Victor Marie Hugo

Víctor Marie Hugo, who died May 22. 1885, ono of the greatest writers of the present century was bom in the little villagfi of Besancon on the Rhine Canal, Feb., 26th 1802. His father was an officer of the French army whose duties led him a somewhat nomadic life, and the young Víctor traveled extenstvely before he had reached his teens. In 1809 he was taken to Paris and under the supervisión of his mother began his education. In 1817 he published his first poem and in 1822 his iirst volume of poems appeared under the title of "Odes and Ballads" and oreated such a sensation that he was granted an annuity by the king of France. The novéis and essays from his pen were reeeived with the greatest enthusiasm. In 1841 he was elected to the academy and in 1845 Hugo was made a peer by Louis Phillippe. He was very active in the revo lntion of 1848, and in 1845 he was one of the deputies who vainly attempted to assert the rights of the assembly and to preserve the constitution. For the position he took in this affair he was exiled and fled to the Island of Jersey in the British Channel. After tbe fall of the Empire he returned to Paris. His works have been translated into all of the civilized languages and are know to all classes. Almost to the last he retained his brilliant mental faculties, and for many days before the summons came he wculd sit bolstered up in bed, ppneil in hand, correcting the nianuBcripta of somp unpublished poems. Sorrow at his loss is universal.