Used Book – Hernani, Victor Hugo

"What time is it?" Is that a way for a king to speak? And instead of being answered with dignity: "From my dwelling, Lord, the clock finally strikes the twelfth hour," he hears himself simply told: "Midnight"...

That was all it took for the battle to begin. Racinian passion, Corneillian honor, nothing was missing from Hernani, except respect for the majestic alexandrine. Peelings, sweepings, garbage, insults began to fly in the sacrosanct Comédie-Française, thrown by the proponents of classicism at the bearded and long-haired horde of romantics. A cabbage core even landed on Mr. de Balzac's head. And night after night the battle resumed, spreading to the provinces where, in Toulouse, a young man died in a duel for having defended Victor Hugo.

A death that gives full weight of truth to theatrical illusion.

Preface by Antoine Vitez.

Commentary and notes by Anne Ubersfeld.