#4.1.3

In Which Victor Hugo Has A Crush, Which Manifests In A 500-Word Long Sentence.

Also known as, In Which Victor Hugo Engages In Myth Making. Because this chapter is 100% Hugo working to rehabilitate Louis Philippe without exonerating the Restoration, in the same way that he's working to rehabilitate Waterloo without exonerating Napoleon. And the leaps of logic he takes to get there are... something else, honestly.

The Texas history jumped out, but tell me this guy doesn’t look exactly like the infamous Santa Anna. Another ill-received ruler of a country who, during the 1830s, presided over the massacre of a vastly outnumbered group of revolutionary fighters...hmmm, one wonders.

Louis Philippe is a good dude by every metric Hugo throws at him but there are some niggling indications that maybe he’s not suited for the role he finds himself in:

“ruled by the present interest, governing always by the nearest convenience”

“loving his country incontestably, but preferring his family”

“needing to see in order to judge”

“excelling in making of the pettiness of realities an obstacle to the immensity of ideas”

He’s smart, but he’s chronically unable to think of the big picture, he doesn’t see things in relation to each other. He only wants to sweat the details. He cares about the moment and doesn’t consider the fallout. Louis Philippe would make an excellent advisor or statesman, representing the concerns of a smaller group, a province perhaps, on a national level. His is a voice you would want to hear but probably not the sole person you want making decisions.

“Louis Philippe is 1830 made man,” except that things Hugo liked about 1830 he finds faulty in King Louis Philippe. Louis Philippe could have been great only “if he had had a little love of glory, and had appreciated what is great to the same extent he appreciated what is useful.” It’s pretty weird that the heart of Hugo’s judgement is that Louis Philippe wasn’t power hungry enough, that he was maybe too…mild. I get his point, that Louis Philippe was a ruler half-made, the sense of patriotic glory he need too often mediated by his mild temperament, but it’s a little unfair to say that Louis Philippe is the ruler 1830 deserved. We’ve already acknowledged that it wasn’t the Revolution that failed, it was the interference of the bourgeoisie that destroyed it. Did we want more glorious kings? No, we wanted a republic!

I’m actually inclined to agree with Hugo about Louis Philippe, but I think his critique rests on the flawed premise that Louis Philippe ought to have been a better King of France. That it all would have been okay if Louis Philippe had embraced the mantle of King of the French. Hugo seems a little eager to let him off the hook for the negative aspects of the July Monarchy. Sure, Louis Philippe was made a king when he should have been made a statesman, he was set up to fail form the very moment he was instated. The final revolution would have come around whether he had been a great king or not, but that doesn’t excuse the actions he took as king. You simply can’t separate the reign from the ruler.

Bonus, picture of Santa Anna for comparative purposes:

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Louis Philippe was good for the revolution, and he is one of the great men of French history.

“in short, a lofty and original figure, a prince who understood how to create authority in spite of the uneasiness of France, and power in spite of the jealousy of Europe. Louis Philippe will be classed among the eminent men of his century, and would be ranked among the most illustrious governors of history had he loved glory but a little, and if he had had the sentiment of what is great to the same degree as the feeling for what is useful.”

He was a good mix of both the old and the new. He was a little bit of everything.

His fault was that he focused a little too much on his family instead of on his country.

“Louis Philippe was a king of the broad daylight. While he reigned the press was free, the tribune was free, conscience and speech were free. The laws of September are open to sight. Although fully aware of the gnawing power of light on privileges, he left his throne exposed to the light. History will do justice to him for this loyalty.”

In which Hugo gives Louis Phillipe his “this, but also that” characterization. Since the monarch gets more ‘mentioned’ than ‘featured’, I’m going to declare that it’s not RP fic, but rather is our perennial favorite: Victor Hugo word-building France.

In sum: Louis Phillipe was a pretty chill dude, and if you have to have a king there are a lot of worse options, but the whole ‘king’ part is still a problem. In a way he’s the opposite of Gillenormand: adapted to the 19th century, but harmonized and tempered with some lingering traces of the 18th.

Shout out to the 4th paragraph, which is over 1 2/3 page in my English copy, and (except for the last four lines) is also ONE SINGLE SENTENCE.

Also, this whole chapter feels like a bit like throwing shade on Napoleon III. 

Notes on historical events: The Rue Transonian was an infamous episode in the attempted 1834 uprising, in which a bunch of innocent civilians were killed by the army as ‘insurgents’. It was grim, and I’ll dig out Harsin’s description next time it gets mentioned. Fieschi tried to assassinate Louis Phillipe with a home-made machine gun (like, 20 longarms strapped together with a single trigger IIRC), and he messed it up and missed, but did kill some of the king’s guards.