Funeral of Mrs. Victor HugoMrs. Victor Hugo, who died in Brussels, was brought back to France to be buried on August 30th, in Villequiers (lower Seine), with her daughter and her son-in-law. Mr. Victor Hugo accompanied her to the border. Mr. Paul Meurice said the following words by the grave:
"I would just like to say goodbye to you from all of us. You know very well, you who surround her - for the last time! - what was, - what is this soul, so beautiful and so sweet, this adorable spirit, this big heart. Ah! This big heart above all! How she loved to love! How she loved to be loved! How she knew how to suffer with those she loved! She was the wife of the greatest man there is, and by heart she rose to that genius. She almost equaled him, for she understood him. She must leave us! And we must leave her!
She has already found something to love. She found her two children here and there (pointing to her daughter's grave and to the sky). Victor Hugo told me at the border last night: Tell my daughter that while I wait, I'm still sending her mother. It is said, and I believe it is understood. "
And now, goodbye! Farewell to those present! Farewell to the absent! Farewell our friend! Farewell our sister! Goodbye, but so long! "
M. Paul Foucher, brother of Mrs. V. Hugo, in the letter he wrote in France, giving an account of the ceremony, ended with these words: “We parted heartbroken, but calm and convinced more than ever that the disappearance of a being is an appointment at an indefinite time."
On this occasion, we believe we should recall the letter from Mr. Victor Hugo to Mr. Lamartine, at the time of the death of the latter's wife, dated May 23rd, 1863, and that was reproduced by most of the newspapers of the time.
“Dear Lamartine,
A great misfortune strikes you; I need to place my heart close to yours. I worshiped the one you loved. Your elevated Spirit sees beyond the horizon; you clearly see the future life. It is not to you that it is necessary to say: hope. You are one of those who know, and that are hoping. She is always your companion, invisible, but present. You have lost the woman, but not the soul. Dear friend, let's live in the dead.
Tuus,
Victor Hugo.”
The words spoken by Mr. Victor Hugo, and what he has written in many circumstances, prove that he believes not only in that vague immortality in which, with very few exceptions, all mankind believes, but in that clearly defined immortality, that has a goal, satisfies reason and dispels uncertainty about the fate that awaits us; that represents to us the souls or Spirits of those who left Earth as concrete, individual beings, inhabiting space, living among us with the memory of what they have done down here, benefiting from intellectual progress and moral accomplishment, preserving their affections, invisible witnesses of our actions and feelings, communicating thoughts with those who are dear to them; in short, to that consoling immortality that fills the void left by those absent, and through which solidarity is perpetuated between the spiritual world and the bodily world. Now, this is all spiritualism. What does he add to that? The material proof of what until him was only a seductive theory. While some people came to this belief through intuition and reasoning, Spiritism started from fact and observation.
We know the consequences of a painful catastrophe in which Mr. Victor Hugo lost his daughter and his son-in-law, Mr. Charles Vacquerie, on September 4th, 1843. They traveled by sailing boat, from Villequiers to Caudebec, in the company of the uncle of Mr. Vacquerie, a former sailor, and a ten-year-old child. A gust of wind capsized the boat, and all four perished.
What could be more significant, imbued with a deeper and more just idea of immortality than these words: Tell my daughter that in the meantime I am still sending her mother! What calm, what serenity, what confidence in the future! Wouldn't we just say his daughter left for a trip, to which he assk them to say: "I am sending your mother to you while I wait for me to join you"? What consolation, strength and hope don’t we draw from this way of understanding immortality! It is no longer the soul lost in the infinite, which the very certainty of its survival leaves no hopes of meeting again; leaving Earth and those she loved forever, whether in the delights of contemplative bliss or in the eternal torments of hell, separation is eternal. One understands the bitterness of regret with such a belief; but, for this father, his daughter is still there; she will receive her mother when she comes out of her earthly exile, and she hears the words he sends for her!
Anyone who has come to this is a Spiritist, because, if he wants to think seriously, he cannot escape all the logical consequences of Spiritism. Those who reject this qualification, only knowing the ridiculous images of mocking criticism, they have a false idea of it. If they took the trouble to study it, analyze it, fathom its scope, they would gladly, on the contrary, find in the ideas that make them happy, a sanction capable of strengthening their faith. They would no longer just say: "I believe, because it seems right to me," but: "I believe, because I understand."
Let us put in parallel the feelings which animated Mr. Victor Hugo in this circumstance, and in all those where his heart was struck by similar wounds, the definition of immortality given by Le Figaro, on April 3rd, 1868, under the heading: Figaro dictionary: Immortality, tale of nurses to reassure their clients.
