158 - HUGO, Victor. *La Pitié suprême*.

HUGO, Victor. *La Pitié suprême*. First edition of this plea against the death penalty, featuring a signed autograph dedication and preserved in a full binding by the Babouot workshops. Paris, Calmann Lévy, 1879. Large 8vo, full ebony Jansenist chagrin, ribbed spine, gilt inner wheel, double gilt fillet on the edges, guilloché caps, gilt head, untrimmed, covers and spine preserved. Binding signed Babouot. 142 pp. Minor scuffs at the top of the spine. First edition. Copy enhanced with an autographed dedication: “To Mr. Hément / Victor Hugo,” by Edgar Hément, editor at the newspaper *Le Temps*. This long poem continues Victor Hugo’s lifelong struggle for the abolition of the death penalty. *La Pitié suprême* contrasts universal forgiveness with the legal violence of the scaffold. In it, Hugo asserts that society must educate rather than punish, identifying ignorance as the true source of crime. [Vicaire, IV, 359–360]. Ex-libris bearing the Fouquet coat of arms, a Basque bourgeois family originally from Bayonne, adorned with a red squirrel and the motto: “Quo non ascendam.” A beautiful copy produced by the Babouot workshops, the historic bookbinder for the prestigious *La Pléiade* collection.