On December 2, 1851, President of the Republic Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I’s nephew, carried out a coup d'etat by dissolving the National Assembly and arresting members of the parliamentary opposition. On December 4, the army crushed the uprising in Paris, which killed many unarmed citizens, including women and children. Victor Hugo was one of a small group of deputies - passionate opponents of the new monarchist system. The December shootings made further fighting impossible. The writer had to flee the country - he returned from exile only after the inglorious fall of the Second Empire, in 1870. The collection of poems "Retribution" was written in hot pursuit of events. The solemn assurances of Napoleon III are ironically played out in the book headers, the prologue and epilogue are prefaced with the symbolic names “Nox” and “Lux” - “Night” and “Day” in Latin.

The miserable pygmy, the insignificant nephew of a great uncle, attacked the defenseless Republic in the darkness with a knife. The homeland is covered in blood and dirt: a despicable clique feasts in the palace, and under the cover of night the corpses of the innocently killed are dumped into the mass grave. When the numbed people awaken, the holy moment of retribution will come. In the meantime, there is no rest for the poet alone: ​​although even the elements call him to humility, he will not bow his head - let his angry muse become a worthy heir to Juvenal and erect shameful pillars for the villains.

France fell, the tyrant’s heel was driven into her brow. This geek will end his days in Toulon - where the glory of Napoleon began. The gangster-nephew is looking forward to convicts in scarlet jackets and shackles - soon he will drag the core on his leg. The crime inevitably follows retribution - thieves, cheaters and murderers who dealt a treacherous blow to the homeland will be damned. But while they are smoked incense venal sanctuaries - their cross serves Satan, and in the chalice it is not wine that sheds wine, but blood. They planned to destroy progress, swaddle the spirit, deal with the mind. In vain do the martyrs perish for their faith - in France they sell Christ, crucifying him again with greed and hypocrisy. There is nowhere to look: courtiers vying flatly flatter Caesar, stockbrokers are gaining weight on folk bones, soldiers are drunk, trying to forget their shame, and working people dutifully expose the neckline under the collar. France is now no different from China, and scaffolds for its best sons have been erected throughout the rest of Europe. But the iron step of the days to come is already heard, when the kings will take flight and the trumpet of the archangel will rattle in heaven. A joyful song is pouring - the Senate, the Council of State, the Legislative Corps, the Town Hall, the Army, the Court, the Bishops were born with a hymn of praise. In response, they hear the mournful thousand-fold “Miserere” (Lord, have mercy) - but the madmen will not heed. Wake up, people, stand up like the buried Lazarus, for the Lilliputians are harassing you. Remember how on December 4 a soldier, drunk with blood, was shooting at defenseless people - look how a grandmother was crying over a dead grandson. When rot penetrated all souls, it is better to be an exile on the island and enjoy the free flight of seagulls from a cliff in the ocean. The holy republic of the fathers is betrayed, and this is the work of the army - the very army whose glory has thundered for centuries. The ragged soldiers marched under the banner of Liberty, and old Europe shuddered under their victorious tread. Now everyone has forgotten about these warriors - they were replaced by heroes who playfully cope with women and children. They go on the attack of the Motherland, storm the laws - and the despicable thief generously rewards his praetorians. All that remains is to avenge this shame - to smash with a stern verse a new empire and a beast in a golden crown.

Once upon a time there lived an impoverished prince, who deceived himself the famous Julia. And so he plotted, committed “beautiful villainy”, entered the Louvre in the make-up of Napoleon ... Ancient leaders, great dictators of past centuries marvel at: on the pediment of the temple a fraudster flaunts in holey trousers - no, it's not Caesar, but just Robert Maker (the character in the play "Adre's Inner" is a type of cynically boasting robber and killer). He looks like a monkey who pulled on a tiger skin and went into robbery until the hunter tamed it. Those who are all the craziest and meanest have drawn to the scaffold's foundling - an honest man can only step away from them with squeamishness. They furiously work with their elbows, trying to get closer to the throne, and each upstart is supported by its own party: lackeys stand behind one mountain, corrupt girls stand behind another. But the peaceful bourgeois grumbles displeasedly, they barely come across a free article: of course, Bonaparte is a Mazurik, but why shout about it all over the world? Cowardly baseness has always been a pillar of crime. It is time to settle down in slavery - whoever sprawls on his belly will succeed. All the crooks and bandits will find a place near the money, and the rest will face severe, hopeless poverty. But you should not appeal to Brutus’s shadow: Bonaparte’s dagger is not worthy - a shameful pillar awaits him.

The people do not need to kill the fierce tyrant - let him live, marked with a cain seal. His henchmen in judicial robes refer to the certain death of the innocent: the wife goes to hard labor, who brought her husband bread to the barricade, the old man who gave shelter to the exiles. And corrupt journalists sing the hosanna, hiding behind the gospel - they climb into the soul to turn their pockets out. Fetid leaflets, delighting the sanctuary and the prude with tales of miracles, sell the Eucharist and make their buffet from the temple of God. But the living are fighting, they are in the coming great love or sacred work, and only by their asceticism is the ark of the covenant preserved. The Future hurries along an invisible road in darkness with an order inscribed with eternal writings - the judgment of the Lord is approaching over a despicable gang of robbers and murderers.

Robert Maker pulled the crown on himself, causing a commotion in the old cemetery: all the bandits of bygone times were eager to get to the coronation of his brother. And from Paris begins a general escape: the Reason, Right, Honor, Poetry, Thought go into exile - only Contempt remains. The tyranny awaits retribution for suffering and tears, for the death of the martyr Pauline Roland - this beautiful woman, the apostle of truth and goodness, died out in exile. And the great shadow of Napoleon is bitterly tormented: neither the death of the army in the snowy fields of Russia, nor the terrible defeat at Waterloo, nor the lonely death on St. Helena - nothing can compare with the shame of the Second Empire. Dwarfs and jesters dragged the emperor from the power column to give him the role of king in his booth. The retaliation for the coup of the eighteenth Brumaire has come to pass - the clowns take an example from titanium.

Miserable scum is now called Napoleon III - Marengo and Austerlitz are harnessed to the tattered fiacre. Europe is shaking with laughter, the States are laughing, the cliffs are wiping away a tear: a hero is seated on a throne in an embrace with crime, and the empire has turned into one huge stash. The French people, who once dispelled the granite of the Bastille and forged the rights of peoples, now tremble like a leaf. Only women retain their dignity - they execute the scoundrels with a contemptuous smile. And the poet's thunderous voice is heard: caution - this miserable virtue of cowards - is not for him. He hears the call of a wounded homeland - she begs for help. The darkest darkness foreshadows the dawn: France, harnessed to a wagon of a drunken satrap, will be reborn and gain wings. The bent people will straighten up and, shaking off the sticky dirt of the current garbage, will appear in all its splendor before the delighted world. The strongholds of Jericho will collapse to the sound of the pipes of Joshua. The thinkers, replacing each other, lead a human caravan: Ian Hus is followed by Luther, Luther Voltaire, Voltaire Mirabeau - and with each step forward, the gloom thins. But sometimes Evil comes out of an ambush with its vile offspring - jackals, rats and hyenas. To disperse these creatures can only a lion - the harsh ruler of the desert. A people is like a lion; Having heard his roar, a gang of petty crooks will throw themselves in all directions and disappear forever. One must survive the shameful years without tarnishing oneself: the wanderer-son will not return to his mother-France, while the self-proclaimed Caesar rules in her. Let there remain a thousand, a hundred, a dozen stubborn - the poet will be among them; and if all the voices of protest fall silent, one will continue the struggle.

The holy dream shines far away - you need to clear the way to it. A crimson ray sparkles in the darkness - the star of the world Republic. Free humanity will become a single family, and prosperity will come on the whole earth. This will happen inevitably: freedom and peace will return, the slave and the poor will disappear, love will descend from heaven, the holy cedar of Progress will overshadow America and Europe. Perhaps today's people will not live up to such happiness: but they too, waking up in their graves for a moment, kiss the holy roots of the tree.