Victor HUGO. Manuscript signed with autograph additions and corrections, Au Congrès de la Paix, Paris September 10, 1875; 2pages in-fol. (split 1st leaf with consolidated fold on spine). Magnificent political message on the peace of nations, France and Germany, and a veritable plea for a United States of Europe, in response to the invitation extended to him by the Congrès de la Paix. This text was collected with some variants in Actes et Paroles, III Après l'exil, I, xxiv. Victor Hugo inscribed the title and date in his own hand: "Au Congrès de la Paix. Paris, September 10, 1875"; he has added a sentence, made three corrections, crossed out at the end the date of September 9 inscribed by his secretary, and signed it "Victor Hugo". He was moved by the appeal of the Peace Congress... "There are at present two efforts in civilization, one for, the other against; the effort of France and the effort of Germany. Each wants to create a world. What Germany wants to do is Germany; what France wants to do is Europe. To make Germany is to build the empire, i.e. the night; to make Europe is to give birth to democracy, i.e. the light. Have no doubt, between these two worlds, one dark, the other radiant, one false, the other true, the choice of the future is made. The future will decide between Germany and France; it will give back to one its share of the Danube, to the other its share of the Rhine, and it will give both of them this magnificent gift, Europe, that is to say the great federal republic of the continent. [...] This fratricidal brotherhood will come to an end, and the Europe of the Coalition Kings will be succeeded by the Europe of the United Peoples. Will it happen today? No. Tomorrow? Yes. So let's have faith and look to the future. No peace until then. I say this with pain, but with firmness. A dismembered France is a human calamity. France does not belong to France. It belongs to the world; for human growth to be normal, France must be whole; a province missing from France is a force missing from progress, an organ missing from the human race; that's why France can concede nothing from France. Its mutilation mutilates civilization. [...]. You can't put peace on that. To pacify, you have to appease; to appease, you have to satisfy. Brotherhood is not a surface fact. Peace is not an overlay. Peace is a result. Peace cannot be decreed any more than the dawn can be decreed. When the human conscience feels in balance with social reality; when the fragmentation of peoples has given way to the unity of continents, [...] when the frontiers between nation and nation disappear, and between good and evil are re-established, when each man makes of his own probity a kind of inner homeland, then men love each other, and peoples unite as naturally as grass grows; then, just as day is made, peace is made, day by the rising of the star, peace by the rise of law. Such is the future. I salute it". Provenance: archives of Charles Lemonnier, president of the Ligue Internationale de la Paix et de la Liberté, promoter of the idea of a European Confederation.