Victor Hugo encourages Ferdinand Buisson Autographed letter signed Guernsey

  
Future great artisan of the law of separation of church and state. Co-founder of the League of Human Rights. And Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1927.

This letter takes support from the cover and title page of the rare original pamphlet of La Voix de Guernesey, embellished with an autograph verse by Victor Hugo on the fourth page. [Guernsey] Hauteville House - February 2 [1868] - Rare original edition of La Voix de Guernesey printed in 500 copies and printed in Guernsey. In-32 (Size: 13 x 9.8 cm).

Tab on the last sheet. Framed: 18 x 13 cm (included). In this long and furious political poem of 16 pages printed on very fine paper (3 grams, intended to travel clandestinely under envelope to escape censorship), Victor Hugo expresses all his anger and the shame felt after the crushing of Garibaldi's troops by the French armies during the Battle of Mentana fought on November 3, 1867. Working at the time on The Man Who Laughs, Hugo takes a break and writes "326 verses in three days" on November 16, 17, and 18 as he notes in his diary.

Due to the fragility of the pamphlet and the fineness of the paper, few copies have survived to this day. This beautifully signed letter by Hugo is a response to a letter from the young Ferdinand Buisson, 26 years old, then a philosophy teacher at the Academy of Neuchâtel, written to Victor Hugo from Lausanne on January 29, 1868.

In this letter, preserved in the archives of the Maison Victor Hugo (Inventory No.: a733), Ferdinand Buisson, also exiled from the Second Empire, recounts the local actions he undertakes to promote Hugo's ideas of justice, his fascination with Les Misérables, and requests from the illustrious poet and political fighter the sending of La Voix de Guernesey and "a few verses from you [...] a few unpublished verses for Switzerland!

" Hugo offers his moral support, La Voix de Guernesey as requested, and an "unpublished" verse on page 4: "Beautiful, valiant, young, - dead!", corrected by Hugo's hand to: "Alas!

You are thus forever asleep! If rare letters from Ferdinand Buisson to Victor Hugo have been preserved, this document may be the only autograph manuscript that has reached us to date from Victor Hugo addressing the future founding pillar of republican secularism. With all my heart, Sir. Here is La Voix de Guernesey.

The verses you desire on Switzerland conclude The Regiment of Baron Madruce in The Legend of the Centuries. The future belongs to noble minds and noble hearts like yours.

Long live the non-local republic! Indeed, it is read in The Legend of the Centuries, in the poem "The Regiment of Baron Madruce". At the time when Europe will finally walk alone, You will see the severe ancestress rush towards you. Young Humanity under her flower hat; Your good men will be dear to the best men. The vanished plagues, false god, false king, false priest, Will let the white forehead of peace appear.

In the meantime, Switzerland has told the world: Hope! She has frightened the lair of the old hydra. What she did in the past is done for centuries.

The way Switzerland triumphed at Sempach. Remains the great audacity and the great manner Of attacking a beast in the depths of its den. Below Victor Hugo by Nadar around 1874.

Below Ferdinand Buisson in 1914.