[HUGO VICTOR]. BOURDELLE Emile-Antoine (1861-1929).

Autograph letter signed to dear friends [Monsieur and Madame Dispan], Paris, June 12, 1885. 8 pp. in-12. With two original drawings. Very beautiful letter on the funeral of Victor Hugo which he has just attended. Long description of Hugo's funeral, several anecdotes about Hugo's death, his will, his last words, of which Bourdelle copies some passages by imitating Hugo's signature. "... Victor Hugo? Ask yourself. I cannot believe that he is dead and yet! I was at the funeral in the convoy that left the Arc de l'Etoile at 11 o'clock and marched until 8 o'clock in the evening to the Pantheon. I wore a crown 5 of Montauban. There was an infinite number of them covering the edges of the Pantheon. The coffin had been exposed all night under the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile at the foot of a catafalque which held the whole height of the vault. The cuirassiers illuminated the scene with lighted torches all Paris was there. Victor Hugo was carried on the hearse of the poor and only a few steps behind came his grandson. Then the Hugo family, delegation and so on. The press was in revolution. The mourning was deep and from all Paris, from all France, from all over the world the crowds that came to his supreme passage were of a recollection of a desperate and poignant tranquillity. We all made verses, drawings, paintings, prose. I learned of his death one of the first at the salon by Monsieur de Hérédia with whom I was in the company of M. Pouvillon and Pomairols. I made a quatrain for a crown of Montauban and one to lay at the feet of the coffin. Etienne... that good heart who so much bleated the great poet, was moved and gave a devil's pain for crowns. For my part the horizon is restricted something of my ideal intellectual sky is erased: written in the crowd May 31 during the exhibition of the body under the Arc de Triomphe. to Victor Hugo. Your soul is going to go up at the exit of its veils In the bright sky of the immortality It is thus that one sees in front of the eternity To increase slowly the number of the stars: I am still tired of the races that I made to see all the preparations of the burial that of Gambetta was nothing compared to that of Hugo. A big crepe on the corner of the Arc de l'étoile. Flags covered with crepe the Spouts of gas.... and lit all the day of big tripods at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe with big flames. Painters of the draughtsmen everywhere. I queued up the day before the funeral to pass in front of the exposed body I suffered 4 hours of suffocation, of crushing to see nothing and to my great regret I never saw Hugo. Here is the quatrain for the crown of the Republicans of Montauban. The punishments. To Victor Hugo Immortal writer of the formidable pages / Where passes sword in hand the angel of the punishments / One will hear a long time in the distance of the ages / The echo echoed of your roars. I had gone during his illness to register at his place, there was a crowd and the cars were driving night and day. Do you know the last verse of the dying man who got up from the bed with surprising vigor and said: "Life, life!" and then threw this last verse. This is the battle of the day and the night. His will I give fifty thousand francs to the poor I wish to be carried to the cemeteries in their hearse I refuse the oration of all the Churches; I ask a prayer to all the souls I believe in God Victor Hugo..." In the text, two original drawings, the first one representing the crowd amassed in front of the Arc de Triomphe draped with black crepe, in the middle of numerous flags; the second one is the sketch of a statue (Hannibal's Victory ?).