International studio (22.1904)

"LA TOUR AUX RATS

FROM THE DRAWING BY VICTOR HUGO


ascended the Rhine from Cologne, Victor Hugo
reached Bacharach, two beautiful views of which
he depicted. "Bacharach," he wrote, "is the
most ancient bit of human habitations I have ever
seen in my life." He teiis, too, how he lived there
in Rembrandtesque interiors, and it is the outside
of one of these most char-
acteristic abodes that he
has fixed with so much
precision of touch, and
such absolute "rightness"
of values. From the
same town we have
another drawing : "Above
the Byzantine church, half-
way up, are the ruins of
another church of the
fifteenth century in red
sandstone, without doors
or window - frames, or
glass ... a magnificent
skeleton showing its proud
outline against the sky."
But it is the "burgs,"
even more than the
houses with their old
decrepit fagades, that at-
tract Victor Hugo. These "BURGDEVIANDEN'

eagles' nests perched on sheerest rock, high above
the troubled waves of the stream below; these
cyclopean towers in ruins covered with vegetation,
wherein he never fails to perceive the contrast be-
tween Youth and Death—-these are truly the chosen
spots whence he evolves his imposing Burgraves.

FROM THE DRAWING BY VICTOR HUGO

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