To her, he was “Toto,” a great poet, writer and philanthropist. To him, she was “Juju,” a poor actress who became the love of his life. From the very start of their relationship he told her, “Write to me. Write me everything that comes into your head, everything that makes your heart beat.” And she did. The love story between Victor Hugo (1802-1885) and Juliette Drouet, which lasted about 50 years, is documented through roughly 20,000 love letters. Thanks to them, we can learn a great deal about this couple, whose love became, without question, one of the great symbols of the 19th century.
The Beginning of the Romance with Victor Hugo
Juliette Joséphine Gauvin (1806-1883) was born in the town of Fougères in Brittany. At age two she was orphaned, but thanks to an uncle whose surname, Drouet, she took as her own, she was sent to Paris and educated in a convent there.
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 stage actress. During her acting career she met Victor Hugo, when she landed the role of Princess Negroni in his play “Lucrezia Borgia.” The year was 1832, and by that time Juliette had already had four lovers.
Victor Hugo was no slouch either: shortly before meeting her, he had taken up with a well-known mistress who worked at a bakery (if you want to know how Victor Hugo, who at the time lived on Place des Vosges, managed to slip away from his wife to see his mistress, you’re welcome to take my walking tour of the Marais). And if for a moment you start to feel sorry for Adèle Foucher (1803-1868), Victor Hugo’s wife, don’t worry: in 1831 she had taken as her own lover the celebrated literary critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869).
Life in Guernsey and the Return to France
But let’s get back to Victor Hugo and Juliette. On February 16, 1832, she sent him her first letter, or really a note, inviting him to a private rendezvous. It was the start of a relationship that would end only with her death. In order to let her live near him without raising his wife’s suspicion any further, Victor employed her as his secretary, and she followed him into exile in Belgium, then to Jersey, and afterward to Guernsey.
During her time on Guernsey, Juliette first lived at the Crown Hotel (today the pub The Ship and Crown stands on the site), but even though the hotel was right on the waterfront, she wanted to be closer to her beloved and moved near 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 signals they used to let each other know when “the coast was clear” and it was safe to meet. In 1864 Juliette agreed to move once again, this time to Hauteville 20, a more elegant house that Victor Hugo bought for her as a gift. On January 22, 1867, a historic event took place in that very house: 35 years after their relationship began, Juliette met Hugo’s wife for the very first time.
From then on, Juliette became something like a member of the family, and whenever Adèle went on long trips away from Guernsey, Victor Hugo would bring his children over to spend time at Juliette’s house. In 1870, with the fall of Napoleon III’s regime, Victor Hugo returned to France, and Juliette followed him back. She lived until her death in 1883 on Rue Jean de la Fontaine, and she never stopped writing to Victor Hugo, almost up until her last day.
The Love Letters of Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet
In my opinion, the love story of Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet is especially charming because of their love letters, which still move readers today even though they were written more than 150 years ago. Take, for example, this excerpt from one of the first letters Juliette Drouet wrote to her beloved in 1833:
Before I begin copying the letter or counting words, I must write you one line of love, my dear madman. I love you, do you understand? I love you! I love you, which means I am faithful to you, I think only of you, I speak only to you, I touch only you, I breathe you, I desire you, I dream of you. In one word, I love you! And that says everything.
But it doesn’t take even a year before the lovers’ quarrels begin. One day they arrange to meet, but he doesn’t show up, and here is the result:
At a quarter to one I arrived at the print shop and did not find you there. I left you a note, went home, and did not find you there either. Thank you so much for treating me like a stray dog. You promised me you would be at the print shop or at my house, and you forgot it immediately. 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 afterward she breaks down and writes a secret letter to Victor, enclosed in a letter she sent to a friend:
My love, I love you more than anything. I cannot live without you. I am ready to die for you.
Three months later they are back together, and the romance continues to flourish. So that Victor Hugo’s wife would not suspect anything, they used various means to pass letters to one another. For example, when they went on vacation and Hugo and his family stayed at Les Roches while she stayed at Le Metz, a few kilometers away, they used a chestnut tree halfway between the two houses as a kind of mailbox.
Juliette’s letters delighted Victor Hugo, and he became completely addicted to them. In their correspondence you can actually see how he scolds her if she forgot to write for a few days, or if she wrote too little. That is why most of these letters have survived to this day. In fact, Victor Hugo loved them so much that one day, after a quarrel between them, when she threw a pile of letters into the fire, he forced her to rewrite every single one.
And so their love continued to flourish, both in exile and after they returned to France. Along with the love, the letters kept coming, right up to the very last moment:
January 1, 1883.
My dear Toto, I do not know where I will be next year, but I am proud and happy to sign my “proof of life” for this year with a single sentence: “I love you.”
Juliette Drouet died a few months later and was buried beside her daughter Claire at the Saint-Mandé cemetery near Paris. A few years before her death, Juliette had asked Victor to dedicate a poem to her for her gravestone, should she die before him, and so it was.
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