Articles

From Léon Daudet's Ghosts and the Living, chapter 6. Léon Daudet was the son of the celebrated author, Alphonse Daudet. His father was a friend of Victor Hugo, especially in Hugo's later years. Léon was an intimate of the Hugo family; he was the same age as Hugo's grandchildren, Georges and Jeanne. Handsome and brilliant, he was Georges' best friend and married Jeanne when they were both just of age, but he was ever aware of his (comparative) poverty and his irascible and vicious character was such that the marriage did not last long. He began as a young devotee of Victor Hugo, but as he grew older his opinion as expressed in his writing changed to implacable hatred.By Dinah Bott.

A poignant aspect of the tragic last voyage of 'the Polar Gentleman' and honorary Guernseyman, Jean-Baptiste Charcot. By Cédric Bail, assistant curator at Hauteville House. The article appears in English and French.

Paul Stapfer, from his memoirs of his time in Guernsey with Victor Hugo, as reported in TP's Weekly, February 22, 1906.

Hennet de Kesler and Victor Hugo dans le jardin d’hiver/in the conservatory, by Edmond Bacot (between 1858-1862), from the collection of Paris Musées, Maison de Victor Hugo, Hauteville HouseBy Dinah Bott.

A philanthropist and island patriot, whose career, along with his childhood friend Frederick Mansell Allès, is ‘an illustration of the power of faith, hard work, and perseverance’ [Henri Boland, 1904.] The portrait is attributed to Frank Brookes and is in the collection of the Guernsey Museums and Art Galleries.

Jean Hugo was the great-grandson of Victor Hugo. A talented artist and theatre designer, he was a schoolboy at Elizabeth College in Guernsey and made later visits to the island, of which he was very fond, including attending the inauguration of Jean Boucher's celebrated statue of the poet in 1914. The Library has a signed copy of his autobiography, Le Regard de la mémoire, which he gave to Roger Martin, the curator of Hauteville House at the time of his visit in 1977; Roger Martin's ancestor was, coincidentally, one of Victor Hugo's 'poor children.' The photograph is courtesy of the Guernsey Press.By Dinah Bott.

By Dinah Bott.

From Charles Hugo's Chez Victor Hugo par un passant, [Victor Hugo at home, by a passer-by], Cadart & Luquet, Paris: 1864, published anonymously and decorated with 12 etchings by Maxime Lalanne. By Dinah Bott.

The poet Algernon Charles Swinburne visited Guernsey and Sark in order to follow in the footsteps of his hero and fellow poet, Victor Hugo. He fell in love with Sark and wrote poems describing his time there, so much so that he declared he would like to be king of the island. The portrait of a young Swinburne is by Rossetti — Swinburne had a mane of flaming red hair. It was drawn in August 1860 (image from the Rossetti Archive from a print held in the Delaware Art Museum). There is a selection of his Guernsey poems with reference to Victor Hugo at the bottom of this page. [By Dinah Bott]

Execution of M J F Béasse, For the Crime of Infanticide.  A handbill from 1830 in the Library collection, a gruesome souvenir of the notorious crime committed by a young French nobleman in the vicinty of Guernsey's Ruettes Brayes, translated from the original French.

‘Tu ne tueras pas.’ Pas d’exception. ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ No exceptions. [Victor Hugo, 19 Feb. 1854, Marine Terrace, Jersey]. This death mask was kept by Victor Hugo in the Billiard Room in Hauteville House along with his famous drawing of Tapner, 'Le Pendu,' or 'The Hanged Man.' The Billiard Room was also home to portraits of the Hugo family, other favourite drawings, and maps of meaningful places in Hugo's life. The importance of these memoirs of Tapner to Hugo is thus obvious: they were a permanent reminder of the cruelty of man to man, and of his (for him) abject failure to save Tapner from the scaffold. In addition Hugo blamed himself for Tapner's execution, believing that his ardent intervention had actually been counter-productive - that the French government had pressed upon their British allies not to give in to Hugo's wishes, and that the British had complied. This striking photograph of the mask is by the late Guernsey photographer Carel Toms, taken in 1975, and is part of the Guernsey Photographic Archive held at the Priaulx Library.

This account of the wreck of the Pourquoi Pas, an event greeted with immense dismay in Guernsey, where Commander Jean-Baptiste Charcot was a great favourite, was kindly written by Cédric Bail, assistant curator at Hauteville House, for the Priaulx Library 'Hauteville House and the Hugo family' exhibition of summer 2018. His original French text is included below.