A stream of processions then filed past the house, many of them bearing imposing bouquets, which were deposited in front of Hugo's residence. The musical societies alone exceeded 100; strains of the _Marseillaise_ were now and again audible, and the entire Avenue, nearly a mile long, was thickly lined with spectators, while that part of it commanding a view of the poet's house was densely packed, except for a passage-way for the processions. Medals and photographs of the hero of the day were to be seen everywhere, and the behaviour of the enormous assemblage was most exemplary. Victor Hugo, whose love of the fresh air always made him careless of exposure, remained at the open window for several hours bareheaded, acknowledging the greetings of the successive deputations and of the multitude. At the Trocadéro a musical and literary festival was held, when selections from Victor Hugo's works were sung or recited by some of the leading Paris _artistes_, and the _Marseillaise_ was performed by a military band. M. Louis Blanc, who presided, said that few great men had entered in their lifetime into their immortality. Voltaire and Victor Hugo had both deserved this, one for stigmatizing religious intolerance, the other for having, with incomparable lustre, served humanity. He commended the committee for inviting the co-operation of men of different opinions, for genius united in a common admiration men otherwise at discord, and the idea of union was inseparable from a grand festival. 'There were enough days in the year given to what separated men. It was well to give a few hours to what brought them together, and there could be no better opportunity than the festival of an unrivalled poet, an eloquent apostle of human brotherhood, whose use of his genius was greater than his genius itself, the oneness of his life consisting in the constant ascent of his spirit towards the light.' In the evening of the day there was a Victor Hugo concert at the Conservatoire, and at many of the theatres verses were recited in his honour. On the night of the 25th a special performance was given at the Gaîté of _Lucrèce Borgia_, which had not been produced for ten years. The house was filled, all the notabilities of Paris being present, while the poet himself also appeared for a short time. The celebration generally was one triumphant success.