SPEECH OF VICTOR HUGO Over the Grave of Louise Julien, one of the proscribed, who died at Jersey.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 900, 18 March 1854, Page 4

SPEECH OF VICTOR HUGO Over the Grave of Louise Julien, one of the proscribed, who died at Jersey.

Citizens! — Three coffins in four months. Death is in haste, and God delivers us one by one. We do not complain — we thank thee, O mighty God, who openest to us, poor exiles, the gates of our eternal home. This time the inanimate and cherished being whom we commit to the earth is a woman. On the 21st of last January, a woman was arrested in her own bouse by a Commissioner of Police of Paris, M. Boudrot, This woman was yet young — only thirty-five years of age ; but she was a cripple and infirm, yet she was sent to the Prefecture, and shut up in a cell, No. 1, called the probationary cell. This cell, a cage about seven or eight feet square, without air and without light — the unfortunate woman described in one word, a grave cell ; she said (I quote her own words) " In that grave cell, diseased and a cripple, I passed tw«nty-one days, pressing my lips honrly against the grating, to catch a little breath and save myself from dying." After those twenty-one days, on the 14th of February, the government of December expelled the woman — put her out of doors ; it drove her at once from her prison and from her native Und. The poor wretch left the dungeon with the seeds of ptbisis upon her. She reached Belgium. Her destitution compelled her to travel, coughing, spitting blood, with diseased lungs, in the midst of winter, through the north, in the rain and the snow, in - those horrible open waggons which disgrace the wealthy railway companies. She. arrived at-ost-end. Driven from France, she was also driven from Belgium. She crossed over to England. No sooner had she reached London than she took to her bed. The disease contracted in ber cell, aggravated by the forced voyage of her exile, bad become alarming. Proscribed, I should rather say doomed, she lay there two months and a half. Then, hoping for a little spring and sunshine, she came to Jersey. We yet remember seeing her arrive on a cold wet morning, across the fogs of the ocean, drenched and shivering in her thin linen dress. A few days afterwards she took to her bed again, to rise no more. Thiee days since she died. You will ask me wbo this woman was, and what she had done to be treated thus. I will tell you. This woman, by patriotic songs, by cordial and sympathetic words, by good and public-spi-rited actions, had illustrated, in the faubourgs of Paris, the name of Louise Julien, by which she was known to the people. She was a workwoman; she had nnrsed and supported ber sick mother for a period of ten years. In these days of civil strife, though crippled and scarcely able to drag herself along, she visited the hospitals, and assisted the wounded of both parties. This daughter of the people was a poet : she was a genius • she sang the Republic ; she loved freedom ; she ardently invoked the future fraternity of all nations and of all men ; she had faith in God, in the people, in progress, and in France ; she poured around her, as it were, into the hearts of the working classes, her own great soul, full of

love and faith. That is what this woman used to do. M. Bonapatte has killed her. Such a grave cannot be dumb : it oyerflows with sobs, with groans, and with clamours. Citizens! The people, in the legitimate pride of their omnipotence and of their right, coustrnct magnificent edifices of granite and of marble ; they erect sublime galleries and platforms, from whose height their genius speaks — from whose height the holy eloquence of patriotism, of pro* gress, and of freedom gushes throngh the souls of men. The people, imagining that because they are sovereign they are invincible, believe those citadels of speech, those sacred fortresses of human intelligence and civilization, to be inaccessible and impregnable, and they say " the Tribune is indestructible." They are mistaken : those tribunes may be overthrown. A traitor comes, soldiers arrive, a band of cutthroats concert together, unmask themselves, pour in their murderous fire; and the sanctuary is invaded, the stone and marble is dispersed — the palace and the temple wherein a great nation spoke to the world, falls ; and the blood-btspattered conqueror applauds himself, claps bis bands, and cries " It is all over ! No one shall speak any more. Not a voice shall be uplifted henceforth. Lo, there is silence !" Citizens ! in his turn the tyrant is mistaken. For it is not the will of God that there should be silence. God wills not that Liberty, which is His word, should be dumb. Citizens, at the moment when triumphing despots think they have for ever deprived thought of its outward expression, God restores it. He rebuilds the Tribune which was overthrown. Not indeed in the public square, not indeed with granite or with marble — of these He has no need. He rebuilds the tribune in solitude — with the grass of the cemetery, with the shade of the cy-press-tree, with the sinister mound that the buried bier raises on the face of the ground. And do you know, citizens, what issues from that mound ? from that solitude, that grass, that cypress tree, and tbat hidden bier ? There issues forth the heart-rending cry of humanity — there issue forth denunciation, and testimony, and the' inexorable accusation which strikes terror to the soul of crowned guilt — there issues forth the terrible protest of the Dead ; the inextinguishable voice of retribution, tbe voice tbat cannot be stifled, and cannot be gagged! Ah! M. Bonaparte has silenced the tribune ; well, now, why does he not ailence tbe grave ? He, and tbe like of him, have done nothing, so long as t single sigh is heard from the tomb, or a single tear falls from the gentle eye of pity. • • • © Pity 1 that word which I have just uttered, has sprung from my inmost heart, before this coffin of a woman, a sister, and a martyr. Pauline Roland in Africa, Louise Julien at Jersey, Francisca Maderspach at Temeswar, Blanca Teleki at Pesth, so many others! Rosalie Gobert, Eugenie Guillemont, Augustine Pean, Blanche Clouart, Josephine Prabeil, Elizabeth Paries, Marie Reviel, Claudine Hibruit, Anna Sangla, the widow Combescure, Armantine Huet, and I know not how many others, sisters, mothers, daughters, wives, proscribed, exiled, transported, tortured, racked, crucified. Ob, poor women ! What a source of profound grief, what a subject of inexpressible emotions i Weak, suffering, ill, torn from their families, their husbands, their relatives, tfaefr protectors, some of them old and broken down by years, they have all been heroines, — many might more properly be called heroes. My thought at this moment sinks into that sepulchre, and seems to kiis tbe cold feet of that dead one. It is not an individual woman that I venerate in Louise Julien, but woman's self — woman as she is in our day, worthy to become a citizen; woman such as we see her around us, with ail her devotion, all her sweetness, all her self-sacrifice, all her majesty. Friends, in the time to come, in that beautiful, peaceful, tender, and fraternal social Republic of tbe future, the part of woman will be a great one ; and bow magnificent a prelude are these martyrdoms so bravely endured! Men and citizens, we have often said in onr pride, the eighteenth century has proclaimed the rights of man, the nineteenth shall prociaim the rights of woman ; but we must confess, citizens, that we have been in no baste. Many grave considerations, I admit, considerations which must be maturely examined, have delayed us, and at this moment, with all the progress that has been made amongst tbe best republicans, among the truest and purest democrats, many excellent men still hesitate to admit tbe equality of the human soul in man and woman, and consequently the assimilation, if not the complete identity, of the civil rights of both sexes. Let us speak out. So long as prosperity lasted, and whilst the republic was yet standing, women, forgotten by us, forgot themselves also. They confined themselves to shining upon us like light ; to warming our souls, touching our hearts, awakening our enthusiasm, and pointing out to us all that was good, just, great, and true. They aimed at nothing beyond. They, who, at times, are the image of our living country, they who might have been tbe soul of tbe state, have been but the soul of families. But when adversity came their attitude was changed ; they ceased to be retiring. In the then hour of need they said to us — " We know not whether we have the right to share your power, your freedom, and your greatness; but we know that we have a right to share your distress. To share your sufferings, your agonies, yoar destitution, your distresses, your sacrifices, your exile, your bomelessness if you are homeless, your hunger if you are without bread, this is our right, and we clam it." Oh! my brothers! see them now following us to the battle-field, accompanying us in our proscription, and preceding us to tbe grave ! Citizens, since you have willed tbat I should once more speak in your name — since your Commission gives to my voice tbat authority which, singly, it could not possess — here, over the tomb of Louise Julien, as three months ago over that of Jean Bousquet, the last cry tbat I will utter is the cry of courage, insurrection, and hope ! Yes — coffins like tbat of the noble woman who lies there signify and predict the approaching fall of butchers, and the iuevitable destruction of despotisms and of despots. Tb« proscribed die, one after another ; tbe tyrant digs their grave; but, on a given day, citizens, suddenly the grave will clutch and overwhelm tbe grave-digger !