Naugrette Florence, « Juliette Drouet : a Companion in Exile and the First Reader of Les Misérables »

Talk given at the “Victor Hugo in Guernsey Festival” the 2^nd of April 2016.
Text translated by Marion Naugrette-Fournier.
My thanks to Marva Barnett, Gérard Pouchain, Jean-Marc Hovasse and Gérard Audinet for their counsel, advice or rereadings.

Par Florence Naugrette
Université Paris-Sorbonne

If there ever was one person on whom Victor Hugo was able to count all the time he remained in exile, this person was indeed his companion Juliette Drouet [1].

Naturally the other members of his family did also keep him company. His wife Adèle joined him in Jersey from the very beginning. But over time, wearying of the isolation and lack of social life among the exiles, she remained for longer and longer periods of time on the mainland, either in France, or in Belgium, where the Hugos had kept their house in Brussels. His two sons, Charles and François-Victor, who were not in exile, stayed with Hugo for some time. François-Victor in particular, took advantage of the long months spent in Guernsey to translate the complete works of Shakespeare. Charles, who quarrelled several times with his father, spent more time in France than in the Channel Islands. Also at the beginning, and especially in Jersey, Hugo enjoyed the pleasure of the company of his loyal friend Auguste Vacquerie, the brother of his late son-in-law. When in Jersey, Auguste hoped to be able to marry the younger sister of his late sister-in-law, Adèle, and to become another son-in-law of Victor Hugo. But he was rejected by Adèle who, in love with another man, could not stand him anymore, had made his life impossible at Hauteville-House, which led him to come back to France.

Juliette Drouet, on the other hand, did not leave Hugo’s side for a single day. She is the one who already had provided him with the fake documents necessary to his escape after the coup d’état in 1851. Only a few days after Hugo’s arrival in Brussels, she joined him, with a trunk full of manuscripts, which included the first version of Les Misérables. She never lives with him, neither in Brussels nor in Jersey or Guernsey. She always lives with friends, or stays at a hotel, or rents a place, and lastly, from 1864 onwards, in a house Hugo buys for her, Hauteville Fairy. She will keep this house even after the exile, just as Hugo will keep Hauteville House.

What I would like to show to you today is how Juliette Drouet lived in exile by the side of her great man. We know a great deal about this subject thanks to the daily letters she wrote Victor Hugo. Twenty-two thousand over fifty years, which are to be published in full by a team that I direct at the universities of Rouen and Paris-Sorbonne. I will focus today on two years in particular, 1861-1862, during the months preceding the publication of Les Misérables, of which Juliette was the copyist and therefore the first reader.

At that time she does not yet live in Hauteville Fairy, but in the house called La Fallue, nearby Hauteville House, from where she writes Hugo on an almost daily basis.

When no letter is available for a day, it is most often because on that day Juliette had to attend to her household and to her linen with her laundrywoman (as the letter of the following day informs us). She usually writes in the morning, between 7 and 8.30 ; very occasionally in the evening, when she wishes to return to some incident that happened during the day, or to justify herself for having been too busy. As by chance Juliette and Victor do not travel during the time period I have studied, there is almost no gap to be found in their correspondence.

The way in which the letters are written is constantly the same, with some essential steps in them such as these : the mention of the place (“Guernsey”), then the date (it happens that sometimes she makes a mistake to within a day), then the day and the hour, to within 15 or 30 minutes ; the initial apostrophe (“Good day my beloved”, or other expressions of the like), which are repeated with all sorts of variations ; we even have at one point “good day my dear little seal” (the animal, on 27^th June 1862) ; thorough questions about the time when he woke up, how well he slept ; information provided on the way she slept ; at the end of the letter, a declaration of her own inextinguishable love ; her signature, “Juliette”, is most of the time missing, for lack of space.

Other possible topics, though not mandatory, are these : the joyful or miffed evocation of their live telegraphy, that is, those signs they will have exchanged at that very moment between her window and his balcony ; advice given to Victor on his health ; questions about the way they will spend their day : a walk (weather permitting), some shopping in town (rarely), the joyful expectation of their little “festival” in the evening ; the summary of the copying or collating work she’s doing for him ; laudatory comments on Les Misérables ; reflections on their social and emotional life and on the life of the Hugo family ; evocation of the daily news in Guernsey.

The “Juju style”

When you pay attention to Juliette’s style, you are immediately struck by her opening and final litanies declaring her love to the recipient – even in the letters where she reproaches him for something – litanies that are sometimes the letter’s only subject . At first you might certainly find them hyperbolical, but then you end up questioning your own categories of style, realizing that any declaration of love is necessarily hyperbolical (do you ever love, or say you love, in a moderate way ?). That “flowery” style, so to speak, is perhaps not so rhetorical in the end.

In any case, those declarations are usually not devoid of humour, as in “I sleep like a log” (“un loir,” a dormouse in French), “I eat like a wolf,” “I am as strong as a bull” (“un rhinocéros” in French), “I love you like a dog and I adore you like a lion, here is my natural… (his-)story” (21^st of March, 1862). They are even naughty at times, especially during this month of February 1862, where Juliette’s declarations keep coming one after another at an unusually frequent pace : “I kiss you from head to toe in naturalibus” (on the 8^th) ; “I haven’t had a glimpse of you yet my dear little man but I’m not afraid of entering your bedroom and even of hiding myself under the covers… and for the rest if your decency is offended the fault is mine but this is the way it is” (on the 9^th) ; “I have a glimpse of all your naked parts through your windows and my sense of decency is not the least offended. What is to become of us ?” (on the 12^th) ; and lastly on the 14^th : “I have just saluted you in your grand Adam uniform and I must admit this outfit suits you well.” Juliette always uses the prism of the burlesque or a witticism to write about her physical desire.

Readily mixing the sublime with the grotesque, she sometimes self-mockingly puts herself in the picture, as in this comment, “if that wasn’t you, then I sent my tender looks to your… flannel waistcoat hanging from your window ” (31^st of January, 1862).

Her wit is also palpable in her quotations apropos Hugo’s works, for instance when she says about Les Misérables, her bedside book at that time : “I woke up this morning as of early dawn” (11^th of July, 1862). She is particularly creative with Ruy Blas, which she seems to know through and through. When talking about the weather, she imitates in a parodic way the letter to the Queen from the King gone hunting : “Good day, it is very windy, and I did not kill six wolves” (27^th May 62). Or again, when she mentions how happy she will be to spend Christmas Eve with him and her “dear little Toto”, she corrects herself by saying “I’m talking such nonsense” (24^th December 1861), which she underlines, to emphasize the quotation taken from Don Caesar who addresses the valet in such terms in Act IV, scene 3. She also indulges in broader references to literary history : “I had insomnia without any reason in particular, only to have it ‘art for art’s sake, that is all” (21^st January, 62), which indicates a clever understanding of the literary quarrels of the time.

She makes fun of the fact that they have to speak English. For instance, she asks herself how to write “excursion” in English : “excursion” or “excurtion” ? She then solves this spelling problem with a pun : “In England it must be written with a “T” (TEA ?)”.

In order to vary the monotony of her renewed comments, Juliette sometimes tells piquant or charming anecdotes, such as the episode of the birds feasting on the cherries in her garden :

A welcome song amongst the laughter from my blackbirds and my thrushes feasting joyfully in my cherry tree ; besides, feasting and merrymaking are everywhere nowadays around me, as all these winged gluttons frantically rush at all the trees ripe enough for their pleasure ; you never know who will do the most damage or who will open the largest beak. Suzanne is furious, and keeps cursing them, which gives her a good opportunity to shout as she pleases ; for my part, at your request, I comply with the laws of the most generous hospitality, and I let them peacefully devour all my cherries, of which I have only the stones left (16^th July 62).

Their “health agreement”

But, in a much more serious mode, the first function of the letter is to give news of her health and to enquire about Victor’s. She “obeys” (2^nd March 1862) this rule at his request, her letters beginning almost always with this topic.

An obsession, and a deep anxiety

We may perceive Juliette’s anxiety, which is real, and Victor’s anxiety as well, and probably the anxiety of their contemporaries, as to the prospect of dying from a nasty cold or gastralgia. Even if she does not openly say it, with this morning letter sent to Victor via her servant Suzanne, Juliette reassures him as to the fact that she is alive ; thanks to the information that the maids of Hauteville-House eventually give Suzanne, she makes sure of the fact that he is alive, too.

Juliette’s anxiety about her fear of Hugo’s death is made very explicit in many letters : “What is to become of me then ?”, she asks him. What is at stake behind that question is not only a matter of personal feelings ; it is also, though she does not mention it, a financial matter.

Juliette, who is particularly obsessed with sleep in general, prides herself on having slept well most of the time (“like a dormouse,” “like a log,” “like a shoe,” “like lead,” and even “like one or two black people”), and she would give anything provided that Hugo sleeps well. Juliette focuses on the time at which Hugo gets up, to infer from it if he has slept well, applying a mad semiotics which comforts or troubles her equally, whatever the case.

A top priority when it comes to their health preoccupations are their problems with their eyesight. Victor comes regularly to Juliette’s house to bathe his eyes. During that time, as Jean-Marc Hovasse has remarked, Victor is particularly preoccupied with his wife, Adèle’s eyesight problems, and he consults a doctor about them (at the end of her life, Adèle was almost completely blind) [2]. But he also worries about his very dear neighbour Juliette’s eyesight problems. They are to her a double punishment and a double bind. Indeed, as soon as she complains from her bad eyesight, Hugo makes an appointment for her with the doctor and takes the Les Misérables manuscript away from her (on 25^th September 1861) He even considers removing it from her for good andentrusting the copying to others. She is then terribly miserable and elaborates a subtle reasoning ad hoc : the more she copies, the better she sees ! A most dangerous denial, which she will pay for six months later, as we see in her March 17^th letter, in which she asks him for new eyeglasses, as hers put a strain on her eyes.

Juliette also complains of suffering from gout. In the spring of 1862, she has difficulties moving about and often asks for a carriage to go for an outing ; but there again, she resists as much as she can, as not being able to walk anymore would also mean the end of going walking with him, that is to say giving up her greatest daily pleasure.

Regime, hygiene, therapy

How do they take care of their health ? They walk ; they check if they overindulge too much (she worries that the watered wine taken the day before may have upset her). They take as panacea to their different pains quinquina, aloe, granular magnesia ; they consult Dr Corbin, whom Hugo regularly asks for advice, and with whom he makes appointments for the reluctant Juliette, who is forced to comply with his will.

On his side, Hugo also practices hydrotherapy. This fashionable hygienist trend, which consists in splashing oneself with cold water on his/her balcony while rubbing the body with an exfoliating glove, horrifies Juliette, who fears “this horrible daily torture of a cataract of freezing water on your poor naked body” (20^th January 1862). She advises her lover to “be very careful with this terrible health device always ready to kill you” (5^th January 1862), or capable of making him catch a pneumonia (8^th January 1862), even if one week later she admits that “this amphibious diet, half hippopotamus half crocodile, suits you well.” Juliette still labels as a hygienist habit his habit of airing his bed every morning (and this even if it rains), and she advises him against it in vain.

On the other hand she approves heartily of the building of the look-out, which had been decided upon in November 1861, since one of its effects would be more warmth : “I shall be well pleased indeed when I will imagine you in your warm little conservatory, sheltered from cold and dampness and surrounded with light from all sides” (20^th November 1861).

They also travel, which is considered a healthy habit, and even a therapy : on the 18^th of July, 1862, Hugo writes in his notebook : “the doctors advise me to go on a trip that will last at least 15 days” ; and naturally, Juliette, who is but too pleased, seizes this “medical” opportunity which, for once, agrees very well with her.

Material and social situation

As I have already pointed out, Juliette is the only person in Hugo’s circle who invariably remains at his side throughout his exile, obviously out of love, but also because she depends on him financially speaking. She leaves the island only to follow him when he travels.

Financial dependence

She lets him decide all the important expenses. For instance, she trusts him for the purchase of a quilt she needs : she asks him to come over to her house, where the tradesman has left it in trust, “so that you may see it and buy it if you like it at the cost price of 2 pounds 10 shillings. So here it is, deal with this as best as you can, for my part I love you without bargaining.” (30 March 1862)

It happens, in those peculiar circumstances, that Hugo reveals himself to be sometimes inattentive to her material needs. She must beg to have shoes, a toothbrush, slippers, a comb, “if not today at least as soon as possible” (10 March 1862) ; when she is not heard, she has to remind him of her demands as discreetly as may be on the following days. For instance, on the next day, she tells him that she needs only love and that she can do without the rest – a discreet denial. On the following week, still nothing. This time, she needs glasses, and she still needs the shoes, the comb and the toothbrush, hence this reproach that could not be kept silent : “You never have time to listen to anything coming from me, so that to keep you informed or to ask you something I must write it to you” (17^th March 1862).

She is embarrassed when she receives the claim of a creditor asking of her a sum of money she knows very well she has paid, but for which she cannot find the receipt.

At a distance she takes care of the housekeeping of Hauteville-House when M^me Hugo is not there, a bittersweet privilege :

You did well when you decided to remove the roughcast from your house, as indeed was needed, and above all because it pleases all the inhabitants of Hauteville-House so much. […] I do what I can so that you do not suffer too much from their absence, at least where material life is concerned. I ask you in advance to remember me a little when you will be again with all your beloved ones and to love me always, whatever inner and outer happiness is in store for you (8 September 1861).

But when his family comes home, Hugo criticizes her for the way she managed the house in Adèle’s absence ; she defends herself as best as she can, contending that she did her very best (18 December 1861).

Social discretion

Juliette’s social life is limited to a few loyal friends, among them Kesler (she thinks he is ill, as “his mouth stinks so much !”) and the Marquands [3]. With all the others, she remains shy : she does not like to entertain very much, except for Hugo and his sons, and reluctantly receives at her home Bacot – the photographer who arrives at Guernsey on the 28^th of June, 1862, equipped with a stereoscopic camera. Nevertheless she receives him, to please Hugo. He takes two pictures of her, which incidentally she dislikes : she thinks the likeness is not very good, but she declares that “she could not care less” (13 July 1862).

This shyness is due to the mortal fear of being a victim of “cant”, gossip or hearsay [4]. This explains why she reacts very strongly to the indiscretion of the Duverdiers, who are friends with Victor and Adèle Hugo, and who take advantage of Adèle’s absence to come and pay her an untimely visit, under the pretext that they wish to congratulate Victor Hugo for Les Misérables. She sees this visit much more as a forcible entry into her home, motivated by an unsavoury curiosity, than as a token of courtesy. She replies to Kesler, who might have acted as a go-between, that she wishes to keep “M^me Hugo’s relationships with old friends as intact as possible for when she returns. I hope that this discretion will prevent them from renewing their visit” (6 April 1862). This isolation that she insists on having guarantees her a degree of respectability, which greatly contributes to her emotional security.

Emotional situation

Is Juliette assured of Victor’s love ? Yes, undoubtedly. Does she doubt it ? Yes, she does, too. But as we are all very well aware of, love, like the subconscious, enjoys contradicting itself.

“Beyond my love, I am nothing”

Juliette’s love for “her little man” may be perceived through very simple expressions, or sublime expressions, sublimely simple and simply sublime, like “my true self is you” (11 November 1861), or “beyond my love, I am nothing” (1^st January 1862). This love expresses itself from the very first lines – a litany of “good day” and affectionate apostrophes – followed by the hope to see him waving at her from the balcony where he vigorously washes himself every morning. But Hugo is not always as attentive as she would wish him to be. For instance, he “telegraphs” her only from time to time, obviously not wishing to feel himself obliged to wave at her : “I do not know whether you are still in bed, or whether you keep your window shut because of the fog ? […] Aha, you have just opened your window, but you have disappeared before I could even catch your eyes in passing” (2 July 1862). Or then : “Good day you naughty deaf man, who does not want to hear when I call you, clapping my hands so strongly it almost hurts me” (5 March 1862). Some other times she is more fortunate : “Dear beloved our two souls have just touched each other in the look we have exchanged and our telegraphic kisses have been delivered where they were intended to be” (17 September 1861).

The few letters she receives from him enchant her, in particular his usual new year’s letter. She thanks him for having given her a portrait of him, and wishes for an album to collect all of Victor’s portraits.

She does her best to make his life pleasant, she keeps away from him unwanted people, who sometimes call upon her to have access to him. Only a certain “Mère Ledou,” for whom she has a particular tenderness, has obtained, thanks to her interference, a regular help from Hugo (“the poor woman forgets to tell me if she has received the first month”, 20 June 1862), something for which Juliette is infinitely grateful.

Loving him, serving him, softening his pains (which especially implies not causing him any)– this is the mission she says she has received from God. Therefore she always apologizes for any reproaches she might have made against him during the day.

As to their physical relationship, she never mentions it, aside from the saucy allusions of February 1862 quoted above. That would confirm that they hadn’t made love for a very long time ; however, we cannot be absolutely certain of this. Their correspondence, which has been opened by indiscreet institutions to the researcher’s and biographer’s misplaced curiosity, yet happily preserves the secret intimacy of the body – something we must be thankful for.

Juliette often ends her letters by declaring her full and entire submission to Hugo’s will, even in case of a conflict. Even the writing process of the letters themselves follows a ritual of which Hugo is the master. Every day he asks her to write what they both call her “restitus,” which she says she enjoys writing most of the time, but in which she finds no interest whatsoever when she has nothing to say.

Blessed moments

Juliette’s life is governed by the blessed moments where she sees her beloved. She always manages to be free for afternoon walks, and sometimes François-Victor comes along. When her legs hurt too much, Hugo hires a carriage for her.

He usually comes to her house to have dinner on Tuesdays and Saturdays (Saturday being the day of his/her “little festival”). When M^me Hugo is absent, back on the mainland, Hugo uses Juliette’s house almost as a boarding house or a guesthouse, sometimes along with François-Victor, and comes to have dinner almost every evening.

When they are travelling, Juliette lives with Victor all day long. Needless to say that, given the circumstances, she is always ready to pack her things, and prepares Hugo’s bags zealously. She reproaches him for not having brought her enough clothes two days before their departure and she fears the last-minute rush. She even writes to him on the morning of the departure, fifteen minutes before leaving : “before the hazards of the journey. I want you to take with you and keep with you this farewell of my love in case anything happens” (28^th July, 1862).

Beyond the trips, Juliette finds exile itself a unique opportunity to live on a daily basis near him. For instance, she celebrates the 2^nd of December as a blessed day for her, even if it is not “politically correct” : “Hail to this glorious day to you and happy day to me, since it is to this day that I owe the happiness to live closer to your heart and to you” (2^nd December, 1861). Whereas Adèle makes repeated stays in France, Juliette lives their exile as a permanent journey without a destination.

If she stills celebrates the 11^th of December as the anniversary date where he escaped from “the claws of Bonaparte” (11^th December, 1862), other anniversaries are more expected : births, patron saint celebrations, their first night of love (she begins to think to their 16^th of February three days in advance : “I make myself young, beautiful, charming and happy” (13^th February, 1862) and Shrove Tuesday as well (“a day twice special for us”, 3^rd March, 1862). This emotional relationship with the calendar is sometimes mixed with superstition, for instance when she receives a medal which belonged to her daughter Claire on the anniversary month of her death, she interprets it as a sign that her daughter’s soul looks after her.

Jealousy

Although she sees as a divine blessing the love Hugo feels for her, Juliette is not immune to jealousy. She keeps an eye on when he gets home after leaving her, and becomes suspicious about what he may have done before going back home when she has not seen his bedroom light on :

I do not know what you are up to when you take leave of me but I do know that most of the time I go to bed without having seen any light in your room, and yet I busy myself with many things after the time you leave me until I go to bed. But if you sleep well and if you are a man of your word then I do not need to know more (10^th of September, 1861).

Or then she thinks that he might have gone for a walk : “Most probably you are away serenading the moon on the mountain” (14^th April 1862).

Her jealousy sometimes focuses on a particular person. For instance, in September / October, she is jealous of M^me Engelson [5], whose manners she does not approve and who puts on simpering airs when she is with Hugo. Hugo seeks her company, and forces Juliette to receive her at her home, something she would very well avoid doing if she could. This we may infer from the following letter :

What is then the matter within us and around us which makes us so scared of our shadow and the shadow of others ? In truth I do not know ; but what is only too certain is that we go to great lengths to torment ourselves, and that we darken to death this poor remaining life, which is already quite dull and bleak in itself. If I were you, I would find a way to free us from these obsessions, these jealousies that are out of place, by removing M. G. on the one hand, and M^me E. on the other from us. This solution that is so simple, so efficient, and will restore our tranquillity and our reason deserves that you bring to it all your good will. As for me, I am ready to do anything it may take for the sake of it (6^th October 1861).

However, most of her time her jealousy is one-sided :

I am very well aware of the fact that the heart and the senses have their needs and their whims, but they must not obtain their satisfaction at the expense of everything that is most sacred, of the love and the trust of the other being who loves honestly and virtuously […] if your heart were to weaken, if you ever felt attracted to another love, I beg of you, in the name of your faith, of your daughter and of mine, I beg of you to tell me. Your honesty will maybe give me the courage of my unhappiness, but your duplicity would make me despair, and I feel would drive me to the most terrible madness. My beloved, love me if you can but do not be unfaithful, I beg you with all my soul (16^th September, 1861).

It happens precisely that Victor Hugo’s agenda mentions several “charities” to a certain “Paulett” in the previous days… And we know that the term “charity” is often used by Hugo to record “love-for-sale” meetings…

Juliette and the Hugo family

Juliette’s emotional life also encompasses her relationships with the Hugo family, and most especially with her favourite, François-Victor. She admires his physical vigour, as his September swims in the sea confirm, when he takes a shortcut to the strand through her garden with the key she has given him :

I know that he has used the garden key this morning and that he seemed very pleased with it. It will not be in my power to provide him with all the little pleasures that are at my disposal, for God knows how much I am fond of this charming young man, who is very dear to you. While I wait for opportunities to arise, for the moment I content myself with loving him through you, which is a way of loving you twice as much (13^th September).

On the following day, she prepares herself to read his translation of Two Gentlemen of Verona by Shakespeare, published in 1860 in the 8^th volume of Shakespeare’s Complete Works, which keeps François-Victor busy during his father’s exile. She is delighted at the prospect of going for a walk with them, and of receiving father and son for dinner at her house : “I think to my little festival tonight, on which I will gather the two Totos, that is the sun and the star, that is my heart’s whole astronomy” (21^st January 1862). But she laments herself over the interest that he shows for her neighbour : according to her, he “only seeks to put this charming young lady in his collection of memories and regrets” (24^th February 1862). In any case, the affection that she has for him is mutual, since he offers her a present for her name day, which ravishes her.

With respect to Charles, she echoes the concerns of Victor, who is furious that his son does not return to settle in Guernsey. Hugo shows her Charles’ very beautiful letter of the 8^th of April apropos Les Misérables, which Juliette comments on in the following terms : “How we feel in it both the sons’ emotion and the tenderness, mixed with the thinker’s veneration and the admiration. What a pity that he does not possess the will as much as he has the heart and the mind” (13^th April). She even takes risks by acting as a go-between between father and son to plead Charles’ cause.

She obviously has far more distant relations with their sister Adèle, whom feminine decency probably makes her stand by her mother more than the boys do ; nevertheless Juliette is attentive towards her in a kind way, for instance sending Adèle a cake with orange jelly on the 28^th of May 1862. Juliette endeavours to soothe Hugo’s feelings, who is distressed by his daughter’s prospect of marriage with lieutenant Pinson :

I beg you my poor beloved do not harm yourself, and accept with resignation and trust the fate your daughter wishes to choose by herself with far better knowledge than you, that is to say with the possibilities of happiness which appeal to her heart and her mind. Making yourself ill would not put anything right. (18^th December 1861)

Juliette is fond of Julie Chenay, Hugo’s sister-in-law, “the most charming and sweetest of women that is ever to be found” (17^th December). She finds her husband, “this fat, nice Chenay” (29^th November 1861) not very refined, but she pleads his cause to Hugo, asking that he allow Chenay to engrave a portrait she has, as Hugo’s sons also wish (11^th November 1861).

Lastly, she always talks about M^me Hugo with the utmost respect, and acknowledges that she tends to restrain her affectionate ardour towards Victor when their son is with them. She expresses a seemingly sincere admiration towards Mme Hugo after she hears Victor read a letter in which Adèle retraces the way she has defended his rights in Paris :

What a good and brave wife you have, my dear beloved, and how well she defends your glory ! When I was listening to the reading of this letter yesterday evening, my heart flew into her arms, and I would have wanted to have the right to kiss her and to tell her all my admiration and gratitude, but what I cannot tell her, my soul keeps it with increased tenderness and adoration for you (7^th May 1862).

A most convenient and advantageous transfer of affections indeed ! Juliette certainly feels a twinge of sorrow when Adèle comes back to Guernsey, since it means that Hugo will come and see her less often, but she is delighted (sincerely ? it is hard to tell) at the thought of Victor’s pleasure in being with his family again.

Juliette and Les Misérables

Last but not least, Juliette’s intimacy with Hugo also derives from the way she helps him during the preliminary phase to the publication of Les Misérables [6].

Her letters give us insight into Victor Hugo as a courageous and titanic man engaged in this gigantic enterprise, which Juliette always fears will ruin his health [7]. She laments over the additional work that his publisher Lacroix’s carelessness gives him when it comes to proofreading, and she criticizes “all the unrest that the umpteen blunders and signs of carelessness from your Belgian fellows give you.” Similarly, she supports Hugo in his endeavours to persuade Lacroix to let him divide the novel as he pleases (8^th February 1862). After the book has been published, she pities Hugo for wearing himself out answering the torrent of letters from his admirers, rather than enjoying a well-deserved rest. Her irritation reaches a climax when he shows her letters from high-society female admirers (such as the comtesse de Saxe), without letting her read his answers !

Juliette’s work consists in copying and collating – by attentively comparing the copy with the manuscript – and in checking the insertions. She then helps Hugo with the proofreading, for which she learns the typographers’ symbols. Being a modest person, Juliette acknowledges her limitations. For instance, she uses her idiosyncratic spelling to she jokingly laments her “weak [crazy ?] intelligence” with the phrase “ma “fouaible intelligence,” in which she combines “fou” (crazy, insane) with “faible” (weak) (12^th February 1862), and she confesses that she is “a fool who would be fully aware of her stupidity” (25^th April 1862). But she tries to improve and keeps asking for her “dear little occupation that I value above anything else after you,” that is to say the “copire, this panacea to all my worries” (7^th November 1861).

Her “dear COPIRE”

Juliette is very jealous of this “copire”, and she does not approve at all of Victoire Étasse, whom Hugo has hired in autumn in order to relieve her, just as she does not approve of the little Bénézit, and Julie Chenay. Several times she tries in vain to persuade Hugo to give up his copyists, as she suspects without spelling it out that Victoire Étasse might directly or indirectly, as others did, serve as an informer for the Consul E. Laurent who has been charged to keep an eye on Hugo [8].
As for receiving Julie Chenay’s help, she seems reluctant at first :

Besides I am quite astonished as to my future collaboration with Mme Chenay. I would have preferred to work alone, but as you do not yourself have a choice in this rush period, I do not have the right to listen to my fierce independence. I give in then, with the good will of a she-bear forced to dance a polka under the threat of a cudgel” (25^th October 1861).

Then, once the collaboration has started, Juliette underlines her superiority to Julie :

The most difficult part […] will consist in obtaining accurate corrections from your dear little sister-in-law. As to myself I cannot show her the way things must be done, my observations have no authority and you absolutely must do something and teach her once and for all what you wish to be done. Besides, the poor little woman does not suffer from the want of wishing to please you, but her good will needs to be guided by yourself, as only you know what you need (27^th January 1862).

But in the end Juliette grows to accept Julie altogether, and will even be eager to see her again.

A portrait of Juliette as a reader

Juliette discovers the novel in several ways. She has already read it before the time period we are studying here, in its entirety or in part, as she sometimes mentions some extracts she “did not know.” She discovers what has been added when she does the collating work, as she shows us here, when she comments with great insight on chapter I, V, 4 from Les Misérables (“M. Madeleine in mourning”) (she has just discovered Hugo’s passage on M^gr Myriel’s blindness at the end of his life, when he is described as “satisfied with his blindness, his sister being with him [9]”) :

As to being blind it makes one wish for blindness, for anyone who has a daughter, a sister, a devoted woman happy to devote herself to one’s infirmity. But for the person who does not have those spare eyes, who is alone in this world and who feels he or she cannot be but a burden, an embarrassment or a cause of annoyance, then being blind means being dead without the peace of the grave. As to myself, my poor beloved, who consents to live only to love and serve you, I ask God to remove me from this world on the day where I shall be of no use to you anymore. For the moment I can still see enough, thank goodness, to be dazed by what I have just read and to find myself quite happy to let my minute handwriting run behind your winged thoughts. I do not mind the strain and I have never felt my eyes more efficient and healthier, my beloved – it is not a page that you must give me to copy, but everything that you will be able to give me. The more there is the more I will work, and the better I will see, and the more I will be happy (2^nd October 1861).

Juliette also admires the chapter on L’Argot (“Slang”) :

Currently I am collating things that are really new, strange as well and very beautiful, and good to say, and most admirable : the chapter L’Argot. I did not know it and despite all the difficulty of the collating I can follow the general idea and I understand all its moral significance (29^th March, 1862).

She also listens to Hugo when he reads to her certain passages, such as the death of the member of the Convention G., which she heard on the 18^th of January, according to the letter of the following day :

How marvellously noble and sublime this death of G., and what bliss to hear it coming from you, it seemed as if the words came out illuminated from your lips […] I thank you in the name of myself and in the name of all mankind, as this novel will be for us all a moral solace (19^th January 1861).

And he reads her once again the Les Misérables chapter entitled “Waterloo” on March 25^th, according to the following day’s letter :

It seemed as if all the sublime electricity of your style had spread itself in the atmosphere as you were reading this stunning book : Waterloo ! For this morning before six o’clock the thunder was breaking with much force and the flashes of lightning were calling one another from one side of the horizon to the other, as if the battle wanted to start again in heaven. O my dear beloved, how beautiful, how grand, how divinely impartial this battle of Waterloo is ! And as Kesler very well puts it, the one who was won the battle is not Napoleon, nor Blücher, nor Wellington and neither Cambronne, but you !! The France who loses Napoleon on this day wins you in exchange. France owes God for this and the whole of mankind’s gratitude is not enough to repay for it (26^th March 1862).

The love for the book and the love for the author are intermingled in a fetishist relationship towards Les Misérables. As soon as Juliette comes back from a trip in September, she jealously keeps her precious manuscript : “I have printed at the same time the copy of Les Misérables, which I have immediately put in my big cupboard to have it closer to me” (7^th September). In January, she removes the manuscript from her dining-room and puts it in her bedroom : “from this day on your work will sleep with me, and it will make me happy as if it were a piece of yourself” (10^th January 1862) –perhaps she did not need to be so specific… Once the first part has been published, she waits with eagerness to have her own copy : “I am very eager to have my own copy to read it fluently and over and over again” (4^th April 1862). And she even predicts what we would nowadays call the “baby blues” at the thought of taking leave of the manuscript :

Tomorrow that we finish collating this dear and beloved manuscript. I could not tell if the regret that I feel at the thought of taking leave of all those splendours, which have been almost exclusively my own for such a long time, prevails over the joy of knowing that you will soon have finished with this inhuman enterprise (2^nd May 1862).

Paradoxically, it is the moment following publication that she most fears. She is naturally delighted with the public success of the book. But she finds it hard to save and summarize for him the newspaper press reviews, as Hugo asks her to do, since the slightest criticism exasperates her.

As we are celebrating the 150 years of The Toilers of the Sea, here is an anecdote that shows how Juliette Drouet inspired a passage of the novel. She often refers to the cannon fire shot from the Castle Cornet as the sun rises between 6 and 7. This cannon shot, which Juliette calls “Bum” or “General Bum,” indicates the soldiers’ awakening and shows the population that the island is under control. On the 10^th of January 1865, she greets Hugo with this morning note : “Bum…Jour : this is how the sun makes his appearance in this country. I will reply in this way : please do come in as I finish the scribbling of my other sun.” In the following weeks (in a section Hugo noted as having been written on the 30^th of March, 1865), he uses the same expression in Déruchette’s words in The Toilers of the Sea, chapter III : “She was not seen any more in the morning, at the cannon shot of early day, curtseying and saying to the rising sun : “Bum !... jour. Please do come in.” This example (among others) is proof that some sentences in Victor Hugo’s works stem directly from Juliette Drouet’s letters.

Now to my conclusion. When you read this year in the correspondence, you cannot but be touched on the one had by Juliette’s efforts to fight against her declining health in order to keep up with her rhythm, both physically and intellectually, and on the other by her fanatical love. Between the lines, we may perceive both a permanent autosuggestion to persuade herself of her happiness and to resist latent depression (often metaphorically suggested by her meteorological obsession with fog, rain, cold and the darkness that threaten her) and an absolute awareness of her extraordinary fate – living with Hugo, a genius for everyone and her own “little man”, and being loved by him.

These daily letters are both the sign of, and the antidote for, the distance that separates them (not a geographical distance, or a distance due to love, but a social distance), a distance due to prejudice and the most feared cant. In this sense, these little morning notes are the equivalent of the first phone call or of the first text messages of the day between two lovers of the twenty-first century. Later on, after the exile, when Juliette will live with Hugo, then a widower, she will keep on writing to him every morning ; but before that, her letters are all the more full of him as he is not there, or rather as he is not there yet. For the only time where he arrives impromptu in the middle of her writing, the letter is immediately interrupted in the middle of a sentence, with the words : “Ah ! here you are ! what a pleasure !” (5^th May 1862).

This is also the sign that all this scribbling, this hard-to-read scrawl (as Juliette calls it), this “restitus” he asks of her, besides being a way of exorcising their social separation thanks to affective nearness, these letters are also – just as they are to Winnie in Oh Happy Days ! – a way of gabbing with herself and thus, at every sunrise, keeping herself alive.