Introduction
L’Homme Qui Rit (1869) is a novel by Victor Hugo, who took as his theme the miseries set in train by acts of arbitrary power; though his story was set in England during the reign of King James II (1685-1688), France in his own day, under Napoleon III, was uppermost in his mind. In this passage, Hugo takes a moment to reflect ruefully on the way that the public idolises the Power of the State.
ONE idiotic habit of the people is to attribute to the king what they do themselves. They fight. Whose the glory? The king’s. They pay. Whose the generosity? The king’s. Then the people love him for being so rich. The king receives a crown from the poor, and returns them a farthing.* How generous he is! The colossus* which is the pedestal contemplates the pigmy which is the statue. How great is this myrmidon!* he is on my back. A dwarf has an excellent way of being taller than a giant; it is to perch himself on his shoulders.* But that the giant should allow it, there is the wonder — and that he should admire the height of the dwarf, there is the folly.
Simplicity of mankind! The equestrian statue, reserved for kings alone, is an excellent figure of royalty: the horse is the people. Only that the horse becomes transfigured by degrees. It begins in an ass; it ends in a lion. Then it throws its rider, and you have 1642 in England and 1789 in France; and sometimes it devours him, and you have in England 1649, and in France 1793.* That the lion should relapse into the donkey is astonishing; but it is so.*
* The crown and the farthing were both units of currency in the United Kingdom before decimalisation in 1971. A crown was a coin equal to five shillings, or 60 pence, with four crowns to the pound sterling. A farthing was half a halfpenny, that is, a quarter of a penny — not much of a return on a crown.
* The two Colossi of Memnon are statues some sixty feet high that were raised in 1350 BC in honour of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, and stand to this day west of Luxor in Egypt. See a picture at Wikimedia Commons. In 280 BC, another colossus, the Colossus of Rhodes, was erected by Chares of Lindos on the island of Rhodes, in honour of the sun-god Helios and as a thanksgiving for a successful defence against Demetrius Poliorcetes, King of Macedon. At 108 feet high (roughly the same as the Statue of Liberty in New York) it was reckoned one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World before it collapsed during an earthquake in 226 BC.
* The Myrmidons were a legendary people of Thessaly in Greece who accompanied their King, Achilles, to the Trojan War. Their name derives from μύρμηξ, the ancient Greek word for an ant (giving its name to a genus of ants formerly called Myrmex and now called Pseudomyrmex) and their behaviour was suited to it: they swarmed after their king with busy and blind devotion, carrying out whatever task was assigned to them. Hugo uses the word to mean a person of no real significance or personality.
* “If I have seen farther,” wrote Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke (1605-1703) on February 5th, 1676, “it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” The sentiment has been traced back as far as Bernard of Chartres in the twelfth century.
* In 1642, the Civil War broke out in England, pitting Charles I against his Parliament; the King was executed in 1649 on a charge of treason. In 1789, the French Revolution broke out, pitting Louis XVI against his Parliament; Louis was executed in 1792.
* Hugo is referring to the Restoration in 1660, when the English public, weary of Oliver Cromwell’s bankrupt, dictatorial and squabbling republic, begged King Charles II to return from his exile in France. See The Return of King Charles II. In 1804, France also restored monarchy in the shape of Emperor Napoleon I, and the brief Second Republic (1848-1852) duly made way for the Empire of Napoleon III (1852-1870). It was towards the end of Napoleon III’s reign that Victor Hugo wrote his novel. Fellow Frenchman Guy de Maupassant was not an admirer of Napoleon III either: see ‘The Empire is Peace!’.
Précis
Whether it is victory in war or plenty in peace, said Victor Hugo, the People credit their Government with what they themselves have achieved. From time to time, admittedly, the People unseat their rider, as England did with Charles I and France with Louis XVI, but they always let someone else climb into the saddle again. (56 / 60 words)
Whether it is victory in war or plenty in peace, said Victor Hugo, the People credit their Government with what they themselves have achieved. From time to time, admittedly, the People unseat their rider, as England did with Charles I and France with Louis XVI, but they always let someone else climb into the saddle again.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, besides, just, may, otherwise, until, whereas, who.
Archive
Word Games
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Mankind. Whose. You.
2 Ass. Have. Love.
3 Astonish. Idiotic. Throw.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Statements, Questions and Commands Find in Think and Speak
Use each word below in a sentence. Try to include at least one statement, one question and one command among your sentences. Note that some verbs make awkward or meaningless words of command, e.g. need, happen.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Return. 2 Reserve. 3 End. 4 Receive. 5 Back. 6 Fight. 7 Become. 8 Wonder. 9 People.
Variations: 1. use a minimum of seven words for each sentence 2. include negatives, e.g. isn’t, don’t, never 3. use the words ‘must’ to make commands 4. compose a short dialogue containing all three kinds of sentence: one statement, one question and one command
Add Vowels Find in Think and Speak
Make words by adding vowels to each group of consonants below. You may add as many vowels as you like before, between or after the consonants, but you may not add any consonants or change the order of those you have been given. See if you can beat our target of common words.
wt (5)
await. wait. wet. wit. wot.
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