Rhine." It is true that Victor Hugo is a poet and not a historian.
What historians these poets would make, if they would but consent
to become historians!

One day Lamartine asked me to what I attributed the immense success
of his "Histoire des Girondins."

"To this, because in it you rose to the level of a novel," I
answered him. He reflected for a while and ended, I believe, by
agreeing with me.

I spent a day, therefore, at Varennes and visited all the localities
necessary for my novel, which was to be called "Rene d'Argonne."
Then I returned. My son was staying in the country at Sainte-Assise,
near Melun; my room awaited me, and I resolved to go there to
write my novel.

I am acquainted with no two characters more dissimilar than
Alexandre's and mine, which nevertheless harmonize so well. It
is true we pass many enjoyable hours during our separations;
but none I think pleasanter than those we spend together.

I had been installed there for three or four days endeavoring
to begin my "Rene d'Argonne," taking up my pen, then laying
it aside almost immediately. The thing would not go. I consoled
myself by telling stories. Chance willed that I should relate
one which Nodier had told me of four young men affiliated with
the Company of Jehu, who had been executed at Bourg in Bresse
amid the most dramatic circumstances. One of these four young
men, he who had found the greatest difficulty in dying, or rather