A correspondent of the _Daily News_, reporting a conversation with an intimate friend of the Hugo family upon the poet's last illness, said: 'He tells me that he never heard of a more terrible struggle between organic vitality and the morbid causes that are at work. Victor Hugo would like to die, so that it cannot be said it is his strength of will that enables him to resist the disease from which he is suffering. Contrary to what some of the journals have said, he is a very bad patient. Last night, when after straining his whole body to breathe, he had fallen into a prostrate state, a strong blister was prescribed, and the three doctors agreed to stay and watch its effects. As one of them was going to apply it, Victor Hugo jumped up and not only pushed him away but the others also, with a muscular force that astounded them. He rushed to and fro, convulsively throwing up his arms, and clutching the furniture. In the intervals between the crises, the poet likes to have his granddaughter near him. He feels that death has come to summon him, and that medical help is impotent to save him. He chafes at having to lie in bed. His voice is very weak, but remains audible to those near him. He was greatly affected on hearing that numbers of working people come in the evening to stand mutely and respectfully at a short distance from his house, so as to hear from those who call, as they are walking away, how he is. With his characteristic politeness, he has ordered that a direct notification is to be made to the humble watchers in the street of his decease, and wishes it to be known that his last thoughts have been about his friends the poor of Paris, with whom he has long been in brotherhood by feeling.'