[HUGO] DROUET, Juliette (1806-1883)

[HUGO] DROUET, Juliette (1806-1883)

Autograph letter signed « Juliette » to Victor Hugo
N.p [Paris], 9th December [1846], « Wednesday morning »,  10 h ½ », 4 p. in-4°
Central fold reinforced with Japan paper (two letters affected), two words crossed off by Juliette Drouet
Dry stamp “BR” on top left corner

Superb unpublished letter to her lover Victor Hugo, passionately evoking the reading that the latter gave her, the previous evening, of a chapter of his novel Les Misères, which fifteen years later would become Les Misérables

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« Bonjour, mon cher bien aimé, bonjour mon adoré petit Toto, bonjour mon amour comment vas-tu ce matin ? as-tu eu bien froid cette nuit en rentrant chez toi ? j’ai bien regretté d’avoir éteint mon feu hier par distraction et dans un but d’économie. Si j’avais pu penser que tu rentrerais avec tes pauvres pieds mouillés j’aurais fait tout le contraire au risque de mettre le feu à la maison. Je te promets que la nuit prochaine tu auras du bon feu. Mon Dieu que c’est beau ce que tu m’as lu hier soir. J’en ai encore le cœur tout ému. Tu n’as jamais rien fait de plus grand, de plus vrai, de plus douloureux, de plus doux, de plus généreux et de plus consolant que ces premières pages de ton Jean Trejean. Tout y est. Depuis les plus grandes choses de la nature jusqu’aux plus petits détails de la toilette empire de Mlle Sylvanie, depuis la dureté de cœur des bourgeois jusqu’à l’ineffable bonté du vieil évêque [M. Myriel], depuis les féroces préjugés du monde jusqu’à la morale si généreuse et si douce de Jésus-Christ¹. Tu n’as rien omis, rien oublié rien dédaigné. Et tout cela dans ton plus beau style et de ta plus sublime poésie… pardon mon Victor adoré, pardon pour la ridicule page d’admiration que je viens de t’écrire. Il est permis au ciron [espèce d’acarien. Pascal, dans sa pensée sur « Les deux infinis », le prend comme exemple de l’infiniment petit] d’admirer Dieu dans sa petite âme de ciron, mais il n’est donné qu’aux aigles de s’en approcher parce qu’ils ont des ailes. J’aurais dû me borner ce matin à t’exprimer ma reconnaissance pour le bonheur immense que tu m’as donné cette nuit sans chercher à te traduire tout ce que j’ai éprouvé en t’écoutant […]. Il y a une sorte d’ivresse du cœur qui fait que l’âme et l’esprit ont leur vertige comme le corps. C’est ce qui m’arrive dans ce moment-ci. […] Laissez-moi donc vous dire en toute hâte que vous êtes mon cher petit toto que j’aime et que j’adore. Que je baise sur toutes les coutures, que je désire et que j’attends de toutes mes forces et à qui je recommande de m’être bien fidèle, de venir tout de suite et de m’aimer toujours.
Juliette. »

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This letter allows us to fully appreciate the emotion experienced by Juliette following the visit, the previous evening, of her lover Victor who came to give her a reading of what was still only Jean Tréjean, the novel that she has been recopying since the previous year. We can also guess at certain characters, whose names were later changed. Thus, without the final version of the novel, Mademoiselle Sylvanie, sister of Monseigneur Myriel (here the “old bishop”), becomes Mademoiselle Baptistine: “Mademoiselle Sylvanie, sweet, thin, frail, a little taller than her brother, dressed in a puce silk dress, a fashionable color in 1806, which she had bought at the time in Paris and which still lasted her […]. Mademoiselle Sylvanie’s dress was cut according to the 1806 patterns, short waist, narrow sheath, sleeves with epaulettes, with tabs and buttons.”
As for Juliette, if the analogies between her own youth and the character of Fantine are speculative, we know with more certainty that she sensitized the writer to the question of poverty. She also contributed to collating the manuscripts, copying them, and participated in documenting Hugo, particularly on life in convents. It was also Juliette who, on December 13, 1851, just a few days after Napoleon III’s coup d’état, joined Victor in Brussels with the famous “manuscript trunk”, which contained all of the writer’s works, including the future Les Misérables, two-thirds of which were completed.

The development of Les Misérables is well documented. Victor Hugo began the first drafts a year earlier, in November 1845. The first title considered by the writer was then Jean Tréjean, taken from the name of the main character who later became Jean Vlajean, then Jean Valjean. In December 1847, the novel, already largely written, became Les Misères. The events of 1848, Hugo’s activity as a politician during the Second Republic and the tribulations of exile were all obstacles to the completion of the work. Hugo was at the same time in the middle of writing Les Contemplations. Twelve years later, in 1860, while he was in exile in Guernsey, Hugo took up his pen again to complete his novel. Moreover, there are no two different versions between the manuscript before the Revolution of 1848 and that of exile. The manuscript of Les Misérables is in this respect a manuscript of Les Misères corrected and expanded. The first volume was published on March 30, 1862, by Albert Lacroix, Verboeckhoven et Cie, and four days later in Paris. Parts two and three were published on May 15, parts four and five on June 30. Although reactions were mixed, success was immediate.

[1] The bourgeois of Senez mock Monseigneur Myriel who rides a donkey. “Mr. Mayor,” said the bishop, “and gentlemen bourgeois, I see what scandalizes you, you find that it is indeed pride for a poor priest to ride a mount that was that of Jesus Christ.” Monseigneur Myriel invents examples and “parables going straight to the point, with few sentences and many images, which was the very eloquence of Jesus Christ, convinced and persuasive.” (Les Misères)