#calling Hugo a hypocrite utterly fails to convey how much he's a mess

[pilferingapples]

Hugo was definitely not all on board with the 1848 revolution when it happened ( he apparently?? tried to get people to accept a regency, which, lol. No. that wasn't going to happen). But as he swung left himself he came to respect it and even see it as good and nearly "pure" (in that way Hugo talks about things) (and it WAS an amazingly low-fatality revolution!)

What Hugo's really conflicted about here isn't the February Revolution but the June Days, in which the working class and poor rose up in protest against their treatment by the government of the new Republic. @cliozaur wrote about Hugo's choices then here (and has a book I am BURSTING to get my hands on aaah). It was another failed uprising, like the barricades of June 1832 , and Hugo , who helped lead government forces against the barricades, always struggled with fitting any of it-- the barricades or the government response or his own behavior--into his moral framework . IMO he never really succeeded in squaring that circle, but here we can all read part of his attempts to do so!

Did Hugo try to suppress the 1848 Revolution? Because that would provide context for this very strange argument of the people “working against their own interests” and needing to be “suppressed.” His writing feels contradictory, with his horror at these barricades blending with divine elements of protest (and a three-story barricade is honestly just impressive in general). He tries to be respectful of the lower classes by insisting that he admires their spirit even if he disagrees with this protest, but he really just comes off as condescending, saying they fought against their own principles.

But it is still a barricade! He calls it a “sepulchre” but notes that it was filled with light – another “tomb flooded with dawn.”

Was that “some soldier/representative of the people” Hugo? He switches to the first person to recount the butterfly (which is a beautiful line, even if this isn’t my favorite digression).

I don’t know a lot about the 1848 Revolution, unfortunately, but I would love to hear the thoughts of someone with more context!