BOUILHET Louis (1822-1869) poète, ami de Flau... Lot n° 21

Autograph poem signed "L. Bouilhet", To Mr. Victor Hugo, [Rouen, ca. 1840]; 4 pages in-4 (some small cracks). A youthful poem in homage to Victor Hugo, refused by the Académie française. This long poem, written with all the enthusiasm of youth in the year of his baccalaureate, while he was still "a student of philosophy at the Institution Lévy", is a vibrant tribute to the genius of the Master, whose Notre Dame de Paris he had read in 1838, and who had been refused entry to the Academy (he was elected in 1841); a refusal which Bouilhet mocked and was indignant about. The poem, in two parts, has sixteen sizains. "When with his bronze hand, one day, the Middle Ages In the heart of old Paris had from floor to floor Completed the giant temple [] Of your birth one day, promised from age to age, Hugo, this monument spoke [] The Academy saw advancing to its door The immortal poet, whom Our Lady escorts!... The Academy has swayed!"