New exhibition
Victor Hugo and Peace
« A word fighter. I do not know anyone to whom this qualifier suits better than Hugo. Everywhere, in his office, in the street, in the salons, on the rostrum of the Assembly, even in exile, the great writer could not be silent, he could not help writing. No threat could ever silence this voice for justice. »
Confronted from his childhood with the violent events of his time: aftershocks of the Vendée insurrection, conspiracies and wars under the Empire, and in particular that of Spain during which his father played a leading role, later witness to the revolutionary upheavals of 1830 and 1848, and the conflict with Prussia in 1870, Victor Hugo, as a simple citizen, « pair » of France, exiled, deputy or senator, was always profoundly a man of peace.
Tireless artisan of the union of peoples, he never ceased to denounce the horrors of war and to defend with ardor throughout his life, the ideas of human harmony, in his poems, his dramas, his novels, his speeches and through its positions in favor of the United States of Europe or its support for the oppressed peoples of the whole world. He even specified the goal and the method : « Men at peace are the passive state; men in harmony is the active state. »
The new exhibition of the Maison Littéraire de Victor Hugo aims to highlight the different facets of the great man’s peaceful action, by presenting original editions, engravings, objects, letters and manuscripts on the subject, some exceptional since they have been classified as « National Treasures as historical monuments ».
The passionate appeals of the great French poet for peace and human fraternity, his philosophical message are, without a doubt, of extraordinary topicality.