The Funeral Rites of Madame Victor Hugo.

Having died in Brussels, Madame Victor Hugo was brought to France, on the 30th of August last, to be interred at Villequiers (Seine-Inférieure), beside her daughter and her son-in-law. Mr. Victor Hugo accompanied her as far as the frontier. Over the tomb, Mr. Paul Meurice pronounced the following words:

“I wished only to bid her farewell on behalf of us all.

“You know it well, you who surround her — for the last time! — what this soul so beautiful and so gentle was — what it is, this adorable spirit, this great heart.

“Ah! this great heart, above all! How she loved to love! how she loved to be loved! how she knew how to suffer with those whom she loved!

“She was the wife of the greatest man that exists and, by her heart, she raised herself up to that genius. She almost equaled him, so well did she understand him.

“And she must leave us, we must leave her!

“She has already returned to loving. She has found again her two children, here — and there (pointing to the tomb of her daughter and to Heaven).

“Victor Hugo said to me at the frontier, last evening: ‘Tell my daughter that, while she waits, I am always sending her her mother.’ It is said, and I believe it is understood.

“And now, farewell, then! farewell on behalf of those present! farewell on behalf of those absent! farewell our friend! farewell our sister!

“Farewell, but until we meet again!”

Mr. Paul Foucher, brother of Madame Victor Hugo, in a letter that he wrote in the France, to give an account of the ceremony, ends with these words: “We parted dismayed, but calm and persuaded, more than ever, that the disappearance of a being is a meeting appointed with him at an undefined hour.”

On this occasion, we deem it our duty to recall the letter of Mr. Victor Hugo to Mr. Lamartine, on the occasion of the death of the latter's wife, on the 23rd of May, 1863, and which the majority of the journals of the time reproduced.

“Dear Lamartine, “A great misfortune strikes you; I need to place my heart beside yours. I venerated her whom you loved. Your lofty spirit sees beyond the horizon; you perceive distinctly the future life.

“It is not to you that one must say: hope. You are among those who know, and who hope.

“She is always your companion, invisible, but present. You have lost the woman, but not the soul. Dear friend, let us live in the dead.

Tuus.

Victor Hugo.

The words pronounced by Mr. Victor Hugo, and what he wrote on various occasions, prove that he believes, not only in that vague immortality, in which, with very few exceptions, the whole human race believes, but in that clearly defined immortality, which has an objective, satisfies reason, and dispels the uncertainty regarding the fate that awaits us; which represents to us the souls or Spirits of those who have left the Earth as concrete, individual beings, peopling space, living in our midst, with the remembrance of what they did here, benefiting from the intellectual and moral progress accomplished, preserving their affections, invisible witnesses of our actions and of our sentiments, communing thoughts with those who are dear to them; in a word, in that consoling immortality, which fills the void left by those absent and through which the solidarity between the spiritual world and the corporeal world is perpetuated. Now, there is the whole of Spiritism. What does it add to this? the material proof of that which was, until it came, but a seductive theory. While certain persons arrived at this belief through intuition and reasoning, Spiritism set out from fact and observation. It is known by what painful catastrophe Mr. Victor Hugo lost his daughter and his son-in-law, Mr. Charles Vacquerie, on the 4th of September, 1843. They were going, in a sailing boat, from Villequiers to Caudebec, in the company of an uncle of Mr. Vacquerie, a former mariner, and of a boy of ten years. A gust of wind caused the vessel to capsize and the four perished.

What could be more significant, stamped with a more profound and more just idea of immortality than these words: Tell my daughter that, while she waits, I am always sending her her mother! What calm, what serenity, what confidence in the future! One would say that his daughter had only departed on a journey, to whom he sends word: “I send you your mother, hoping that I will go to find you.” How much consolation, how much strength, how much hope is drawn from this manner of understanding immortality! It is no longer the soul lost in the infinite, which even the certainty of its survival leaves no hope of finding again; leaving the Earth forever and those whom it loved, whether it be in the delights of contemplative beatitude or in the eternal torments of hell, the separation is eternal. One understands the bitterness of the sorrows with such a belief; but, for that father, his daughter is always there; she will receive her mother as she comes out of her terrestrial exile and listens to the words that he sends to tell her! Whoever has arrived at this is a Spiritist, because, if he is willing to reflect seriously, he cannot escape all the logical consequences of Spiritism. Those who reject this qualification are those who, knowing of Spiritism only the ridiculous pictures of mocking criticism, form a false idea of it. On the contrary, if they would give themselves the trouble to study it, to analyze it and to sound its scope, they would feel happy to find in the ideas that constitute their happiness, a sanction capable of consolidating their faith. They would no longer say merely: “I believe, because it seems to me just,” but “I believe because I understand.” Let us draw a parallel between the sentiments that animated Mr. Victor Hugo on this occasion and on all those in which his heart received such wounds, and the definition of immortality given by the Figaro, of the 3rd of April, 1868, under the rubric of: Dictionary of the Figaro:

Immortality: A tale of male nurses, to reassure their patients.