Victor Hugo and the ruin of Bourscheid
Victor Hugo, the godfather of the Romantic Movement, introduced the Luxemburg town of Vianden into French literature. He also mentioned the castle, an immense ruin in the hills, in his writing. Of all the castles he knew, he loved Bourscheid Castle the best. To get a good look at it, he twice made his way to the castle by an almost impassable route from the banks of the river Ur. He wrote about it in his Carnets, to chronicle its most beautiful aspects. After all, those writings would last longer than his memories.
The melancholy of romance
Our old castles fascinated the poet. They reminded him of past times. “The castle dates from the eleventh century to the fifteenth,” he wrote. Its mediaeval architecture, which was unappreciated in the Renaissance, came back into favour in the Romantic period. During the Middle Ages, people had reduced these monuments to ruins. They were highly valued during the Romantic period, however. The writers Diderot and Chateaubriand applauded the beauty of these dilapidated castles. As followers of the Romantic Movement, they sought happiness in sad things, in melancholy.
Travelling with a guidebook
Victor Hugo first learned of the Bourscheid Castle in Sur Les Ardennes. The Belgian Victor Joly wrote the book and the Dutchman Martinus Kuytenbrouwer provided the illustrations. Joly – a writer and journalist – had a good reputation in Brussels. He met Victor Hugo after his flight to Brussels in 1851, during Napoleon III’s coup. The first volume of Joly’s work was published in 1854 and the second in 1857. Joly sent the book to Victor Hugo, who often quoted from it. When Hugo first visited the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg in 1862, the guide to the Ardennes went with him. The guide dedicated a hundred pages to the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. When Hugo was in Vianden on 7 August, he wrote a letter to Joly, saying, “I am in the Ardennes, I am here with you, I am reading your book”.
Family outing on the banks of the Sûre
Hugo was also in Vianden in 1863 and 1865. On 20 September 1865 he made a trip to Bourscheid. He visited the castle of which Joly had written, “You need not go to Heidelberg or Kenilworth to admire the most beautiful military architectures of the Middle Ages in the middle of the countryside”. After breakfasting at l’Hôtel de Luxembourg he set off. He was not alone. His beloved Juliette Drouet – his inspiration for Tristesse d’Olympie – his sons Charles and François-Victor and Gustave Frédéric, a journalist for L’indépandance belge, accompanied him. The coachman was Baptiste de Dinant, with whom they had already travelled in Germany. The burgomaster of Vianden, Adolphe Pauly, rode in front of them in a cabriolet as guide. From Vianden, they travelled to Brandenburg, where they passed an extremely beautiful ruin. From there they drove upwards to Koeppenhaff and then descended to Michelau by way of Flebour. Hugo wrote that they then had difficulties with the transport, especially when – not far from Bramillen – they reached the right bank of the Sûre.
Impoverished Luxemburg
At the entrance of the ruin lived an old woman. In her, Hugo first discovered impoverished Luxemburg. “Her dwelling is in a tower. It was terrible. A dingy bench against the wall, a window blocked with straw, a couple of rickety chairs, an old table, the little old woman. She lives there with her maiden granddaughter”. Her name was Suzanne Bartz, she was 67 years old and had lived for a long time in the castle. At the age of 19 she had married Hubert Bartz. She bore 16 children, 8 of which died in their first year. Her husband died in 1850. Young Marie, who was 17 and lived with her grandmother, was the illegitimate child of one of Bartz’ daughters.
Hugo’s contrivances
Suzanne Bartz showed him a heraldic book about the lords and more specifically about their titles and functions. Hugo wrote,
Charles Hugo, baron de Metternich
François Hugo, baron of Vernich and Neckarstein, marshal of Luxemburg.
The fact that these barons had the same names as his two sons made him laugh. Hugo may well have jotted down that ‘discovery’ in his notebook to suggest that he was related to those people in Metternich. After all, he was sometimes inclined – so wrote Hubert Juin – to link himself with prominent persons. In Notre-Dame de Paris a certain Hugo is the Bishop of Besacon, in Les Misérables another Hugo is Lord of Somerel and in Le Rhin yet another Hugo is an arithmetician.
The decline of the castle
After reading about the lords of Bourscheid, Hugo wondered where their pride was. “We are wandering around in a ruin here,” wrote the poet. “Wandering around is walking in a place that is difficult to find again, in this case an area of 70 hectares. Where the many landslides make it impossible to create order. It is the shattering of walls and towers by a terrible fist”. The image Hugo creates is of epic dimensions, but does not reflect the truth. The weapons of the assailants, including Marshal Bouffler, were not responsible for the ravage. It was the neglect of the lords living there at the end of the ancien régime. They did nothing to maintain the great building. But it is the greed of the heirs who sold the dilapidated castle at auction in the early 19th century that should be seen as the destructive deed.
Flowers and drawings as a reminder
From then on, vegetation took over. Briars and bushes came up everywhere. Flowers, sown by the wind, bloomed amidst the rubble. One of those flowers that Hugo picked in Bourscheid on 20 September 1865 still exists! It is kept in an album of Hugo's that resides in the National Library in Paris. The flower is attached to a page where it covers three stanzas of Manuscrites de Senior est junior, a poem included in Les Chansons des Rues et des Bois. In addition to the flower, two drawings kept in Paris’ National Library, bear witness to the day’s excursion on 20 September 1865. Hugo, who, according to the writer Gaëtan Picon, liked to record everything he saw, always carried a pencil, a pen and a sketchbook. His graphic work, which is relatively unknown, comprises two volumes, each of more than a thousand pages. His work is published by Jean Massin as Oeuvres complètes. The two drawings made on 20 September show the state of Bourscheid Castle at that time.
The beauty of the Ardennes
Hugo found the ruin ‘admirable’, like the entire landscape in which a lord had decided to settle down a thousand years before. Chateaubriand spoke of the open character of the ruined monuments, exposed to the sky and to nature. Hugo and his party had to seek out the most observant people to explore the region of the Ardennes. The valleys and plateaus, the slopes of steep mountains bedecked with oaks, the Sûre and its meanders, the cottages in the villages. Hugo wrote, “The view is magnificent”. In an unpublished note in his notebook, he added, “Mr Pauly-Strasse has brought wine from the Moselle and water from the Seltz. Both are most welcome in this ruin”. In other unpublished notes, he wrote of steep alleyways leading to Vianden. The notes also mention that, as in 1863, the Philharmonic Society was giving a serenade for an illustrious guest in the city. The next day, 21 September, at two in the afternoon, Hugo and his party moved on to Clervaux.
Warm reception for Hugo
Hugo did not return to the Ardennes over the next few years. But the loveliest memory he retained of our country was the reception he received from the people. When he was exiled from Belgium in 1871, he chose to flee to Luxemburg. That year, he again spent the summer in Vianden. In July, Paul Meurice and his wife were his guests for ten days. Meurice, who had been held prisoner by the victors after the defeat of the Commune, was a faithful friend and great admirer of Hugo. It was Meurice who later set up an important museum for Hugo.
Second visit to the ruin
Hugo wanted to show his guest a few feudal ruins. On 16 July he led them round in Larochette, where burgomaster Jean Knaff invited them to lunch. The next day, they took a trip to Bourscheid, with Juliette Drouet and François-Victor, as in 1865. It was quite hot, but still more pleasant than Paris. According to our newspapers, the temperature rose to 35 degrees. As the weather was so good, Hugo hired an open-topped carriage and a coach for the day from Pierre Wahl, who lived in Rothergasse. The route he took this time was different from the route in 1865. “We went not by way of Brandenburg, but by way of Diekirch”. They drove through the valley along a path that lay further to the north than the road the coachman Baptiste had followed six years earlier. The remains of Bourscheid Castle appeared in the distance. “A wonderful view of the ruin from here in the mountains,” wrote Hugo.
Slaking their thirst during a brisk walk
The party that had set out from Vianden shortly after midday arrived four hours later in ‘the village below’ – Michelau. During the long journey in the sun they worked up a thirst. One of the three cafés - Frieders, Reiles and Malget – therefore had the honour of serving milk and beer to the five travellers who later reached the top echelons of French literature. “Then we continued on foot to the ruin”. For several years already – since the building of the railway to the northern region – it had been possible to cross the Ur by the railway bridge. Thus they embarked on a difficult climb of around half an hour. Hugo – who was 69 at the time – and his mistress, who was slightly younger – proved excellent hikers. In a letter from the Rhine he wrote, “You know my taste. I never have any trouble in continuing my journey by foot, that is walking”.
Admiration for the ruin
The Bourscheid ruin had hardly changed since 1865. A number of landslides had piled chunks of rock one on top of another and the cracks in the walls had multiplied. “An old, solid stronghold,” wrote Hugo, thinking of what the ruin had endured in all those centuries. Without mercy for the enemy and, too often, for the local population, they were dominated by powerful masters. “Un burg,” he added. A word French Romantics deliberately adopted from the German. A burg that resembled other ruins he had seen in his travels along the banks of the Rhine.
Lines of poetry in the guestbook
The two women living in the tower at the entrance to the castle – of whom Hugo had made a drawing that has still not been found – were no longer there. Suzanne Bartz had died in 1865 and her granddaughter Marie could not wait to fly ‘the dreadful nest’. There was therefore a kind of warden in the castle. His name was Nicolas Reis and he came from Schlassnékel. Hugo wrote, “A porter gave me a guestbook to sign my name in next to those of Paul Meurice and Victor". It is a pity the guestbook has been missing for years now. Some say that Hugo added a few lines of poetry:
Ruine sombre
Château fort
Dis le nombre
De tes morts
Notre vie
Qui t’envie
De ta mort
Regrette le sort (1 2)
Ruin in a deserted landscape
They returned to Vianden, arriving at nine thirty. They made the journey by Michelau’s ‘high road’. That way, the five tourists saw the castle from the same place from which they had set out, the difference being that a shadow now hung over the hill. This is the view – with the forlorn, ghostly ruin staring up into the dark sky – that inspired Souvenir de Bourscheid. Hugo wrote the piece on 17 July. Joseph-Emile Muller noted, “The bird flies with great wingbeats – is he leaving? One might think he wishes to escape. As if this nocturnal landscape banishes all human life”.
Hugo, the famous tourist
Hugo’s visit to the ruins of Bourscheid is also mentioned in a text from Luxemburg literature. The author - Joseph Tockert – mused on the fact in Am Vôlkenberg. Tockert and his ladylove Juliette were picnicking in the shade when the village schoolmistress came up in a blue blouse with a request from the mayor. As asked, in his best French Tockert wrote twelve pages on the visits of the famous tourist Hugo and his companions.