The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [7]
Yet did Hugo set out to immortalize Notre Dame? As much myth surrounds the origin and writing of the novel as surrounds the cathedral itself. If the publicly presented version is to be believed, The Hunchback of Notre Dame was written from July 1830 to January 1831. This account is furnished in Victor Hugo raconté par un témoin de sa vie (Victor Hugo: A Life Related by One Who Has Witnessed It, 1863; henceforth cited as A Life Related), a testimonial written by Hugo’s wife, Adèle, with, as it often has been observed, more than a helping hand from her husband. The novel had been under contract with the publisher Gosselin since 1828, but the theatrical success of Hugo’s play Hernani (1830) distracted the writer from the project. In April 1830 Hugo still had not begun the novel and was threatened by Gosselin with financial sanctions if he failed to deliver the manuscript. A new deadline of December 1830 was agreed upon but was then jeopardized by the political and social upheaval of July 1830, during which the restored Bourbon monarchy was toppled and Louis-Philippe, duke of Orleans, ascended the throne. Consumed by these events and their impact, and additionally troubled by a book of notes that had “disappeared” during his family’s move to a new apartment, Hugo, who had only begun to compose his novel, lost weeks of writing time. Gosselin grudgingly agreed to another extension, pushing back the due date to February 1, 1831. It was at this point, according to Adèle’s explanation, that her husband entered into his novel as into “a prison,” stopping only to eat and sleep. In one of the most famous anecdotes of A Life Related, she recounts how Hugo, upon returning to writing The Hunchback, bought a new bottle of ink. He plunged himself into his work, using this bottle alone, which ran out only on the day he completed the manuscript—January 14, 1831—at the precise moment he marked the novel’s final word on the page. As the story goes, Hugo, reflecting on this “remarkable” coincidence, considered renaming his novel “Ce qu‘ilyadans une bouteille d’encre” (What Is Inside a Bottle of Ink).
This tale of the writing process, and particularly the prodigious circumstances surrounding the novel’s completion, cannot, however, be taken at face value. Even in the early years of his career, Hugo was a master shaper of his own image and rarely failed to seize the opportunity to market himself, to spin reality into legend. The truth behind the composition of The Hunchback is in all likelihood more complex, and is certainly less of a good story. What is clear is that Hugo had a difficult time beginning the novel. Gosselin’s threats were genuine: Hugo had engaged in a contract with the publisher and had received a sizable advance, yet in spite of the rather extensive research he undertook, the manuscript did not materialize. What is also clear is that his recent triumph in the theater kept his attention elsewhere: Not only was Hernani an overwhelming success, but by 1830 Hugo was widely considered the leader of the growing Romantic movement in France. The preface he wrote to his 1827 historical play Cromwell was nothing short of a manifesto that