The Visionary Charge. Dreamers and Mockers in Victor Hugo's Les Chatiments

While it would be tempting to consider the collection of Les Chatiments (1853) as an essentially political work, giving way, three years later, to the metaphysical considerations of Les Contemplations, this article focuses on the truly visionary scope of Victor Hugo's great satirical collection: is the author not always visionary and always committed? Certainly, the fierce mockery of the headliners of the Second Empire seems to dominate the whole, but Les Chatiments, in a less marked way than Les Contemplations, multiplies the messages of an occultist nature, from "Nox" to "Lux", passing by "Luna" and "Stella". Hugo accumulates cosmological notations; he tracks down the correspondences between the Second Empire and other worlds; he tries above all to constitute a grimoire capable of radically modifying the political and social reality of the moment.