 Down the long path of history cramping across centuries and continents in the graves of kings and the necks of dictators Seeking always a way of life where the people have their freedom believing praying fighting dying We came this way Tonight the national broadcasting company presents the third in the new series. We came this way a dramatic account of man's struggle down through the ages taught a democratic way of life NBC has prepared a booklet to aid in your understanding and enjoyment of this series Listen at the close of this evening's program for more information about it Tonight we are concerned with France and the way in which he was helped toward freedom by one of her greatest citizens NBC presents Victor Hugo on We came this way Ladies and gentlemen somehow into the framework of time bounded by now and the next ringing of the time and Measured by the ticking of your living room clock Somehow into that scant space of time We must fit a picture a picture of a man in the shadow that man cast across the century in which he lived Well, then the picture No man exists in a vacuum He is born into a family lives among people and has his being under a society or a government If he's a little man these things shape his destiny if he's great he may shape them What we need now is the backdrop for our drama a sketching in a people in events that we've the tapestry of France in 1841 and That's a job for you historians, but do it quickly minutes are escaping the history of France in ten sentences, please Young man, you can't hurry history. Maybe not, but you can historians now. What are the fact? Well, let's see 1841 King Louis Philippe was on the throne of France Started out being a pretty decent sort they even called him the citizen king What do you mean now started out? Well, you know how kings are Sometime they start out all right and then begin to get notions of grandeur By 1841 the liberals had deserted him and the left-wingers were sniping at him openly What about science flourishing and business booming and culture? What are that lots of it a brilliant literature the theater was active under well What about the feel of the people? Well now there's something it wasn't so good They began to sense that the government wasn't quite as liberal as it started out The people of Paris particularly who are always sensitive to such things were restless There's no open revolt or anything like that, but restless. That's important. Remember that well young man anything else No, thank you, mr. Historian that does it nicely next Comes now the question of Hugo's heredity the juggling of the genes and the chromosomes the kind of people his parents were The conditions of his childhood home These things start a man on the way. He must go these therefore are facts. We've got to know Mr. Biographer. Yes, what is it? We need to know about Hugo's mother. Tell us briefly what facts you can Why easy his mother was long descended on both sides from good peasant stock Her home was in not and she had a good education. I see you what kind of a person was she? She was a brilliant woman who later in life had kings and generals for her devoted friend He was smarter and better educated than her husband. Yes. So what about him? What a few goes father. He was a captain in Napoleon's army. Hmm. What about their home life? There's a marine in the south Pacific have a home life. Oh like that was it? Yes, of course captain Hugo was a professional soldier made a career of it Hugo was his mother's boy That'll explain a couple of things later on remember that. Well, are you finished with me? I think so. Yes Then if you'll excuse me, I'll get back to the library Go ahead mr. Biographer and thanks for the information not at all not at all now Thus Hugo's parents and his heritage Our interest is in Hugo as a leader of the people and a champion of the basic rights of men But before he entered politics or even thought of public life. He'd earned himself a fortune with his pen The order of events goes something like this He started writing poetry at the age of 12 three years later this entry appeared in his copy book. I am 15 I have done poorly. I will learn how to do better in 1818 He was awarded both the first and second prize for poetry by the literary Academy of Toulouse at 25 He was the acknowledged literary leader of young France and not content with successes apart Hugo turned to the theater he wrote in on a which created a riot in French literary and theater circles and is still read by More American college students and perhaps almost any other French play Hugo went on to triumph after triumph more plays more points more novels more money more fame and more friends as A matter of fact he was thrown out of his apartment by an irate landlady Because so many people were tramping in and out at all hours of the day and night in short then gentlemen Here was a man standing on the threshold of his prime full of life full with ideas bursting with energy And like Alexander finding no more literary worlds to conquer at 39. He had won them all The same happened sooner or later. It had to happen it happened now Victor Hugo simply burst out of literature and into public life It didn't happen all in a moment But the idea had been growing on him growing and he couldn't shake it in his apartment one evening He said to some friends But I tell you the poet must be more than a maker of verses He must be a teacher and a leader of public opinion a priest and a seer for the people a man of utopia His feet upon the earth and his eyes turned skyward looking all was for better days Hugo was off again at a wild gallop happy now in the possession of a new goal to reach for a new battle meant to storm His first campaign was successful and in 1841. He was admitted to the sacred inner circle of the 40 old men of the National Academy By now he was a friend and confident of King Louis Philippe and many an evening He spent with that carpet slippery old gentleman in his study at Versailles and the King saw his wish and his power and on April 13th 1845 the old man wrote a proclamation in Consideration of services rendered to the state by Viscount Hugo We have decreed and do decree as follows That the said by Count Hugo member of the Institute be raised to the dignity of Pirra France Hugo didn't know it then but that day sealed his fate It marked the end of a free career what a man could say casually I stand here on a current topic Now he was a peer and responsible for the state Hugo spent three years finding his political seal eggs early in his career in the chamber appears he said I Prefer not to belong to any political party. I Intend to judge and support each in the degree Which it seems to be working for the interest of the country in my opinion One must be with all parties on their generous side and with none of them on their bad side Noble sentiments if not practical politics Still he felt his way along working always toward a philosophy of government which was somewhere down inside him waiting only for events to Crystallize them and the events were working working as the quiet yeast works in the baker's dough and the signs of the times Themselves on the faces of the people of Paris There were crop failures and no bread There were more taxes that no one had to pay them there was need for goods and unemployment There was need for strong government and no action and finally one day Hugo could stand at no longer on that day He arose in the chamber appears and spoke Ministers Ministers For seven years nearly eight years now. What have you done? Have you regulated finances? No, there are failures everywhere. There are floods. Have you regulated the food problem? No The July government suddenly becomes feeble Apologizing for doing nothing without control over emotion and rumors and a public square You are more fearsome of a riot than Napoleon a plenty back As you go faces the assembly he senses a mixture of response to his demands then on prepared without notes He sounds the formula of all freedom-loving men everywhere without quite knowing it at the time his politics crystallized then and there as he said ministers gentlemen We must turn ourselves to the people the people grave calm courageous and patient who work and suffer and Gradually by a series of urgent reforms and improvements create wealth out of their work and Well-being out of their suffering Frank is only the people of France Hugo had found his way had stated his creed But the ministers didn't listen and the Paris workmen grumbled in the streets and the grumblings grew to demonstrations And the demonstrations led to white-out anger and suddenly on the morning of February 24th 1848. There were barricades in the streets Hugo's people had rebelled The government taught it and fell and the king advocated In the confused four months that followed while a provisional government was feeling its way toward what the people of France wanted Hugo roamed the streets of Paris looking at faces talking to workmen Trying to discover what was best for his people and in that time He said something very like the late president Roosevelt famous statement in 1933 Hugo said I Do not understand why the people have feared the sovereign people are all of us To fear them is to fear oneself In this moment of panic. I fear only those who are afraid Let's forget now about parades and the people and see what went on behind the closed doors where the new government really didn't want the democracy And so they hedged But even so popular pressure made them provide for the election of a president and at this point a new figure injected itself into the picture Hugo had decided to move into less turbulent and more spacious quarters in the Rue de la Tour de la Verne in the west end of Paris and One day he was unpacking a trunk in a bare room in the new place when a short dark man walked in unannounced and said You are Victor Hugo. I believe I am and you I am Prince Bonaparte at your service. Oh, how do you do sir? Do sit down There is only this trunk here as you see. We are just moving in quite all right Shall we share the trunk? Thank you. I Have heard of you of course my father served your uncle Napoleon Bonaparte for many years and you sir could serve me Now that at least is to the point What do you think I can do? You are perhaps the most influential single man in France. I Intend to stand for election to the new presidency. I Need your support. I see and just what Prince Bonaparte do you think recommends you to my support? You know where I stand I do and that is why I'm here They say I want to be Napoleon over again That is man. I am no genius But I do want a chance to demonstrate my good will to my people of France. I Don't want to be a guilty hero like my uncle. I would rather be known as a good citizen like Washington Forgive me Prince, but talk is cheap You say thus and so Now what guarantees do I have at once president? You would keep your word my dear Hugo? I believe in democracy with all my heart In Italy did I not fight beside the men of the rebellion? That is true You have seen perhaps some of my pamphlets on the elimination of populism With your support we could return France to her old glory under the banner of freedom God knows France needs someone who loves her at the head of her government. Well, Mr Let me consider it and if I am convinced of your sincerity, you shall have my support for the presidency of France Hugo did give Bonaparte his support and he was elected as first president of the second Republic This was in 1848 remember the next three years were a nightmare for Hugo Almost at once he realized his hopes of the Republic could not materialize Their leaders spoke of the people as the vile masses For a time Hugo placed some hope in the president Bonaparte But it finally became evident that Bonaparte too had a private axe to grind All Hugo could do was to speak out bravely and bitingly against the government's usurping of the people's power Then on the night of December 1st 1851 Bonaparte gave a great reception in the Elysee palates It was a brilliant affair and lasted until late Then when the last guest was gone Bonaparte went to his study and got out a special dossier Labeled with a single word He looked at it long and then broke the seal What in heaven's name is the man go come at once there are public has been made prisoners That is right Hugo Bonaparte has taken over the government, but I don't understand how the army Hugo It is everywhere. The Palais were born surrounded the chamber of deputies is barricaded They say that 70 of the representatives are already been made prisoners. Why this means dictatorship final trade Some of the leftists have not yet been captured and they're meeting in an hour at number 16 Rue Blanche Will you join us there Hugo to what end to stop this awful thing if we can will you come? Of course, I'll come excuse me a moment. I must tell my wife Adele Adele Adele, what is it Hugo something wrong? I'm afraid so my dear Bonaparte sees the government the representatives are all being arrested I must leave at once before they come here, but Victor you will be now now. Don't you worry about me? I'll be all right Here is some money darling. There's not much mine hundred francs, but it's all I have in the house at the moment Now don't worry and I'll get in touch with you just the minute I can but if the soldiers come here What shall I do nothing? They will not molest you It's me. They're interested in and you Hugo What are you going to do? I am going to do my duty Do it darling and God bless you Everything is in the hands of the army. What can we do can't we go to the chamber of deputies and invoke the Constitution? We can't get in the chamber even the streets leading to it or jam with soldiers and any one of us will be recognized and seized But let's hear from Hugo. Yes, let's you go to be All right, Hugo. What do you think we ought to do? Oh, I do everything. Yes, we must resist the seizure of power We must arouse the people they are the ones whose liberties been stolen They are the ones who will fight for its return right and we'll march on the palace if the troops yield We'll seize Bonaparte good if the troops fire scattered at once all over Paris and call the people to arms sound the talk American There was a word cut out for us The soldiers are coming Someone must have told of our meeting place men To your work. We will meet at midnight tonight. Where in the back room of the cafe TV go now and Speak out for France. How can a baker argue with a mercenary a loaf of bread is no answer to a naked bayonet an Honest carpenter lugging his toolbox to work in the freshness of the morning stands dumb and unbelieving at the sight of a musket mussel It was always so The good people mind their own business and bake their bread and saw their planks and stare at first in shock Surprise in the face of naked grasping force The people are slow to anger and in that interval of unbelief Dictators move in the trap snapshot So it was in Poland if you will remember when the nation was raped while the world watched stunned And so it was in Paris on this 2nd of December on a biting lead morning in 1851 The next 70 hours for Hugo merged into a nightmare of friends and speeches Calling the people to arms secret meetings in back rooms running always from the soldiers of price on his head At first it was heartbreaking the people seemed stunned Slowly the people of Paris began to rally behind Hugo in his committee Barricades began to appear in the squares and on the boulevards the people grew bolder and then the incredible happened It was on the 4th day of December when the dictator ordered 80,000 troops into the city They came in three columns converging on the center of Paris after a sleepless night during which it attended meetings and written Manifestos Hugo was standing on the curb hidden in the crowd at the old Fandeneau gate where a handful of workmen Manned a barricade facing the oncoming column of troops the curbs were lined with people watching to see what would happen Suddenly a shot was fired and the soldiers went mad For it I can't I can't believe my eyes. It's horrible. I can't stand it They're bringing cannon development People's back was broken and another dictator was in power Hugo was a hunted man with a price on his head Nine days later a workman with a tin lunch bucket walked into the gardener and bought a ticket for Brussels And that it was that Victor Hugo began an exile that was to last for 19 years But Hugo was no placid soul contempt to accept the inevitable Within him burned the divine fire that would not let him stop or rest until his beloved France was free To a group of exiles in Brussels he said I tell you there can be no peace while Bonaparte rules France It is water the death between him and me. I shall not rest until Frenchman can once more be free How long who knows one year or ten it doesn't matter But be very sure his doom will come and until that time I have no task but to hasten the day And I vow to you here. I shall never step foot inside France until France again is free and Beyond that I can see a large piece someday under a United States of Europe So for the next ten years burning indictment streamed from Hugo's pen First from Brussels and later from the origins of Jersey and Guernsey came boat after boat hurled at the head of the trader Bonaparte First came the burning story of a crime written in the white heat of hate Next came the contemptuous Napoleon the little more telling because the writer was less angry Then came a cold blood attack 6,000 epic lines of hate in a book called the chastisement that rocked Bonaparte on his throne Next came the legend of the centuries a more temperate work, but still leveled at his old enemies and Finally his most magnificent work of all lay miserable This tremendous study of Jean Valjean the released convict deals with what Hugo called the three-fold problem of the century The degradation of man into proletarian the decline and fall of women to hunger and the destruction of children into a social Outer darkness this impressive social document is nearly always listed among the hundred best novels of all time and sold over 7 million copies in the first 40 years During this period to Hugo was a nerve center for every liberal movement in the world Mazzini calls for help and he bashes off an appeal to the Italian Poland is in trouble and Hugo intercede John Brown is sentenced for the affair at Harper's Ferry and Hugo writes to Lincoln everywhere It seems his great spirit was at work in the world, and then his long prediction came to pass Bonaparte was tottering before the onslaught of the Germans on September 4th 1870 Bonaparte yielded his sword at Seydant and Hugo was called to Paris only now with the dictator gone would he consent to return to his beloved France As the train pulled into the station from which he had fought in disguise 19 years earlier Paris torn by seed as it was stopped everything to give its hero a welcome such as few men ever received Over 10,000 people jammed the station and as he stepped off the train there was a deafening cheer for their hero What happened next is a matter of history so supposedly call on our historian friend to tell us about it Well, I wondered if you're gonna forget me Well, let's see now 1871 you go call that the terrible year They called him to the government. Of course. He accepted tried his best to hold out for a decent piece with Germany But the businessmen couldn't wait and they voted him down and made what he called a shameful piece So he resigned his post in protest and incidentally took himself off to Brussels again in voluntary exile And how long did his exile last this time two years approximately most of which time he spent in Luxembourg All right And that brings him back to Paris and another election into the Chamber of Deputies in the Third Republic the Republic nobody wanted And almost single-handed over a period of six years He fought heckled champion voted back nearly all of the civil rights Frenchmen have been without since 1850 Hugo lived on vigorous to the last and finally as all men must died quietly on May 22 1885 at the age of 83 This then is the portrait of a man Not of a poet. We haven't time for that Not of a father husband or a lover and That too is a tale to tell Not the novelist or the playwright or the great humanitarian, but only of the statesman And now our portraits finished How shall we sum it up? His contemporaries called him a dreamer an amateur politician a poet in the Senate a soft-hearted visionary Strange it's hard to recall the name of a single one of those contemporaries But Hugo loved his people Had faith in the common man and looked at the time when there should be peace among all free men He preached that impractical doctrine a hundred years ago and Men from 50 countries sat together in San Francisco last month to make of that doctrine a reality Because Victor Hugo believed that a poet must be a prophet for his people. We came this way Would you like to know more of the life and times of Victor Hugo portrayed in the program you've just heard a Handbook containing life stories of 13 great leaders in the struggle for human liberty has been prepared as an interesting supplement to the broadcast series To obtain your copy right for we came this way Address your request to Columbia University Press station J New York 27 New York and enclosed 25 cents in coin to cover costs of printing and mailings My trip was written and produced by Albert Cruz Original music was composed by Amel Fuddersen and conducted by Joseph Calichio Members of the cast included mr. Clifton Utley as narrator mr. Wilms Herbert as Hugo Miss Geraldine K as Adele Hugo and mr. William Everett mr. Tom post mr. John Holtman mr. Fred Sullivan and mr. Gilbert Ferguson This series is presented each week as a public service of the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent station This is the National Broadcasting Company