by Antonio R. Rubio Plo
The world vision of Victor Hugo can be understood from the long digressions in his novels like “Notre Dame de Paris”, “Les Misérables” or “93”, which are full of mistrust in human justice, with a vision of matter as the equivalent of evil, and are full of an anticlericalism that is evident in his ecclesiastical characters, like Canon Frollo, who in Medieval Paris kept saying that printed paper would have killed the cathedrals.
It can thus be understood that the real protagonist of Hugo’s epic poem, “La legende des siècles”, is man who gets redeemed from himself, despite the writer’s declared admiration for the stories of the Bible that speak of a Saving God. Nevertheless, Hugo was moved by Christian Mercy, as can be seen in “Les Misérables”, when Msgr. Bienvenu Myriel gives his candlesticks and cutlery to ex-convict Valjean to prevent his being thrown in prison again, despite the fact that he had really stolen them and had fled the house after being welcomed and helped the previous evening.
A learned man like Don Bosco had certainly heard about the fictitious figure of Msgr. Myriel, and he might even have recognized himself in those traits of character the French writer uses to describe the clergyman: “There are men who toil at extracting gold; he toiled at the extraction of pity. Universal misery was his mine. The sadness that reigned everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness. Love each other; he declared this to be complete, desired nothing further, and that was the whole of his doctrine”.
The Founder of the Salesians had nothing else but going to the marginalized and despised, but he did it with the push of faith and of Christian love. On the contrary, Victor Hugo was considered to be an agnostic, or rather a deist, and he had no complex in approaching a priest and telling him straight in his face that he did not believe in God nor in any miracle. Besides, the writer lived the typical contradiction of many of his – and even our – contemporaries, to reject the supernatural and tag it as irrational, but to be later influenced by a form of spiritualism close to superstition.
In the night of May 22nd, 1883, the writer, then in his 80s, addressed in a slightly arrogant way an Italian priest who was visiting Paris. Yet, after a long and warm conversation, he greeted him giving him a card with his name, which till that moment he had not revealed. The priest who was given that card was no other than Don Bosco, whom – by the way – in one of his best praises, the writer later called “a legendary man”.
Victor Hugo tried to convince Don Bosco that it was better to live with philosophy, going beyond the childish phase of religion, and insinuated that that was the secret of a happy life; there was no need to believe in the supernatural or in an afterlife, all means utilised by priests to deceive simple and ignorant people. Anyhow, the Founder of the Salesians reminded the writer that he would still have had a lot of time before entering eternity. “Wouldn’t it be better for you to think of your supreme future and address yourself to a priest?” But his interlocutor deemed this action as a sign of weakness for which his friends would have derided him. Nevertheless, Hugo promised to reflect on such a profound matter that transcended philosophy.
A few days later he returned and told the priest that he wanted to be his friend, that he believed in the immortality of the soul and that he believed in God. Consequently, he wanted to be assisted, at the hour of his death, by a Catholic priest who could entrust his soul to the Creator. Regretfully, when death came, on May 22nd, 1885, this did not happen. The protection wall of relatives and friends – as also happened in similar cases – prevented any priestly cassock from approaching him, and Hugo’s son in law, Simon Lockroy, who later became Minister of Education, acted as the spokesman of the family in rejecting the last sacraments. However, Cardinal Guibert, Archbishop of Paris, consoled the priest who had tried to help Hugo with these words: “You needn’t feel bad. You were not at Hugo’s deathbed, but I am sure the Lord was there”. It is interesting to note that, in the closing of “Les Misérables”, when Valjean is dying, assisted by Cosette and Marius, he is convinced that at his bedside there was also the soul of Msgr. Myriel, his spiritual father, the man who had changed his life.
We can be sure that the writer was not deprived of the prayers of the priest with whom he had talked two years before. Don Bosco had gained Victor Hugo’s friendship and felt morally obliged to reveal his encounters with him after the news of his lay funeral prepared by the French republican government. What was Don Bosco’s secret to “disarm” Hugo? The secret could only be a merciful love, like the one of Christ.
Our Saint did not confine himself to praying, be he showed signs of attention and affection to all those who surrounded him. Let us recall Jesus with the young rich man: Jesus “looked at him and loved him” (Mk10:21). Don Bosco used to say that love expresses itself in words and in actions, as well as in the expressions of the eyes and the body. Therefore will not be surprised at the words another saint, Giuseppe Benedetto Cottolengo, addressed to Don Bosco, when he advised him to wear a more resistant cassock, because many would have clung to it…
