"You are so hard to please": Juliette Drouot waiting for her "Toto" Victor Hugo

Drouet, Juliette, French actress and mistress of Victor Hugo (1806-1883). Autograph letter signed ("Juliette").

N. p., "1 mars vendredi après midi 2 h", n. y. [1850].

8vo. 4 pp. on bifolium.

 9.500,00

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.

Literatur

Édition des Lettres de Juliette Drouet à Victor Hugo, 1er mars 1850.

Art.-Nr.: BN#31625 Schlagwort: