Soon after his election, Hugo introduced a proposal in the Senate for granting an amnesty to all those condemned for the events of March, 1871, and to all those then undergoing punishment for political crimes or offences in Paris, including the assassins of the hostages. On the 22nd of May he delivered an eloquent oration in support of his motion. Towards the close of his address, he described the state of the prisoners in New Caledonia. Having painted their agony, and deplored the continuation of the prosecutions and the last transport of convicts, he said: 'That is how the 18th of March has been atoned for. As for the 2nd of December, it has been glorified, it has been adored and venerated, it has become a legal crime. The priests have prayed for it, the judges have judged by it, and the representatives of the people, at whom the blows were dealt by this crime, not only received them, but accepted and submitted to them, acting with all rigour against the people and all baseness before the Emperor. It is time to put a stop to the astonishment of the human conscience; it is time to renounce that double shame of two weights and two measures. I ask a full amnesty for the events of the 18th of March.' The motion was rejected, only about seven hands being held up for the amnesty. The poet-orator again pleaded the same cause in January, 1879, but his proposal was coldly received. Nevertheless, in the following month an Amnesty Bill was passed by the Chamber of Deputies. Early in 1877 appeared the second part of the _Légende des Siècles_; and it is pleasant to recall an interchange of courtesies which took place in this year between Victor Hugo and our own greatly-honoured poet, Lord Tennyson. In the month of June, 1877, there appeared in the _Nineteenth Century_ the following sonnet, addressed to Hugo by the Poet Laureate: 'Victor in Poesy, Victor in Romance, Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears, French of the French, and lord of human tears; Child-lover; Bard whose fame-lit laurels glance, Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance, Beyond our strait, their claim to be thy peers; Weird Titan, by the winter-weight of years As yet unbroken, stormy voice of France; Who dost not love our England--so they say; I know not--England, France, all man to be Will make one people ere man's race be run: And I, desiring that diviner day, Yield thee full thanks for thy full courtesy To younger England in the boy, my son.'