Juliette Drouet
French actress and mistress of Victor Hugo, 1806-1883
In 1833, while playing the role of Princess Négroni in Lucrèce Borgia, Juliette Drouet met Victor Hugo. She abandoned her theatrical career afterwards to dedicate her life to her lover. Her last stage role was of Lady Jane Grey in Hugo’s Marie Tudor. She became Hugo’s secretary and travelling companion. For many years she lived a cloistered life, leaving home only in his company. In 1852, she accompanied him in his exile on Jersey, and then in 1855 on Guernsey. She wrote thousands of letters to him throughout her life.
Source: Wikipedia
French actress and mistress of Victor Hugo (1806–1883). Autograph note. no place, no date. 8vo. 1 page. Blue paper.
$ 1,571 / 1.500 €
(44309)
Receipt of the expenses of the mistress of Victor Hugo, including 24f for the cemetery, likely St Mandé, where her 20-year-old daughter, Claire Pradier, was buried in 1846. Victor Hugo, who was shattered by his own daughter’s death in 1843, engraved the tombstone for Claire. Juliette Drouet, who survived this tragedy by almost 40 years, is buried next to her. Other expenses mentioned on this brief note include rent (300f), as well as payments at a pawn shop (40f).
French actress and mistress of Victor Hugo (1806–1883). Autograph letter signed, to Victor Hugo. no place. 8vo. 4 pages.
$ 4,712 / 4.500 €
(44356)
To Victor Hugo on the sculptor Victor Vilain, the lover of her cousin Eugénie, complaining about his heavy workload preventing him from attending church, as well as his visit to Paris having the sole purpose of organizing his move. She brings up Vilain’s promise that he will have Julie visit him in a month’s time, hoping he will keep his word, and lets him know that Vilain enquired about his and his family’s health. She concludes with her being available until the end of the month, mentioning a social event at Madame de Montferrier’s on Good Friday, where she hopes to meet him too.
Actrice française, maitresse de Vi^ctor Hugo (1806-1883). Autograph letter to Victor Hugo. Paris. 8vo. 3 pages.
$ 8,901 / 8.500 €
(44550)
Emotional letter to Victor Hugo about her wish that they should live the exact same number of days, bringing up a miserable night where he was suffering from insomnia and she was blaming herself. About a letter of Lerry cancelling his visit as he has to preside a banquet, and urging him to hurry if he wants to have lunch with Jeanne and still be at the Academy and the Senate on time. She concludes with a complaint about the weather, which however matches her own darkness, mentions not to reread her letter for fear she might burn it right away, and announces a billet by Angèle Magnin, which she will bring by his house to make up for what her own letter lacks in style.
– In 1881 Drouet’s life had taken a turn for the worse. She was terribly worried by Victor Hugo’s health, and was suffering from stomach cancer herself, knowing that she was to die of starvation. On 11 May 1883 she died in her Paris apartment. She was buried at Saint Mandé cemetery next to her daughter Claire Pradier. In 1883 Victor Hugo only entered a single phrase in his diary: “I’ll rejoin you soon, my dearly beloved”..
French actress and mistress of Victor Hugo (1806-1883). Autograph letter signed ("Juliette"). N. p. 8vo. 4 pp. on bifolium.
$ 9,948 / 9.500 €
(45290/BN31623)
Touching letter of a neglected and tormented lover. Unable to be mad at her beloved Victor Hugo ("Toto"), Drouet directs her anger and frustration against herself, while hoping that the expression of her desperation will oblige him. The translated letter in full: "Hello, my beloved Toto, hello my beloved little man hello, hello. I am confused, I am sad, I am offended, I am enraged. I don't want to see myself anymore and I punch myself in the face. I am furious with myself and I am sad in my heart.
I don't see you anymore, my Toto, I don't preoccupy you but I don't see you anymore. It is clear, however, that it cannot always be your work that keeps you with such regularity, but rather the visits you make and receive. In the past you gave less time to worldly duties and more to love. You worked as much, if not more, and I was happier. In winter I can stay up entire nights, in summer I cannot; as soon as one o'clock in the morning arrives my eyes close in spite of me. How can I see you then since you come, if at all, at this hour? I won't go to bed, I'll keep my windows open and I'll have coffee to keep me awake. That way I can at least enjoy the few minutes you can give me. I'll start this diet tonight, waiting. What is lost is lost, especially for me because you are not a man to give me back the lost opportunity. I am sad my dear love, really sad. I love you too much." - The letter can be dated with some certainty based on the content of other letters by Drouet from early May 1844. Particularly a letter from the evening of Thursday, 23 May 1844 that can be interpreted as an overture to the outburst of sadness that is the letter at hand. - With a minor tear to the lower right margin of the first leaf and an old reinforcement of the fold..
French actress and mistress of Victor Hugo (1806-1883). Autograph letter signed ("Juliette"). N. p. 8vo. 4 pp. on bifolium.
$ 9,948 / 9.500 €
(45291/BN31624)
Charming letter from Drouet's important correspondence with Victor Hugo. Written on a rainy afternoon, Drouet expresses her inner conflict of having "resisted the desire to accompany" Hugo, who apparently had left just moments before she wrote the letter, due to a stomach ache. Although she knows that she did the right thing "from the point of view of prudence" and hopes to recover after a good night of sleep, Drouet appeals to Hugo's conscience as she states that she could easily endure her "little discomfort with patience" if he was there "to mother" her.
As it happened, she could only follow Hugo with her eyes until his umbrella disappeared from her sight, musing about the possibility of following him if she had wings. In a particularly charming and curious final passage, Drouet announces that she won't give in to her belly and "borborygmi" like that again, both of which she then apostrophizes, scolds, and compares to Hugo's: "I am almost angry now for having sacrificed my heart to my belly. Another time I won't make such stupid concessions and he'll get away with it, and so will those borborygmi. What do they want from me? When I tell you that there are no more little guts. Here are mine that want to make as much noise as yours, how ambitious. Will you shut up right now, I don't like such noisy evils. Shut up, they tell you at the end. Voime, voime [!]. Be quiet because I don't like gossip wherever it comes from. My beloved Toto, my lovely little man, I am not ill, I love you too much, that's all. The rest is pure imitation and to do it like the big guts. I love you against all odds." - Published in the online edition of Drouet's letters to Hugo by the University of Rouen. - Minimally dusted and creased to the lower margin..
French actress and mistress of Victor Hugo (1806-1883). Autograph letter signed ("Juliette"). N. p. 8vo. 4 pp. on bifolium.
$ 9,948 / 9.500 €
(45292/BN31625)
Interesting letter of Drouet to Victor Hugo, written in the afternoon as she expected his visit later that day. Drouet implores Hugo not to let her "wait for a long time" as she didn't ask for a fire to be made "with the thought that you will come very soon". Due to this expectation and for fear of upsetting Hugo, Drouet didn't dare to go see her friend Émilie Lacroux de Montferrier, whom she had left the day before "rather unwell and above all rather awkwardly so that she could have been hurt." In the second part of the letter, Drouet mentions the draft of Hugo's son François-Victor that day, considering that it might affect his schedule: "Isn't it today that your son is drafted? If it is, you will probably stay at home until he brings back his number from the town hall.
Provided that he has the good spirit to draw the number 1, he is very capable of it and I pay him my compliment in advance." - Émilie Lacroux de Montferrier and her husband Victor Sarrazin would play an important role for Hugo during the 1851 French coup d'état, as they hid him in their Paris apartment following his participation in the failed resistance, until he fled France with a forged passport on 7 December 1851. - The letter is only one of two letters from 1850, March 1 and 16, that are published in the online edition of Drouet's letters to Hugo by the University of Rouen. - Traces of folds. Well preserved..