He was “Toto” to her, a great poet, writer and philanthropist. She was “Jojo” to him, a poor actress who became the love of his life. From the beginning of their relationship, he told her, “Write to me. Write to me anything that comes to your mind, anything that makes your heart beat.” And she did. The love story between Victor Hugo to Juliette Drouet, which lasted for about 50 years and was documented through some 20,000 love letters. Thanks to them, we can learn quite a bit about the couple, whose love became, without a doubt, one of the symbols of the 19th century.
The beginning of the novel with Victor Hugo
Juliette Josephine Gauvin (1806-1883) was born in the town of Fougeres in Brittany. She was orphaned at the age of two, but thanks to her uncle, whose surname she adopted, Drouet, she was sent to Paris, where she was educated at a convent.
After spending most of her childhood and youth there, she worked as a model for painters and sculptors and at the same time began a career as a theater actress. During her stage career, she met Victor Hugo, when she managed to get the role of Princess Negroni in his play “Lucrezia Borgia”. The year was 1832 and at that time Juliette already had four lovers.
Victor Hugo didn't kill any birds either, and some time before that he took a well-known mistress who worked in a boulangerie (if you want to know how Victor Hugo, who was then living inVosges Square, managed to slip away from his wife to his mistress, you are welcome to do the My itinerary in the Marais). And if for a moment you start to feel sorry for Adele, Victor Hugo's wife, don't worry, in 1831 she took the famous literary critic Saint Beuve as her lover...
Life in Guernsey and the return to France
But let's get back to Victor Hugo and Zoëlite. On February 16, 1832, she sent him her first letter, or rather a note in which she invited him to an intimate meeting with her. This was the beginning of a relationship that only ended with her death. In order to allow her to live by his side without his wife becoming too suspicious, Victor employed her as his secretary and she followed him into exile in Belgium and from there to Jersey and then toGuernsey.
During her time in Guernsey, Juliette initially lived at the Crown Hotel (now the name of the pub The Ship and Crown), but although it was right on the beach, she wanted to be closer to her lover and moved closer to Hauteville House where Victor Hugo lived. The house she lived in was called La Fallue and from her windows she could watch Victor Hugo at work.
They also had special signs that they used to let each other know that “the space is empty” and that they could meet. In 1864, Juliette agreed to move again, this time to 20 Hauteville, a more elegant house that Victor Hugo had bought her as a gift. On January 22, 1867, a historic event took place in this house, when, 35 years after their relationship began, Juliette met Hugo’s wife for the first time.
From then on, Juliette became something of a housewife, and when Adele went on long trips outside Guernsey, Victor Hugo brought his children to spend time at Juliette's house. In 1870, with the fall of Napoleon III, Victor Hugo returned to France and Juliette followed him. She lived until her death in 1883 in the Rue Jeanne de la Fontaine and continued to correspond with Victor Hugo almost until her last day.
The love letters of Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet
To me, the love story of Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet is especially charming because of their love letters, which continue to move even though they were written more than 150 years ago. Here, for example, is an excerpt from one of the first letters that Juliette Drouet wrote to her lover in 1833:
Before I start copying the letter or counting words, I need to write you one line of love, my dear crazy one. I love you, do you understand? I love you! I love you, which means I am faithful to you, think only of you, talk only of you, touch only of you, breathe you, desire you, dream of you. In one word, I love you! And that says it all…
However, less than a year passes before the lovers begin to quarrel. One day he makes an appointment with her but doesn't show up and here's the result:
It's a quarter to one. I arrived at the printing house and didn't find you. I wrote you a note, I went home and I didn't find you there either. Thank you very much for treating me like a stray dog. You promised me you'd be at the printing house or at my house and you immediately forgot about it. It seems our love is not dear to your heart….
Juliette decides to leave Victor Hugo and travel to the city of Rennes, but shortly afterwards she breaks down and writes in a secret letter to Victor, which is attached to a letter she sent to her friend:
…My beloved, I love you more than anything. I can’t live without you. I am ready to die for you…
Three months later they return to each other and the romance continues to blossom. In order for Victor Hugo's wife not to feel, they used various means to deliver the letters to each other. For example, when they went on vacation and Hugo and his family lived in Les Roches while she lived in Le Metz, which is a few kilometers away, they used a chestnut tree in the middle of the road as a kind of mailbox.
Juliette's letters charm Victor Hugo and he begins to become quite addicted to them. From their letters you can really see how he scolds her if she forgot to write to him for a few days or if she wrote too little. This is why most of these letters have survived to this day. In fact, Victor Hugo loved them so much that one day, when as a result of a fight between them, she threw a pile of letters into the fire, he forced her to rewrite them all…
And so the love between them continued to blossom both in exile and when they returned to France. And along with the love, the letters continued right up until the very last moment:
January 1, 1883.
Dear Toto, I don't know where I will be next year, but I am proud and happy to sign my "life certificate" for this year with one sentence: "I love you"...
Juliette Drouet died a few months later and was buried next to her daughter Claire in the Saint-Mendes cemetery in Paris. A few years before her death, Juliette asked Victor to dedicate a poem to her on her tombstone, should she die before him, and this is what happened:
