HUGO (Victor)(1802-1885). Born in Besançon. 1802-1885. French writer, poet and playwright. L.A.S. "Victor Hugo" to Théodore de Banville. Brussels, s.d. [17 July 1866]. 1 1/2 page in-8 on blue paper. A VERY BEAUTIFUL LETTER OF COMPLIMENT. Victor Hugo has just finished reading the play Gringoire and congratulates his correspondent who has written ...an exquisite work, profoundly sad and profoundly gay, like all true comedy. It is the poet's sob through the philosopher's laughter. It is human destiny underlined by ideal art (...) Your Louis XI [one of the characters in the play] makes us shudder and smile, and what a charming figure of a woman... He continues ... Your two ballads are beautiful and poignant. I thank you, my poet, for all the services you render to the ideal (...) Thank you for my name beside yours... The poet Théodore de Banville (1823-1891) dedicated his play Gringoire to Victor Hugo for featuring a young poet in Notre-Dame de Paris, inspired by the medieval poet Pierre Gringoire (1475-1539).