terrifying visions. Hugo sought neither historical accuracy nor exhaustiveness; rather, he concentrated on obscure figures, usually his own inventions, who incarnated and symbolized their eras. As he proclaims in the preface to the first series, "this is history, eavesdropped upon at the door of legend." The poems, by turns lyrical, epic and satirical, form a view of the human experience, seeking less to summarize than to illustrate the history of humanity, and to bear witness to its long journey from the darkness into the light.

read more:

https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Légende_des_siècles

 

 

 

The sun that was, had been dying in the abyss.

This star, at the deep end of the fog, without fiery wind to revive it
Was cooling down, dreary and slowly being destroyed.
Its sinister globe barely visible in the night;
One could guess this fading, in this dark silence,
Its ulcers of fire under a shady leprosy.
Coal of a godly world being extinguished! torched by God!
Its crevasses showed no fire till
Through the holes of the crust, Satan's soul could be seen.
At the centre throbbed and crawled a flame
That at times licked the outside,
And from each crater, came out lights
That shuddered as well like blazing swords,
And vanished noiselessly like dreams.
The star was almost black. Both God and Satan were so weary
That they had no voice and no breath left,
Alas! Both were dying, both were fighting. 
And the sun was dying, under their frightened gaze.
With its hidden holes in the cold darkness, 
The sun was throwing up desperate waves, 
Reddened blocks, smoking mountains,
Rocks full of sparkling clarity:
As if this volcano of life and light,
Engulfed by the haze where everything vanishes,
Would not have wanted to die without insulting the night
And without spitting its lava at the shadows' face.
Around it, time, space and numbers,
Forms and sounds were expiring, creating
The formidable black unity of nothingness —
The spectre of nothing rising from the abyss.
Suddenly, from the heart of the star, a sharp jet of sulfur,
The clamor of the mad dying gods,
Bright, brilliant, splendid, unexpected,
Carved off a thousand funeral forms,
Enormous, to the depths of darkness,
Monstrous arches to the deep infinite.
The corners of the dark immensity appeared. 
Satan, lost in space, breathless,
His eyes dazzled by this last bright lightning
Shook his wounded wings, opened his hands, shuddered
Then shouted: — Despair! Everything is fading!


God and the archangel understood, like the masts that sink,
That they were drowning in a deluge of shadow;
Satan folded his wings, those with granite nails,
And God wrung his arms around. The star went out.

God and Satan were dead.


This poem was adapted by Jules Letambour, from Victor Hugo's epic work The End of Satan. Victor was somewhat a religious man. I am not, nor is Jules and this is why we choose to expose the con of religion by showing the death of god as well as that of satan. Both do not exist. Victor changed ideals as he "matured". For example:
What France lacks in Algiers is a little barbarity. The Turks [...] knew how to cut heads better than we do. The first thing that strikes savages is not reason but strength. What France lacks, England has it; Russia too.
— Victor Hugo, Le Rhin
However, in Les Misérables, Hugo says the following about the conquering of Algeria:
Algeria too harshly conquered, and, as in the case of India by the English, with more barbarism than civilization.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Hugo's religious views changed radically over the course of his life. In his youth and under the influence of his mother, he identified as a Catholic and professed respect for Church hierarchy and authority. From there he became a non-practicing Catholic and increasingly expressed anti-Catholic and anti-clerical views. He frequented spiritism during his exile (where he participated also in many séances conducted by Madame Delphine de Girardin), and in later years settled into a rationalist deism similar to that espoused by Voltaire. A census-taker asked Hugo in 1872 if he was a Catholic, and he replied, "No. A Freethinker".

Read more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo

 

 

Gus is a fierce Atheist.

 

Here again, my friend Jules (Letambour) points to the extraordinary insight of our mate "Victor" (Hugo). Hugo tells us that why have we got priests when we have poets? But this amazingly prolific republican verse writer tells us amongst many other things:

 

When in the vaulted tombs, the winds play

With dead kings' bones...

 

 

Heaven! so, as we see at the vaults of the cellars

 

The blackness when lurking trace the chandeliers,

One could, under the blue pilasters,

Guess that a child of the earth has passed,

As the man's torch would have left

Smoke on the ceiling of the stars!

 

 

This is a tiny part of "Plein Ciel" (the sky above) — a huge poem, which itself is a tiny tiny part of the "Legends of the Centuries" by Victor Hugo, the master of the saga that we all (most of us) know as more than 70 million of us saw the musical Les Miserables... Sounds a bit like the "deplorables" of the Clinton's scorn, but Victor only had scorn for kings and emperors, and the sociopaths, be it the secret service or the police as well... In this small extract above, we should be able to read that humans cannot leave anything pure, and even much up "the ceiling of the stars"... Science now tells us that Victor is correct... Read from top.

 

The man orders the sphinx to hold his lamp

Young, he discards old Adam’s bag, who crawls,

And go, and risk into the heavens, illuminated by his torch,

A step similar to those made in the tomb;

And maybe here, at last, the crossing,

 

Horrifying, from one star to another, has started!

 

 

In this novel translation of another small part of the poem above, by Jules Letambour, one can read another of Victor Hugo's extraordinary visions. He is relentless at exposing humanity's "weird" drive — eventually mixing horror and beauty "as death becomes useless"... Read from top.

 

The end (extract) from "The Fete at Therese" by Victor Hugo...

 

….
Nothing more. It was simple and beautiful. - At intervals,
Enraged, the monkey hit his cymbals;
Then Pierrot haranged. - Listened whoever wanted.
Someone organised ice-cream for the valet;
Another, a gallant man draped in a fantastic cape,
Whispered to his lady, while tying up her mask;
At the table, three Marquis were singing;
Therese was seated under a shrub's shading:
Roses looking faded beside her cheek,
And, seeing her so beautiful, a peacock made the wheel.

Me, I listened, thoughtfully, to a profane couplet
That a purple priest hummed in the shadows.

Night came, everything went silent; the torches went out;

In the darkened woods, the brooks complained;

The nightingale, snug in its nest darkened,

Sung like a poet and like a lover.
Everyone went their way under the deep foliage;
The mad women laughed, dragging the wise;
The paramour moved into the shadow with her lover;
And, troubled as we are when dreaming, vaguely,
They felt by degrees the mingling of their souls,
To their secret speeches, to their passionate glances,
To their heart, to their senses, to their mellow'd reason,
As the light of the blue moon bathed the horizon.


http://poesie/poemes/victor_hugo/la_fete_chez_therese.html
Translation by Jules Letambour

See also: http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/when-is-the-next-blue-moon

Jules Letanbour has kindly translated the complete Napoléon II poem (see the napoléons) by Victor Hugo :

 

 

 

Napoleon II

I
Eighteen hundred and eleven — Oh times when the people who do not count 
Awaiting prostrated under a darkened cloud
That the sky would approve their clout,
Feeling the ancient states trembling beneath them
And watching the Louvre enveloped by thunder and rain
As if the Sinai mountain !

Bowing like a horse that senses its master coming,
They said to each other: — Someone will be born great!
The immense empire awaits its heir tomorrow.
What will the Lord this man be giving
Who, greater than Caesar, bigger than Rome,
Absorb the fate of humanity in his will?

As they spoke, the bright and deep sky
Opened up, and one saw rise upon the world
       The predestined man,
And the gasping crowd could only be silent,
Because his raised arms presented to the earth
       A newborn child.

At the breath of the child, dome of the Invalides,
The captive flags under your splendid arches
Quivered, as in the wind quiver the wheat;
And his cry, that sweet cry that a nurse soothes,
And we all saw this, roll and scream with ease
The monstrous cannons at your mercy!

And him ! pride swelling his powerful nostril;
His two arms, till then crossed on his chest,
         Had finally opened!
And the child, in his fatherly hand held,
Flooded with lightning from his wild eyes,
          Radiant through the air still!

When he had shown the heir to his thrones
To ancient nations as to the old crowns,
Excited, his eyes fixed on whoever was king,
Like an eagle arriving on the highest peak,
He shouted joyfully with presence sublime:
 — The future ! the future ! the future is mine!


II

No, the future is nobody’s!
Sire, the future is God’s!
Whenever the hour strikes,
Everything here below says goodbye.
The future ! the future ! mystery!
All the things of the earth,
Glory, military fortune,
Golden crown of kings,
Victory with ablaze wings,
Ambitions achieved,
Are there no more
Than the bird on our eaves!

No, no matter how powerful we are, no, whether we laugh or cry,
No one makes you talk, no one can before the hour
      Open your cold hand,
Oh dumb ghost, Oh our shadow, Oh our host,
Masked specter that always follows by our side,
      And that we name tomorrow!

Oh ! tomorrow is the big thing!
What will tomorrow be made of?
Man today sows the cause,
Tomorrow God will ripen the effect.
Tomorrow is the lightning in the sail,
It's the cloud covering the star,
It is a traitor who betrays himself,
It is the ram that destroys towers,
It’s the star that changes zones,
It’s Paris which follows Babylon;
Tomorrow is pinewood for the throne
Today, we see the velvet!

Tomorrow is the horse that dies white with foam.
Tomorrow, oh conqueror, it's Moscow that burns,
       At night, like a torch alight.
It is your old guard in the distance littering the plain.
Tomorrow is Waterloo! tomorrow is Saint Helena!
      Tomorrow is the grave!

You can conquer cities
At the gallop of your glorious nag,
Unravel civil wars
With the sharp edge of the steel;
You can, oh my captain,
Cross the haughty Thames,
Make victory uncertain
to be in love with your bugles,
Break down closed gates,
Exceed all renowns,
And give a star to your armies
The starry spurs of your heels!

God is the keeper of your time and place ;
You can on this earth enjoy all the space,
Be as important as a big cloud in the sky ;
Sir, you could take, to your fancy,
Europe from Charlemagne, Asia from Mahomet ; —
but you cannot take tomorrow from the Almighty !


III

Oh contretemps ! oh lesson ! — When the child of this man
Got the Roman empire for a toy ;
As we gave him a name of power ;
As we exposed his royal face that trembles
For the people, amazed that one can together
      Be so great and so little ;

When his father had won so many battles for him;
When he had increased the crowds of the living
Around the newborn baby laughing by his bedside;
When this great worker, who knew foundries’ mould,
And with many blows, pretty much made the world
     According to the dream he dreamed;

When everything was prepared by the father's hands
To endow the humble child with eternal splendors;
When one had of his life assured the relay;
When, to one day house this master’s heir,
We would have buried long before in the earth
       The pedestals of the marble palaces;

When one had for his thirst placed in front of France
A vase filled with the wine of hope,
Before he tasted this golden poison,
Before he touched the cup with his lip,
A Cossack appeared to take the child astride
        And in a fury, took him away!


IV

Yes, the eagle, one night, hovered under eternal vaults,
When a strong gale broke both his wings;
Its fall made a lightning furrow in the air;
All of then on his nest joyfull appeared;
Each according to his teeth shared the prey;
England took the eagle, and Austria the eaglet.

You know what we did with this historic giant.
For six years he live far beyond Africa,
Under the locks of prudent kings,
— Oh ! let's not exile anyone! Oh ! exile is enslave!
This big figure crouching in his cage,
So bent, his knees touched his teeth.

Still if this banished would have liked nothing on earth!
But lion hearts are the real father's hearts.
      He loved his son, this winner!
Two things remained in his barren cage,
The portrait of a child and the world map,
      With all his genius and all his heart!

In the evening, his gaze exploring the alcove,
What stirred under this bald head,
His eyes searching into the deep past,
— While his jailors, sentries placed
Watched night and day the flight of his ideas,
Seeing the shadows on his forehead pass;

It was not always, sire, such epic
That you once wrote with the sword;
       Arcole, Austerlitz, Montmirail;
Nor the appearance of the ancient pyramids;
Neither the pasha of Cairo and its Numidian horses
       That bit your own on the chest;

It was not the sound of bombs and machine-gun fire
That twenty years, under your feet, had the fight
      Unleashed in black swirls,
When your breath grew on the troubled sea
The quivering flags, leaning in the fray
       Like the poles of battalions;

It wasn't Madrid, the Kremlin and the East afar,
The divine in the morning humming its fanfare,
The bivouac sleeping under the starry fires,
Hairy dragons, epic grenadiers,
And the red lancers swarming with long pikes,
Like purple flowers in the thickness of wheat;

No, what occupied him was the blonde and pink shadow
Of a beautiful child who sleeps with half-closed lips,
       Graciously like the East,
While his enchanted nurse with love who 
As a drop of milk at the end of her breast remains
        Annoying his lips enjoy.

The father then put his elbows on his chair,
His heart filling with sobs yet deflating his pain,
     He was crying, with infinite love …
Be blessed, poor child, your head freezing today,
The only being who could bewilder his idea
     From the throne of a world now lost!


V

Both are dead. — Lord, your might is terrible!
You started with the invincible master,
         A triumphant man;
Then you have finally completed the ossuary;
Ten years were enough for you to spin the shroud
        Upon father and child!

Glory, youth, pride, all goods that the grave takes !
The man wanted to leave something at the gates,
      But death said no !
Every part returns to where it shall go.
The air absorbs the smoke, and the earth, the cinders.
     the void the word rescinders.


VI

O revolutions! I don't know,
Me, the least sailor of them,
What God in the shadows works
Under the tumult of your waves.
The crowd hates you and taunts you.
But who knows how God works?
Who knows if the water quiver,
If the cry from bitter chasms,
If the downpour of fiery greenhouses,
If lightning and thunder,
Lord, are so necessary
To the pearl that the seas make!

Yet this storm is strong
To princes as to nations;
Oh ! what a blind and deaf sea
What a people in revolutions!
What is your song for, oh poet?
These chants your genius crumbles
Fallen in the worried wave
That never hears anything!
Your voice becomes hoarse in this mist,
The wind disperses your feathers afar,
Poor bird singing amongst the foam
On the mast of a lost wandering ship!

Long night ! eternal turmoil !
The sky does not have a blue corner.

Men and things, all pell-mell,
Go rolling in the dark abyss.
Everything drifts and goes under the water,
Kings in the cradle, masters of the world,
The bald forehead and the blond head,
Big and small Napoleon!
Everything fades, everything unties,
The flow on the surf folds back,
And the passing wave forgets
Leviathan as well as Alcyon!



Victor Hugo 
Les Chants du Crépuscule

 

 

 

 

Read from top.

On this day, 216 years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself the Emperor of France and began revolutionising the country’s military, legal and educational institutions.

The French military leader’s rise to the top and his subsequent fall from grace is one of the most spectacular recorded in history.

Born to an elite yet poor family on the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea, Napoleon quickly climbed the ranks of the military during the French Revolution from 1789 to 1799.

Though intelligent and driven, Napoleon struggled socially – especially with women.

His attitude toward sex was fiercely puritan, and he viewed women as seductive temptresses that would ruin his ambitions.

 

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/05/18/on-this-day-napoleon...

 

Read from top, especially poem above. See also:

in the footsteps of napoleon and hitler, with covid19...