The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Alfred Barbou
Victor Hugo enters Notre Dame as into "prison", relates his wife. He stops only to eat and sleep. He buys a new bottle of ink, says Maurice Mauris, and does not stop until it runs out. "Notre Dame de Paris" and "Napoleon le Petit" are the only books which I have actually written without interruption", says Hugo. The bottle of ink was emptied just when the word "end" was appended to each of them. So the story goes.
Hugo completed the manuscript of the Hunchback of Notre Dame on January 14, 1831. According to Maurice, Victor thought of naming the novel "What Came Out of a Bottle of Ink". When in June 12, 1852 he completed the pamphlet "Napoleon le Petit" he wrote on the bottle with his last drops of ink :
Or so the story goes.De cette bouteille sortitNapoleon le Petit. -V.H.
Victor Hugo, Oeuvres illustrées de Victor Hugo, Paris: J. Hetzel 1853
Maurice Mauris, "Recollections of Victor Hugo. Guernsey", The New York Times, June 15, 1879; Isabel Roche's introduction to Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mass Market Paperback, 2004.
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