The Last Day of a Condemned Man

By Victor Hugo

First published in 1829 at the beginning of Victor Hugo’s literary career, “The Last Day of a Condemned Man” is one of the author’s first mature works of fiction. It recounts the thoughts of a condemned man as the day of his execution draws near. Inspired by the sight of an executioner preparing the guillotine for another scheduled public execution, Hugo quickly wrote this moving and eloquent work describing the condemned man’s final thoughts as he awaits his death. Hugo was a celebrated French novelist, poet, playwright, dramatist, essayist, and statesman whose work ushered in the Romantic literary movement in France, one of the most influential movements in French and all of European literary history. Like many of his time, Hugo promoted the virtues of liberty, individualism, spirit, and nature in rebellion of the conservative political and religious establishments of Imperial France, and eventually became known as one of the most gifted and influential writers of his time. “The Last Day of a Condemned Man”, along with Hugo’s other stories and novels, had a profound influence on writers like Albert Camus, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky and endures as one of the author’s most sensitive and starkly honest works. This edition includes a biographical afterword and follows the translation of George Reynolds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Dec 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781420979992

Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was a French poet and novelist. Born in Besançon, Hugo was the son of a general who served in the Napoleonic army. Raised on the move, Hugo was taken with his family from one outpost to the next, eventually setting with his mother in Paris in 1803. In 1823, he published his first novel, launching a career that would earn him a reputation as a leading figure of French Romanticism. His Gothic novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) was a bestseller throughout Europe, inspiring the French government to restore the legendary cathedral to its former glory. During the reign of King Louis-Philippe, Hugo was elected to the National Assembly of the French Second Republic, where he spoke out against the death penalty and poverty while calling for public education and universal suffrage. Exiled during the rise of Napoleon III, Hugo lived in Guernsey from 1855 to 1870. During this time, he published his literary masterpiece Les Misérables (1862), a historical novel which has been adapted countless times for theater, film, and television. Towards the end of his life, he advocated for republicanism around Europe and across the globe, cementing his reputation as a defender of the people and earning a place at Paris’ Panthéon, where his remains were interred following his death from pneumonia. His final words, written on a note only days before his death, capture the depth of his belief in humanity: “To love is to act.”

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THE LAST DAY OF A CONDEMNED MAN

By VICTOR HUGO

Translated by GEORGE REYNOLDS

The Last Day of a Condemned Man

By Victor Hugo

Translated by George Reynolds

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7864-3

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7999-2

This edition copyright © 2021. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Image: a detail of The Prisoner and His Guests, by William Frederick Yeames, c. 1871 (oil on canvas) / © Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives / Purchased, 1919. / Bridgeman Images.

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CONTENTS

Preface

A Comedy, Suggested by a Tragedy.

The Last Day of a Condemned Man

Biographical Afterword

"L’idée a qui tout céde et qui toujours éclaire

Prouve sa sainteté même dans sa colére.

Elle laisse toujours les principes debout.

Être vainqueurs, c’est peu, mais rester grands, c’est tout.

Quand nous tiendrons le traitre, abject, frissonnant, blème,

Affirmons le progrès dans le châtiment même."

Preface

At the head of the first editions of tibia work, then published without the author’s name, the following lines only were written,—

There are two ways of accounting for the existence of this book: either there was discovered a package of time-stained fragments of paper upon which were registered the last thoughts of an unhappy wretch; or, a man stepped forth, a dreamer—occupied in the study of nature that art may progress—a philosopher, a poet, I may not divine which; in fact, one in whom this idea was the leading fancy,—who, grasping it, or rather being carried away by it, could only rid himself of it by putting it into a book. Of these two explanations the reader may choose the one which best pleases him.

As may be seen, at the period in which the book was first given to the public, the author did not think fit to express his idea fully. He preferred waiting until it was more developed in the public mind, and to watch this development. It has been understood. The author can, at this present time, reveal the idea—both in its political and social aspects—which he desired to popularize under this frank and simple literary form. He declares, therefore, or rather he confesses, proudly, that the "Last Day of a Condemned Man" is nothing less than a special pleading in favor of the abolition of the death penalty.

What he intended to do—what he wished that posterity might see in his work, if ever he goes down to it—is not the special defence, always easy to get together and always transitory, of any particular criminal—of any chosen offender. It is a general and permanent pleading for all accused, present or to come. It is the great point of the right of humanity, urged with the voice of earnestness before society, which is the great Court of Appeal! It is the supreme nonsuit—abhorrescere a sanguine—rising up forever in the face of every future criminal case. It is the sombre and fatal question which palpitates obscurely at the bottom of all capital causes, underneath the triple layers of pathos with which the bloody rhetoric of the prosecution envelops it. It is the question of life and death, I repeat, stripped naked, despoiled of the sonorous surroundings of the court of justice, brutally exposed to the light of day, and set up in a place where it must be seen, and where it must be kept—where it is really in its true place, in its horrible position: not in the tribunal, but on the scaffold—not in the hands of the judge, but in those of the executioner.

This is what the author wished to accomplish. If the future should award to him the glory of having done this, which he dares not to hope, he would wish for no other crown.

He proclaims, therefore, and he repeats it, he takes up this cause in the name of all possible accused, innocent or guilty,—before all courts, all tribunals, all juries, every sort of justice. This book is addressed to whomever may be capable of judging it. That the plea may be as vast as the cause—and it is for this reason that the "Last Day of a Condemned Man" is thus written—he has been obliged to divest his subject, in all its bearings, of the contingent, the accidental, the particular, the special, the relative, the modifiable, the episode, the anecdote, the event, the proper name; and to confine himself (if it may be so designated) to pleading the cause of an imaginary criminal, executed at an imaginary period, for an imaginary crime. Most happy, if, without any other implement than his own thoughts, he has penetrated deep enough to draw blood from a heart beating under the œs triplex of the magistrate! Most happy, if he has made pitiful those who believe themselves just! Most happy, if by dint of persecuting the judge he may succeed occasionally in finding in him the man!

Three years since, when this book appeared, some persons thought it worthwhile to dispute the originality of the author’s idea. Some supposed it an English, others an American book. Strange mania of seeking the origin of things a thousand leagues off, and to ascribe to the Nile the water which washes your streets. Alas! this is neither an English nor an American book,—it is not even Chinese. The author took his idea of the "Last Day of a Condemned Man not from a book,—he is not accustomed to going so far in search of his ideas,—but where you might all find it—where, perhaps, you have already found it (for who has not dreamed in his own mind the Last Day of a Condemned Man"?)—simply on the public place—upon the Place de la Grève.{1} It was while passing there one day that he picked up this fatal idea, as it lay in a pool of blood, under the red pillars of the guillotine.

Since then, each time that among the funereal Thursdays of the Court of Appeals there came one of those days when the cry of a death-sentence was heard in Paris—each time that the author heard under his windows the hoarse howlers who excite the spectators at the Grève—each time the saddening idea would return, would take possession of him, filling his head with armed men, with executioners, and with the crowd, and would expose to him, hour by hour, the last sufferings of the dying wretch. At this moment the priest confesses him—now they are cutting off his hair—now they are tying his hands. All this appealed to him—the poor poet—to tell what he felt to society, which goes about its daily business while this monstrous thing is being accomplished—hurried him, pushed him, shook him, tore his verses from his spirit if he was in the act of writing them and killed them at the instant that they were coming into life, stopped all his labors, crossed his path, in every way invested him, beset him, besieged him. It was a torment,—a torment that began with the day, and lasted, like that of the poor wretch who was being tortured at the same moment, until four o’clock. Then only, when the ponens caput expiravit was announced by the sinister voice of the great clock, the author breathed again, and found some freedom of spirit.

One day, at last,—it was, as well as he can remember, the day after the execution of Ulbach,—he set about writing this book. Since then he has been relieved. When one of those public crimes called judiciary executions has been committed, his conscience tells him that he is no longer responsible for it; and he has not since felt on his brow the drop of blood which, spouting up from the Grève, falls upon the head of every member of the social community. This, however, does not suffice. To wash one’s hands of blood is well—to prevent its flowing would be still better.

He knows no more elevated aim, none more holy, none more august, than to aid in bringing about the abolition of the death penalty. And, from the bottom of his heart, he gives his adherence to the desires and the efforts of generous men of all nations who have worked for the past several years to cut down the fatal tree,—the only tree which revolutions have not been able to root up. It is with joy that he comes, feeble though he be, to give his stroke, and to enlarge with all his force the breach commenced by Beccaria sixty-six years ago in the old gibbet sanctioned for so many centuries by Christianity.

We have just said that the scaffold is the only edifice which revolutions do not demolish. It is rare, in fact, that revolutions are sparing of human blood; and, coming as they do to prune, to clear out, to lop off society, the death penalty is one of the chopping-knives which they relinquish with the greatest reluctance. We confess that if ever revolution seemed worthy and capable of abolishing the death penalty, it is the revolution of July. It seems, in fact, that it belonged to the most clement popular movement of modern times to scratch out the barbarous penal code of Louis XI., of Richelieu, and of Robespierre, and to inscribe in the face of the law the inviolability of human life. 1830 deserved to break the chopping-knife of ’93.

We hoped it, for a moment. In August, 1830, there was so much generosity in the air, such a spirit of mildness and moderation floated in the masses, the heart felt itself so cheered by the approach of a glorious future, that it appeared to us that the death penalty had been abolished by common consent—by tacit and unanimous agreement—with the rest of the evil things which troubled us. The people had just made a bonfire of the rags of the ancient regime. This was the bloody rag,—we thought it was in the heap with the rest. We thought it was burnt up with others; and, for several weeks, confident and credulous, we had faith for the future in the inviolability of life as in the inviolability of liberty.

In fact, two months had hardly passed by before an attempt was made to reduce to a reality the sublime Utopia of Cæsar Bonesana.

Unhappily, this attempt was awkward, maladroit, almost hypocritical, and made in other than the general interest.

In the month of October, 1830, it may be remembered, several days after having dismissed by laying on the table the proposition to bury Napoleon under the column, the Chamber in a mass set to weeping and wailing. The question of the death penalty was brought up once again—we will say a few words further on, on this topic—and then it seemed that all the bowels of the legislators were taken with a sudden and marvellous compassion. It was who could speak, who could sigh, who could

Reviews for The Last Day of a Condemned Man

[runningbeardbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The cold rain, the shackles, the dingy cell, the blood-thirsty crowds, and of course the galleys.
If you haven't read Hugo, this slim volume is a nice place to get your feet wet.


Further reading suggestions:

1. The beautiful prose, and dark humor of Nabokov's "Invitation To a Beheading."
(Nabokov clearly read "The Last Day...")

2. Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych;" a masterful portrait of a man in the grip of death.


Notable quotes:

"Nothing wrong with me? Well, of course, I am young, healthy and strong.
Blood flows freely through my veins; my limbs respond to my every bidding;
I am sound in body and mind, and equipped for a long and healthy life.
All this is true; and yet I have an illness, a terminal condition, and a
man-made one at that."

"My pardon, oh, my pardon! For they may pardon me. The king bears me no
ill will. Let my counsel be sent for, quickly, my counsel! I consent to
the galleys. Five years' hard labour should be sufficient; or twenty years;
or branding, then penal servitude for life. But spare my life.
Convicts are free at least to walk about, and see the sun."

[gbill_7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Capital punishment has always been a difficult issue for me, and reading Hugo’s slim book from 1829 was timely given a measure to repeal it in California will be voted on this November.The question that those against capital punishment must answer, I think, is why an incorrigible mass-murderer should be allowed to go on living, even if locked up in prison. Hugo’s answer to this is that we should not commit a murder in response to murder, and we should leave punishment to God. Atheists may have a problem with that last part, but the first part seems to be at the heart of the matter.The question that those for the death penalty must answer is why do it, particularly when studies have shown it’s actually more expensive, does not serve as a deterrent to crime, and enforcement is not only racially biased, but sometimes wrong, As David Dow says in the forward to this book, it seems to come down to a need for retribution, and aside from the slippery slope that represents, vengeance is one of the more base parts of human nature. Hugo doesn’t try to touch on those things or present a balanced argument; he makes it clear he is against capital punishment, and his approach is to make the case for all, instead of picking a single case of injustice (though they exist), or to focus on instances where the method of execution fails, resulting in cruel, lingering, agony (though he does mention a few). He alludes to the condemned man in the novel having killed, and mentions the hideous crimes of past occupants of the prison cell he’s in, but he doesn’t go into specific details for why this particular man should be spared – presumably because there will always be another person who’s committed worse crimes, and is “more deserving” of death.Hugo’s approach is simple – to show the humanity of the killer. He does this by writing in first person, from the condemned man’s perspective, showing his experiences in prison leading all the way up to his actual execution in the Place de Grève. Behold this thinking, feeling fellow creature, he says. Remember he is a father, husband, and son. Forget for a moment what he has done – what are you about to do?In the form of another convict he meets, Hugo shows how a man may have come to be a killer – orphaned, with a rough childhood, and once out of prison for theft and honestly trying to turn over a new leaf, shunned and denied work. Doesn’t this touch your heart of hearts, he seems to say, and shouldn’t we follow our most enlightened spiritual leaders in exercising clemency, and not become killers ourseves? You can hear those for the death penalty howl – remember the victims, *their* humanity, how they suffered! – and just where is “The Last Day of the Murdered Man” anyway? And so it goes. This book is pretty simple, and I doubt it will change minds that are entrenched. It does reveal Hugo’s noble nature, which I admire, and it did make me think, and for that it was worth reading. Interestingly enough, after having used the guillotine for the last time in 1977(!), France ultimately did abolish the death penalty in 1981, nearly a century after Hugo’s death in 1885.

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This short psychologically powerful novel concerns the thoughts running through the mind of a man in prison and condemned to the guillotine in the early 19th century. It was first published anonymously in 1829, then reissued three years later with a preface by Hugo denouncing the death penalty, both as a matter of principle and as an example of a political abuse that no revolution had been able to abolish. It is not clear what crime the unnamed central character of the novel has committed; the implication is that he has killed someone (there is a reference by his lawyer to his belief the jury will acquit his client of premeditation), and he several times refers to the guilt he feels for the crime he admits to having committed, but we never learn the circumstances. In any case, it is irrelevant to the book's main point, which is the psychological changes he undergoes as the days and hours shrink down to the end. A terse but memorable read.

[worldincolour · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Likely to have had an impact at the time, and written with the mandatory flair and self-pity. Yet not as gripping today as it was before.

[janemarieprice · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hugo’s polemic against the death penalty is crafted as more of an emotional reaction than a political rant (though that appears in the preface). At first the condemned man believes that “death is infinitely to be preferred” to a life of hard labor; however, as his diary continues, we journey through his thoughts as execution day looms. Most disturbing is the festival atmosphere surrounding executions. When a woman remarks on the higher interest level in seeing a death row inmate versus a chain gang, out narrator posits “it is less diffuse, a concentrated and more aromatic liqueur.”It is also filled with Hugo’s beautiful prose: “For La Grève has already had enough. La Grève is mending her ways. The blood-swigging old crone behaved well in July. She now wants to live a better life, and to remain worthy of her recent good deed. Having lent her body to all the executions of the last three hundred years, she has now gone all coy. She is ashamed of her former calling. She wants to lose her bad name. she disowns the executioner. She is washing down her cobblestones.”