HUGO, Victor (1802–1885).

Hugo has read Deschanel’s *Aristophanes*. ‘Whilst maintaining the reservations that divide us—and to which you are as attached as I am—I applaud your fine work. The day you turn your critical mind, so firm and so subtle, towards the ideal, you will surpass by a hundred fathoms the critics whom you have the humility to regard as your masters today. You turn a deaf ear to that word, ‘Ideal’, which I regret, for the word alone, understood as it ought to be, conveys the great intuition of art. Having said that for the sake of my conscience, I congratulate you and thank you for the noble and charming talent lavished on every page of your useful and excellent book’... He is about to leave for Brussels, where he will reflect “on your successes, your courage, and our sweet meeting fifteen years ago, at the dawn of exile”…