Hugo seriously
proposed that the war be settled by a single combat between
himself and the newly crowned Kaiser of Germany. He wrote to
the emperor:

"You are a great monarch; I am a great poet. We are
therefore equals."

His notion of himself was summed up in a single epigram:
"France is the world. Paris is France. Victor Hugo is
Paris."

Amiel called him "half genius and half charlatan."

Hugo's novels read like prose epics--overwhelming and at
times almost convulsive in their effort to give expression
to his tremendous imaginings. One of the most striking of
them is "Ninety-Three," from which the accompanying passage
is taken. The book is a great drama of the breaking out of
the French Revolution, a time when every passion was at its
height and was exhibited with utter unrestraint.

With such a theme Hugo was perfectly at home. He flames and
thunders. He flings before the reader actions in which the
Titanic energy of the writer is felt in every line, and he
revels in the conflict of the two great forces of repression
and revolt which made that period memorable. In the passage
quoted here many of the author's conspicuous qualities are
seen. The translation is that contained in the
"International Library of Famous Literature," and is
reprinted by the courtesy of the Avil Publishing Company, of
Philadelphia.

La Vieuville's words were suddenly cut short by a desperate cry, and at
the same instant they heard a noise as unaccountable as it was awful. The
cry and this noise came from the interior of the vessel.

The captain and lieutenant made a rush for the gun-deck, but could not get
down. All the gunners were hurrying frantically up.

A frightful thing had just happened.

One of the carronades of the battery, a twenty-four-pounder, had got
loose.

This is perhaps the most formidable of ocean accidents. Nothing more
terrible can happen to a vessel in open sea and under full sail.

A gun that breaks its moorings becomes suddenly some indescribable
super-natural beast. It is a machine which transforms itself into a
monster. This mass turns upon its wheels, has the rapid movements of a
billiard-ball; rolls with the rolling, pitches with the pitching; goes,
comes, pauses, seems to meditate; resumes its course, rushes along the
ship from end to end like an arrow, circles about, springs aside, evades,
rears