Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo Edited with a Biography of Juliette Drouet — Text and Context

ch was not the opinion of Victor Hugo, however. That perfect artist attached the utmost importance to the writings of his friend. Each time she wished to destroy them he commanded her to preserve them. Whenever she proposed to bring them to a close, he insisted upon her continuing. We possess an unpublished letter from the poet in which he exclaims:

"Your letters, my Juliette, constitute my treasure, my casket of jewels, my riches! In them our joint lives are recorded day by day, thought by thought. All that you dreamed lies there, all that you suffered. They are charming mirrors, each one of which reflects a fresh aspect of your lovely soul."

Surely such a phrase conveys approbation and sanction sufficient for both Juliette Drouet and her humble biographer.

"LA TRISTESSE D'OLYMPIO" 33

THE SHACKLES OF LOVE 45

"THAT WHICH BRINGS SATISFACTION TO THE HEART" 104

I. LIST OF THOSE OF VICTOR HUGO'S POEMS WHICH WERE INSPIRED BY JULIETTE DROUET 311

II. BOOKS CONCERNING JULIETTE DROUET 314

III. WORKS OF ART REPRESENTING JULIETTE DROUET 314

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VICTOR HUGO AND JULIETTE DROUET _Photogravure Frontispiece_

THE CHÂTEAU OF FOUGÈRES IN 1831 1

CLAIRE PRADIER AS A CHILD 8

VICTOR HUGO AS A YOUNG MAN 16

JULIETTE DROUET IN THE RÔLE OF LA PRINCESSE NÉGRONI 24

JULIETTE DROUET IN THE RÔLE OF LA PRINCESSE NÉGRONI 32

HOUSE IN THE VILLAGE OF LES METZ, IN THE PARISH OF JOUY-EN-JOSAS, SEINE-ET-OISE 32

CHURCH OF BIÈVRES, SEINE-ET-OISE 40

VICTOR HUGO ABOUT 1836 48

"LE CITOYEN VICTOR HUGO JOUANT AU CONGRÈS DE LA PAIX" 64

CLAIRE PRADIER AT FIFTEEN 72

CLAIRE PRADIER ON HER DEATHBED 80

JULIETTE DROUET IN JERSEY 88

VICTOR HUGO IN JERSEY 96

VICTOR HUGO, HIS FAMILY, AND JULIETTE DROUET AT HAUTEVILLE HOUSE 104

JULIETTE DROUET IN 1883 112

JULIETTE DROUET ABOUT 1830 128

A PAGE OF JULIETTE DROUET'S NOTE-BOOK IN 1834 136

AUTOGRAPH LETTER FROM JULIETTE DROUET TO HER DAUGHTER CLAIRE 144

CARICATURE OF MLLE. GEORGE, BY VICTOR HUGO 176

PORTRAIT OF VICTOR HUGO BY HIMSELF 176

AUTOGRAPH AND DRAWING BY JULIETTE DROUET 192

THE BRIDGE OF MARNE 208

A DEDICATION BY VICTOR HUGO TO JULIETTE DROUET 224

JULIETTE DROUET IN 1846 232

VICTOR HUGO, RÉPUBLICAIN 240

DRAWING BY VICTOR HUGO, SIGNED "TOTO" 256

THE FLOWER AND THE BUTTERFLY 256

JULIETTE DROUET'S HAND 272

VICTOR HUGO, BY RODIN 288

JULIETTE DROUET ABOUT 1877 296

THE DEATHBED OF VICTOR HUGO 304

A DEDICATION BY VICTOR HUGO TO JULIETTE DROUET 304

BOOK-PLATE DESIGNED FOR JULIETTE DROUET BY VICTOR HUGO 312

JULIETTE DROUET'S LOVE-LETTERS TO VICTOR HUGO

An irregular outline, sombre colouring, a tangle of towers, steeples, high gables and ramparts, steep passages built in the form of steps: such was the town of Fougères at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The principal features of its surroundings were a turbulent river waging unceasing conflict with numerous mills, uncultivated wastes, more footpaths than lanes, and more lanes than high-roads.

This former hot-bed of _chouans_ was an appropriate birthplace for a heroine of romance--and there, on April 10th, 1806, was born Julienne Joséphine Gauvain, subsequently known as Mademoiselle Juliette, and later still, as Madame Drouet.[1]

Her father was a humble tailor living in a suburb of the town, on the road between Fougères and Autrain; her mother kept the little home. Madame Drouet was somewhat proud of her humble origin; she wrote: "I am of the people," as others might boast "I am well born"; she wished thereby to explain and excuse her taste for independence, her fiery temper, and her impulsive nature. She might equally have attributed these to the neglect she suffered in early infancy.

For she had no parents to guard or train her. Her mother died on December 15th, 1806, before the infant could lisp her first words. On September 12th in the following year the father dragged himself to the public infirmary at Fougères, and there breathed his last. The infirmary took over the charge of the orphan, and was about to place her with the foundlings--indeed, the necessary formalities had already been complied with--when a protector suddenly came forward, a certain worthy uncle.

His name was René Henri Drouet. He was thirty-two years old, a sub-lieutenant of artillery, had seen active service in eight campaigns under Napoleon, and been wounded in the foot by the blow of an axe. The wound was such that some very quiet employment had to be provided for him. The ex-artilleryman was turned into a coast-guard, and dawdled out a bored existence in the little Breton port where fate confined him henceforth. He claimed Julienne, and she was handed over to his care.

It would be foolish to pretend that this retired warrior was a suitable person to undertake the training of a little girl. He understood only how to spoil and caress her. Never did child enjoy a wilder, more vagabond childhood. Julienne never got to the village school, because on the way thither glimmered a large pond bordered by clumps of bushes. Among the latter she would conceal her shoes and stockings, and, wading into the water, blue as the skies above, gather starry water-lilies. When she came out, more often than not she failed to find the hiding-place, and ran home bare-footed, with hair floating in the wind and a frock torn to ribbons. But she only laughed, and was forgiven because she made such a winsome picture in her tatters and her wreath of flowers. Those were halcyon days--days filled with innocent joys and elemental sorrows: a fruit-tree robbed of its burden under the indulgent eye of the old coastguard in his green uniform, the death of a tame linnet. All her life Julienne's memory would dwell pleasurably on those early delights. Nothing could curb her natural wildness, not even the gate of a cloister or the rule of St. Benedict.

Among René Henri Drouet's female relations he counted a sister and a cousin, nuns in a great Parisian convent, the Bernardines-Bénédictines of Perpetual Adoration. Their house was situated in the Rue du Petit-Picpus. When Julienne was ten years old he easily managed to have her admitted to the school attached to the convent, and thenceforth the orphan's path in life seemed settled: she should first become a distinguished pupil, then a pious novice, and lastly a holy nun. But, as events turned out, Julienne was only to carry out the first part of the programme.

From the description left us by Madame Drouet and transcribed in full by, Victor Hugo in _Les Misérables_, the house in the Petit-Picpus was none too cheerful; its first welcome to the child was more sombre than any drama she was to figure in, later, as an actress. Padlocked gates, dark corridors, bare rooms, a chapel where the priest himself was concealed behind a veil--such was the scene; black phantoms with shrouded features played the parts; the action was composed of interminable prayers and stringent mortifications. The Bernardines-Bénédictines slept on straw and wore hair shirts, which produced chronic irritation and jerky spasms; they knew not the taste of meat or the warmth of a fire; they took turns in making reparation, and no excuse for shirking was permitted. Reparation consisted in prayers for all the sins and faults of omission and commission, all the crimes of the world. For twelve consecutive hours the petitioner had to kneel upon the stone steps in front of the Blessed Sacrament, with clasped hands and a rope round her neck; when the fatigue became unbearable, she prostrated herself on her face, with her arms outstretched in the form of a cross, and prayed more ardently than before for the sinners of the universe. Victor Hugo, who gathered these details from the lips of Madame Drouet, declared them sublime, while she who had personally witnessed their painful passion, retained a profound impression for life, coupled with a strong sense of Catholicism, and the gift of prayer.

Outside of these austerities the pupils of the school conformed to nearly all the practices of the convent. Like the nuns, they only saw their parents in the parlour, and were not allowed to embrace them. In the refectory they ate in silence under the eye of the nun on duty, who from time to time, if so much as a fly flew without permission, would snap a wooden book noisily. This sound, and the reading of the _Lives of the Saints_, were the sole seasoning of the meal. If a rebellious pupil dared to dislike the food and leave it on her plate, she was condemned to kneel and make the sign of the cross on the stone floor with her tongue.

Neither the licked cross nor the meagre fare ever succeeded in damping Julienne's spirits. She preserved the beautiful spontaneity and love of fun of her early years. She was the spoilt child of the convent where her aunts, Mother des Anges and Mother Ste Mechtilde, appear to have wielded a kindly authority. She soon became its _enfant terrible_. Once, when she was about twelve years old, she threw herself into the arms of a nun and cried, devouring the outer walls with her eyes: "Mother, mother, one of the big girls has just told me I have only got nine years and ten months more to stay here: what luck!" And another time she dropped on the pavement of the cloister a confession written on a sheet of paper so that she might not forget its items: "Father, I accuse myself of being an adulteress. Father, I accuse myself of having stared at gentlemen."

One might well ask who were the gentlemen concerned, for in the convent of Petit-Picpus there were no male professors; only the most distinguished among the nuns assumed the duty of instructing the young boarders. Judging from the eloquence which will be found later in Madame Drouet's letters, the Bernardines-Bénédictines must have accomplished their task with great thoroughness. Julienne learned from them, if not orthography and cultivated style, at least sincerity, and the point that, before attempting to write, one should have something to say. She also studied accomplishments. Mother Ste Mechtilde possessed a beautiful voice. She was consequently appointed mistress of ceremonies and of the choir, and used to train her niece and other pupils. Her habit was to take seven children and make them sing standing in a row according to their ages, so that they looked like a set of girlish organ-pipes. History does not relate whether Julienne sang better than the others, but a little later she began to nurse in secret the idea of utilising her gifts as a virtuoso. At Petit-Picpus she also learned to sketch and paint in water-colours. She owed this instruction to the favour of the pious nuns, who, as a special breach of their rule, authorised her to take lessons from a young master, Redouté.

It may not be too bold to declare that Julienne imbibed at the convent those qualities of tact and restraint, and that air of distinction she exhibited later in the drawing-rooms of Victor Hugo. To the Convent of the Bernardines was attached a sort of house of retreat where aged ladies of rank could end their days, as also nuns of the various orders whose cloisters had been destroyed during the Revolution. Some of these preserved within their hearts a generous instinct of maternity, which Julienne easily managed to waken. She fell into the habit of running across to break the rule of everlasting silence in that fairly cheerful environment, and, in defiance of the prohibition against intimacy, she turned the old ladies into personal friends. She listened attentively, and remembered much, and forty years later she could describe correctly the names, appearance, and habits of that picturesque group, somewhat archaic, but invariably courteous and witty.

Perhaps because of this slight lifting of the veil, Julienne began already, at the age of sixteen, to fix her eager gaze beyond the cloister and the gate. Perhaps also some instinct of dignity and self-respect urged her to learn something of the world before entering the novitiate to pronounce her vows. However this may be, it seems certain that, on the solemn occasion of her presentation to the Archbishop of Paris, Monsignor Quelen, as a postulant, she managed to convey that her vocation was of the frailest, and her desire for the world, deeply rooted. The prelate understood, and signified to the nuns that this particular lamb desired to wander. That very evening Julienne left the convent.

Here follows a somewhat obscure interlude in the girl's life. We meet her next among the pupils of the sculptor Pradier, in 1825.

James Pradier: to those of our generation this name recalls merely a number of groups and statues: statues more graceful than chaste, groups more elegant than virile; the work of a master who aimed at rivalling Praxiteles, but only succeeded in treading in the footsteps of Clodion.

Pradier, however, only needs a careful biographer to acquire another kind of celebrity: that of an artist, _grand viveur_, magnificent and vain, careless and weak, born too late to lead without scandal the frivolous life he loved, too early to acquire by industry the fortune needed for the indulgence of his tastes.

Twice a week his studio was transformed into a drawing-room, and his receptions were attended by a most varied company: painters and poets, models, actresses, dames of high degree, politicians and men of the sword--all society, in short, liked to be seen in the Rue de l'Abbaye.

Clad in high boots, cut low in front, in violet velvet trousers and a coat of the same material decorated with Polish brandebergs, flanked by a Scotch greyhound almost as big as himself, the master of the house received his visitors, listened to them, talked with them, without interrupting his work; he created fresh marvels with the chisel while the conversation flowed unrestrained, and thus his labours became simultaneously a gossip and a spectacle.

In the novel excitement of surroundings so brilliant, so varied, and of morals so easy, Julienne committed the imprudence which was to settle the fate of her whole life. Thanks to her independent spirit, and still more to her beauty, she very soon established her position in Pradier's house. She came there often, remained long, and consented to pose for him.[2]

And when, one day, the sculptor desired for himself this flower, so superior in delicacy and aroma to those usually found in the studios, he had but to bend down and pluck it.

He made Julienne his mistress in 1825. In 1826 she gave him a little daughter whom we shall meet again later. But now arose difficulties of a practical nature. James Pradier, ex-Prix de Rome, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, Membre de l'Institut, Professeur de l'École des Beaux-Arts, could not with propriety, according to his ideas, marry a model. He does not dream of it for an instant, but, as he wishes to do the girl some kindness, however unsuitable, he manages to insinuate her into the theatrical world, and to put her on the boards. Having friends in Brussels, he decrees that she shall go thither to study and make her first appearance; and, as she needs guidance, advice, and protection, he writes her almost every day long letters, in which platitudes alternate with vulgarity. The correspondence continues, wordy and trivial, interminable and foolish, a repulsive mixture of boasting and preaching. Does Julienne show distaste for vaudeville, Pradier proclaims that form of acting to be the most charming in the world, and places it far above tragedy, which he pronounces tiresome and chilling. If Julienne complains that she has but one dress, Pradier tells her that only the leading lights of the stage possess more. If she ventures a timid request for money, he answers that he has none himself, and offers her a book of fairy-tales illustrated under his supervision.

She had to keep herself alive somehow, and when the poor thing had pledged everything she possessed at the pawnbroker's, she wrote plaintively: "This is the only money my talents have earned for me so far." She might perhaps have been reduced to some desperate measure, had not chance placed her in the path of Félix Harel.

Although an incorrigible Bonapartist, and consequently a conspirator by trade, Harel seems to have been above all a man of the theatre: in the midst of his political preoccupations, one can always discern his predilection for things pertaining to the stage. He also had a very definite conviction that politics and the drama, statesmen and ballet-dancers, have always been closely linked together. So, whether he was for the moment pamphleteer, financier, or prefect, whether he was holding an appointment, or in full flight, he always had a finger in some theatrical pie, either as a director, a manager, or a private adviser. At the time he first met Julienne, he was filling the latter capacity at the Théâtre Royal, in Brussels. He presented the young woman. Without further training than that which Pradier had directed from afar, we know that she made her first appearance in Brussels, at the beginning of the year 1829--to be exact, on February 17th.

On that day she informs Pradier that her début has been successful, and that the Brussels press is favourable. He at once thanks Providence and decides that she can henceforth support herself by her talent. He writes: "Is not this a great pleasure to you? Does it not lift a weight from your heart, you who have such a noble soul? How sweet is the bread one has earned so honourably! For my part, I feel that all your faults are condoned by the trouble you are taking. Your perseverance will be rewarded, never doubt it. Go on working! Time can never hang heavy when one is labouring honestly; study carries more flowers than thorns."

Having spoken thus, the artist returned to his business and his pleasures, not without having exhorted Julienne to remain in Brussels as long as possible. He was not ignorant of the passionate desire of the young woman to see her babe once more, but he feared that, if she should not find an engagement in Paris like the one she enjoyed in Brussels, she would again be, morally at least, on his hands. Therefore, redoubling his cautious advice and his counsels of prudence, he implored her not to relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.

However, nothing deterred her. Julienne, as she used to say afterwards, would rather have trudged the distance that separated her from her child, on foot, than waited any longer. The events of 1829 spared her the trouble. Owing to certain evidences of internal discontent, the government of Charles X was developing liberal proclivities. Among other political exiles, it allowed Félix Harel to return, and with him his illustrious mistress, Mlle. Georges. Julienne shared their lot. She accompanied them, not only to Paris, but to the Theatre of the Porte St. Martin, which, under Harel's influence, rapidly became the stronghold of romanticism, and on February 27th, 1830, she made her début on its boards in the part of Emma, in _L'Homme du Monde_, by Ancelot and Saintine. Then she migrated almost at once to the Odéon, of which Harel had just undertaken the management, without, however, resigning that of the Porte St. Martin. She played various parts there throughout the year 1831.

We shall hear later on that she was beautiful, but for the present we must confine ourselves to the question of her talent and dramatic qualities. It has been hinted that she owed her success solely to her lovely face and graceful figure, and that she was one of those ephemeral favourites who reap popular applause in return for the exhibition of their charms. The truth seems to be that "la belle Juliette," as she was already called, gave proofs of distinguished powers, although one is fain to admit that, at this distance of time, it is not easy to define her capacity with any exactitude. For one thing, it was never Juliette's good fortune to play an important part which has since become a classic, and by which her true qualities could be gauged: in Harel's troupe the first-class parts were already justly monopolised by Mlle. Georges and Madame Dorval. Also, nearly all the plays in which Juliette appeared are nowadays looked upon as antiquated and sometimes even absurd. In fact, it is difficult to conceive how they ever could have been given. It will be wiser, therefore, to rely mainly on Pradier's letters to discover what were the natural gifts which could have inspired that artist to make of his mistress an actress, and even a tragedian.