It's Mother's day? Pardon? The French who are famed for always being late celebrate two weeks after the rest of the world! Soooo... Bonne Fete des Mères. Here's a bouquet for you Mom!
Victor-Marie Hugo's writing often reflected a passionate devotion to his Mother. She had described the newborn Victor as being 'no longer than a knife.' He was a fragile and tiny preemie who wasn't expected to live through the week. Apparently a coffin and a cradle were ordered simultaneously from the carpenter. Hugo himself wrote that he was loved back to life by his obstinate mother. The care lavished on the sickly baby made him 'twice the child.'
Later in life he wrote this about his birth:
Already Napoleon was emerging from under Bonaparte.
And already the First Consul's tight mask
Had been split in several places by the Emperor's brow.
It was then that in Besancon, that old Spanish town,
Cast like a seed into the flying wind,
A child was born of mixed blood -- Breton and Lorraine --
Pallid, blind and mute,...
That child, whom Life was scratching from its book,
And who had not another day to live,
Was me (and I love vintage postcards).
