Paris Archives - Reynolds's News and Miscellany
Mysteries of the Court of Miracles | Stephen Basdeo
“The blind man ran. The lame man ran. The man with no legs ran. And then, as he penetrated further down the street, the legless, the blind and the halt came swarming around him, together with the one-armed, the one-eyed, and the lepers with their sores….”
The Emperor and the Author: Victor Hugo’s Meeting with Dom Pedro II | Stephen Basdeo [Trans.]
“I have power by virtue of chance; I must be employed in doing good. Progress and Liberty!” Such were the words which came of the mouth of the Emperor of Brazil on meeting the 1800s’ most venerable author, Victor Hugo.
Mysteries of the People, Mysteries of the World: Eugene Sue’s Anti- Medievalism and the Revolutions of 1848
When Napoleon the Third came to power, shipments of Mysteres du Peuple were seized and booksellers were prevented from selling them. Many French politicians and writers were forced into exile as a result of the coup; one such exile was Eugene Sue.
“Something strange and marvellous”: Victor Hugo’s Essay on Walter Scott | Stephen Basdeo
“He unites the exactness of the [medieval] chronicles, the majestic grandeur of history, and the all-compelling interest of romance.”
Mocking Louis Phillippe in Exile (1848) | Victor Hugo
After Victor Hugo’s death, and before the publication of his letters (many of which remain unpublished), Paul Maurice published Memoirs of Victor Hugo. This was not chronological autobiography but was, as Maurice remarked, […]
Louis XVI’s Execution: An Eyewitness Account | Leboucher
After Victor Hugo’s death, and before the publication of his letters (many of which remain unpublished), Paul Maurice published Memoirs of Victor Hugo. This was not chronological autobiography but was, as Maurice […]
The History of the Bastille (1838) | G. W. M. Reynolds
The effects of that glorious revolution which gave so vast an impulse to the energies and intelligence of the French, have been subsequently felt by all the other nations of Europe; and while Burke aimed his thunders against those principles which restored a desponding people to freedom, light, and happiness…
Suicide of Antonin Moyne (1849) | Victor Hugo
After Victor Hugo’s death, and before the publication of his letters (many of which remain unpublished), Paul Maurice published Memoirs of Victor Hugo. This was not chronological autobiography but was, as Maurice […]
The Early Works of Eugene Sue | G. W. M. Reynolds
His style reminds us of Cooper’s most approved nautical fictions, rather than of the coarse and vulgar “yarns” so tediously spun by Captain Marryat. He introduces us to scenes and adventures of stirring and painful interest.
Ball at the Hotel-de-Ville (1833) | Victor Hugo
‘Lines Written on a Ball at the Hotel-de-Ville was written by Victor Hugo in 1833 and published in Les Chants du Crepuscule (1835). It was then translated by George W.M. Reynolds and published in Songs of Twilight (1836).
New Edition of Victor Hugo’s Songs of Twilight | Stephen Basdeo and Jessica Elizabeth Thomas
In this book, therefore—small though it be when compared with the vast magnitude of its subject—there are a thousand discrepancies—lustre and obscurity, which pervade all we see, and all we conceive in this age of twilight, which envelope our political theories, our religious opinions, our domestic life, and which are even discovered in the histories we write of others, as well as in those of ourselves.
Bridal Festivity (1832) | Victor Hugo
‘Bridal Festivity’ was written by Victor Hugo in August 1832 and published in his Chants des Crepuscules. The poem itself takes a somewhat dark turn towards the end, as readers will see. Perhaps this was an allegory on the dangers that awaited the French ruling classes
Meeting Eugene Sue in 1832 | G. W. M. Reynolds
“He appeared to me to be a West Indian, born of European parents; for his complexion is darker than even that of a Spaniard, and his hair black as jet. His face was at that time singularly handsome.”
France (1838) | G. W. M. Reynolds
George W. M. Reynolds spent his teenage years and early twenties in France and was a great admirer of the country’s history and culture which is celebrated in this poem.
Victor Hugo’s “Songs of Twilight” (1835) | G. W. M. Reynolds
In the present age, everything, whether ideal or fact, whether connected with society in general, or with a single individual—everything is in a state of twilight. But of what species is that twilight? Oh! who shall solve so profound a mystery—the most sublime of all those that are agitated during times of doubt and uncertainty?
Eugene Sue’s Epic Socialist Novel “The Mysteries of the People” (1848): “The Casque’s Lark”
It was to me, strange and unaccountable as it may seem, as if I abhorred Neroweg by reason of the future as much as of the present; as if that hatred was to perpetuate itself not only between our two races of Franks and Gauls, but also between our families, individually.
Hymn to France | Victor Hugo
This poem ‘Hymn’ was written by Victor Hugo and celebrates the heroes of the French Revolution of 1830. The poem was translated by G.W.M. Reynolds and published in the Monthly Magazine.
Last of the Queens and Kings | Armand Carrell
This poem titled ‘The Last of the Queens and the Kings’ was originally written in the 1830s French by Armand Carrell and later translated into English and published in Red Republican in 1850. It has now been republished in Reynolds’s News and Miscellany.
Painting a Pandemic: Napoleon Visiting the Sick | Stephen Basdeo
The social anarchy resulting from plague are obviously a mainstay of pop culture depictions; times of crisis often bring out the worst in humanity. Yet they can also bring out the best in humanity as well, and it is one human, at his best and most heroic, whom Antoine-Jean Gros decided to represent on canvas in 1804. The man was Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French.
The Baroness: A Novel (Part VII) | G.W.M. Reynolds
The notary sank upon a chair, gazed wildly at that brother whom he had never wished to encounter more, and in whose presence he so singularly and unexpectedly found himself: Alfred de Moirot crossed his arms on his breast, and returned the timid glance of the notary with one of scorn, indignation, and reproach. The Baroness and de Montville exchanged looks of mingled satisfaction and anxiety.
The Baroness: A Novel (Part IV) | G.W.M. Reynolds
“The days were passed in amusements of all kinds—the evenings in dancing, fétes champétres, or with music and cards. There were barges upon the canals, beautifully fitted up for the use of the visitors who were fond of water-excursions; hounds and huntsmen for the chase; and shooting apparatus for the sportsman. The ponds were filled with an abundance of fine fish; and many sought a recreation in, to me, the cruel art of angling. Thus was time whiled away on the wings of pleasure; and ennui was banished from those halls of delight.
Life of Victor Hugo | Isabel Hapgood
Whilst he was dying in May 1885, Paris was but the first mourner for all France; and the magnificent funeral pageant which conducted the pauper’s coffin, antithetically enshrining the remains considered worthy of the highest possible reverence and honours from the Champs Elysées to the Panthéon, was the more memorable from all that was foremost in French art and letters having marched in the train, and laid a leaf or flower in the tomb of the protégé Chateaubriand, the brother-in-arms of Dumas, the inspirer of Mars, Dorval, Lemaitre, Rachel, and Bernhardt, and, above all, the Nemesis of the Third Empire.
Invocation | Victor Hugo
Written by Victor Hugo and published in Les Chants des Crepuscules in 1835; Translated by George W.M. Reynolds and published in Songs of Twilight in 1836: Say, Lord! for Thou alone canst tell / Where lurks the good invisible / Amid the depths of discord’s sea— / That seem, alas! so dark to me!
Out of the Darkness: “The Catacombs of Paris” (1840) by George W.M.Reynolds | Louis James
Distinguished G W M Reynolds specialist, Prof. Louis James, talks about Reynolds’s only known play.