''Le Pape'' ("

The Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

") was a political tract in verse by Victor Hugo, supporting Christianity but attacking the rigid organization of the Catholic Church. Although written in 1874–5, it was not published until 29 April 1878, two months after the beginning of the papacy of Leo XIII. Leo's predecessor, Pius IX, had revealed deep divisions in the Church with his definition of the dogma of papal infallibility in July 1870. Hugo had long disliked Pius because of his support for Napoleon III, commenting in his diary: Pius IX placed ''Les Misérables'' (1862) on the Index of Forbidden Books in 1864, where it remained until 1959. ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Notre Dame de Paris'' had been banned in 1834. The work, a closet drama, depicts an unnamed pope falling asleep, and having a dream in which he participates in a pageant of scenes which represent generic situations in human history. Through a sequence of discussions and soliloquy, soliloquies, the Pope reevaluates his beliefs, and concludes by giving a speech in which he condemns war and capital punishment, endorses the Republican ideals of ''Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité'', and, in instructing the people to love one another, asserts that he abandons Rome for Jerusalem and Caesar for Christ. The poem ends with an ironic envoi in which the Pope awakens and shakes off his momentary insight.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pape Poetry by Victor Hugo 1878 poems