.

The Foucher family removed from Paris to a country town. Victor Hugo
immediately followed them. Fortunately for him, his poems had attracted
the attention of Louis XVIII, who was flattered by some of the verses.
He sent Hugo five hundred francs for an ode, and soon afterward settled
upon him a pension of a thousand francs. Here at least was an income--a
very small one, to be sure, but still an income. Perhaps Adele's father
was impressed not so much by the actual money as by the evidence of the
royal favor. At any rate, he withdrew his opposition, and the two young
people were married in October, 1822--both of them being under age,
unformed, and immature.

Their story is another warning against too early marriage. It is true
that they lived together until Mme. Hugo's death--a married life of
forty-six years--yet their story presents phases which would have made
this impossible had they not been French.

For a time, Hugo devoted all his energies to work. The record of his
steady upward progress is a part of the history of literature, and need
not be repeated here. The poet and his wife were soon able to leave the
latter's family abode, and to set up their own household god in a home
which was their own. Around them there were gathered, in a sort of
salon, all the best-known writers of the day--dramatists, critics,
poets, and romancers. The Hugos knew everybody.

Unfortunately, one of their visitors cast into their new life a drop of
corroding bitterness. This intruder was Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve,
a man two years younger than Victor Hugo, and one who blended learning,
imagination, and a gift of critical analysis. Sainte-Beuve is to-day
best remembered as a critic, and he was perhaps the greatest critic
ever known in France. But in 1830 he was a slender, insinuating youth
who cultivated a gift for sensuous and somewhat morbid poetry.

He had won Victor Hugo's friendship by writing an enthusiastic notice
of Hugo's dramatic works. Hugo, in turn, styled Sainte-Beuve "an
eagle," "a blazing star," and paid him other compliments no less
gorgeous and Hugoesque. But in truth, if Sainte-Beuve frequented the
Hugo salon, it was less because of his admiration for the poet than
from his desire to win the love of the poet's wife.

It is quite impossible to say how far he attracted the serious
attention of Adele Hugo. Sainte-Beuve represents a curious type, which
is far more common in France and Italy than in the countries