Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
When Napoléon III seized control of France in 1851, Hugo was forced into political exile, eventually settling with his family on Guernsey, a British island off the coast of Normandy. In his fifteen years there Hugo would write some of his best work, including three collections of poetry and the novel Les Misérables. Shortly after arriving on Guernsey, Hugo purchased Hauteville House–locals believed it was haunted by the ghost of a woman who had committed suicide–and set about making several improvements to the property. Chief among them was an all-glass “lookout” on the roof that resembled a small, furnished greenhouse. This was the highest point on the island, with a panoramic view of the English Channel; on clear days, you could see the coast of France. There Hugo wrote each morning, standing at a small desk in front of a mirror.
He rose at dawn, awakened by the daily gunshot from a nearby fort, and received a pot of freshly brewed coffee and his morning letter from Juliette Drouet, his mistress, whom he had installed on Guernsey just nine doors down from Hauteville House. After reading the passionate words of “Juju” to her “beloved Christ,” Hugo swallowed two raw eggs, enclosed himself in his lookout, and wrote until 11:00 A.M. Then he stepped out onto the rooftop and washed from a tub of water left out overnight, pouring the icy liquid over himself and rubbing his body with a horsehair glove. Townspeople passing by could watch the spectacle from the street–as could Juliette, looking out the window of her room.
At noon Hugo headed downstairs for lunch. The biographer Graham Robb writes, “there were the days when prominent men were expected to have opening hours like museums. Hugo welcomed almost everyone, writers collecting snippets for their future memoirs, journalists who came to describe M. Hugo’s famous dwelling for their female readers. As the clock struck twelve, he would appear in a grey felt hat and woolen gloves, looking like ‘a well-dressed farmer,’ and conduct his guests to the dining-room.”
Hugo provided handsomely for his guests but ate little himself. After lunch he embarked on a two-hour walk or performed a series of strenuous exercises on the beach. Later he would make his daily visit to the barber (he insisted on keeping the trimmings in an unexplained act of superstition), go for a carriage ride with Juliette, and do more writing at home, often using the afternoon to answer some of the satchel-loads of letters that arrived each day.
As the sun set Hugo spent either a boisterous evening at Juliette’s, joined by friends for dinner, conversation, and cards, or a rather gloomy one at home. At family dinners Hugo felt compelled to hold forth on philosophical subjects–pausing only to make sure his wife had not fallen asleep, or to write something down in one of the little notebooks he carried everywhere he went. Hugo’s son Charles–one of the three Hugo children who became writers themselves–described the scene: “As soon as he has uttered the slightest ideas–anything other than ‘I slept well’ or ‘Give me something to drink’–he turns away, takes out his notebook and jots down what he has just said. Nothing is lost. Everything ends up in print. When his sons try to use something they heard their father say, they are always caught out. When one of his books appears, they find that all the notes they took have been published.”
* Source: Daily Rituals by Mason Currey