VICTOR HUGO'S romances occupy an important position in the history of literature ; many innovations, timidly made elsewhere, have in them been carried boldly out to their last consequences ; much that was indefinite in literary tendencies has attained to definite maturity ; many things have come to a point and been distinguished one from the other ; and it is only in the last romance of all, Quatre Vingt Treize, that this culmination is most perfect.