Hernani. Victor Hugo

done so much honest work of a high character as Hugo did. It is no small distinction to have guided a people's hopes for eighteen years from his island of exile. It is a noble end of a zealous life to have worn for fifteen years the crown of such a nation's kingship. But when even these proud honors are forgotten, children's voices will still repeat and men's hearts still echo a hundred songs of the greatest lyric poet of France.

      HISTORICAL NOTE TO «HERNANI»

      «HERNANI» is an historical tragedy. Its real hero is that inscrutable great man upon whom fortune bestowed first the throne of Spain and presently the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, with the title Charles the Fifth. Although Hugo, as a dramatist may do with perfect right, departs in many instances from historical fact, the play demands for its proper enjoyment some information concerning the nature of the imperial office and the character of Charles.

      An earlier and mightier Charles, king of the German conquerors of Gaul, was by Pope Leo III, on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, crowned in the basilica of St. Peter head of the Roman Empire, which was believed to be still, with unimpaired authority, the same as that of Augustus. From its connection with the Church as the temporal complement of the spiritual reign of Christ's vicar, the Empire was thenceforth most frequently denominated the Holy Roman Empire. Its vitality was never greater than under Charlemagne himself. Its limits, both in the minds of men and on the map of Europe, were at no time during the next seven hundred years really greater than in his reign. In general the Emperors claimed dominion over Italy, Germany, the Low Countries, and much of what is now the Austrian Empire, Switzerland, and France, besides the precedence over all other kings and potentates. They desired to be considered, and by most men were considered, to be in temporal things the counterpart of the Popes in things spiritual, and with jurisdiction no less widespread. It was traditional that the king chosen by the seven great princes, or electors, of Germany, should proceed to Rome, there to be crowned Emperor by the Pope. With not a few exceptions these honors were confined for long periods of time to certain families. The first member of the house of Hapsburg who won the election was Rudolf (1272-1292), founder of the present Austrian dynasty. Another Hapsburger, Albert I, was chosen in 1298, and another, Albert II, in 1438; since when, until the annihilation of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, all the Emperors, with two exceptions, have been of that house.

      None of his successors made such an impression upon the imagination of contemporary and following generations as was produced by the stupendous figure of Charles the Great. His reputation was well-earned. He can be called, better than any other man, the creator of mediaeval Europe. In his day looked upon as a Roman, the French have adopted him as the father of their nationality, and he is the hero of their ancient epic poetry. Yet, as Mr. Bryce declares, he was entirely German: «No claim can be more groundless than that which the modern French, the sons of the Latinized Kelts, set up to the Teutonic Charles. At Rome he might assume the chlamys and the sandals (marks of a Roman patrician), but at the head of his Frankish host he strictly adhered to the customs of his country, and was beloved by his people as the very ideal of their own character and habits. Of strength and stature almost superhuman, in swimming and hunting unsurpassed, steadfast and terrible in fight, to his friends gentle and condescending, he was a Roman, much less a Gaul, in nothing but his culture and his schemes of government, otherwise a Teuton. The centre of his realm was the Rhine; his capitals Aachen and Engilenheim; his army Frankish; his sympathies – as they are shown in the gathering of the old hero-lays, the composition of a German grammar, the ordinance against confining prayer to the three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin – were all for the race from which he sprang, and whose advance, represented by the victory of Austrasia, the true Frankish fatherland, over Neustria and Aquitaine, spread a second Germanic wave over the conquered countries.» (Bryce: «Holy Roman Empire», pp. 71 and 72.)