conclusion of the performance the name of the author was proclaimed as that of a victorious general, and the shouts of acclamation overwhelmed the storm of hisses. Victor Hugo was the great star of the French capital from that day. Meanwhile, all was happiness in the poet's household. The wife of his youthful dreams presided with tact and grace over his home and her dark Spanish beauty was much admired by the crowds of youthful friends who now began to frequent the house. This type of beauty appears almost as constantly in Victor Hugo's books as the head of La Fornarina did in the pictures of Raphael. He seems constantly to seek to immortalize her whom he had chosen for his own. Madame Hugo's picture was painted for the _Salon_ by their friend M. Louis Boulanger, and was thus described at the time:-- "A full, well-developed bust, white arms of perfect form; a pair of plump, delicate hands that a queen might envy; the hips high, and setting off a figure that was faultless in its contour and flexibility." She performed her duties as hostess with infinite grace, and her _salon_ was filled with celebrities like Lamartine, who would write verses in her album, and with women like Madame de Girardin. The house was always filled with visitors, attracted by the fascinations of the hostess as much as by the joyousness of the poet. As Victor Hugo's fame increased, we are told that-- "the calm serenity of his early years of married life was somewhat disturbed by the cares and anxieties that glory brings; but at the time of his residence in the Place Royale, of which we have been speaking, there was great happiness in the household, with the young and beautiful children." The beautiful Madame Drouet, then an actress upon the Parisian stage, was said to have come between the poet and his wife at a later day; and it is certain that she shared his banishment, assisting him much in his literary labor, and finally, after the death of the poet's wife, came to preside over his home in the last days, cherishing her love for him to the very close of his life. She is said to have been very beautiful, even in old age, when her hair, Alphonse Daudet tells us, was as white as swan's-down. It is not our purpose to deal with the public life of Victor Hugo, and we pass over all that occurred up to the time of the exile, after the _coup d'état_ of Louis Napoleon. The historian tells us that--