Victor Hugo’s House in Paris
The Great French Writer Lived in Style!
“Adversity makes men and prosperity makes monsters”, according to Victor Hugo. This did not apply, however, to the famous French writer himself.
Victor Hugo’s house in Paris is located on Place des Vosges — in the quaint 3rd district of the French capital. The four storey, red-brick house overlooks the open space of the Place des Vosges. This square, green park is one of the prettiest places in Paris, surrounded by historic buildings and expensive art galleries.
After climbing up the many and rather steep stairs, visitors will discover a beautifully decorated, sumptuous house. Originally built in the 16th century, it retains in many ways the atmosphere of that era, with its wooden antique furniture, chandeliers and heavy curtains. It is also rather dark compared with our modern way of interior design which favors light.
Victor Hugo, as well as being a wonderful writer, was an excellent interior decorator, and the whole house exudes good taste. The rooms which are especially interesting are the Chinese room filled with Oriental art and exquisitely painted plates and the bedroom/study where Victor Hugo wrote. The high ceilings, some with beautiful chandeliers, give a feeling of extra spaciousness. The artist himself decorated these rooms, and fabricated many fine pieces of furniture. Victor Hugo’s life is explained in detail so that visitors can follow it by wandering through the house.
Although the Place de Vosges is a hugely expensive area to live in today, in Victor Hugo’s day it was almost a slum area, close to the Bastille Prison. A champion of the poor, Hugo wanted to be surrounded by the people he wrote about. But he lived in style!
Born in 1802 Hugo was the son of a General who served under Napoleon I, but he was raised in Paris by his mother who had strong royalist sympathies. At the young age of 20 he married Adele Foucher, his childhood sweetheart, against his mother’s wishes. She thought that Adele was not good enough for him. Hugo became a famous lyric poet and novelist and well-loved by the people. But in the 1840’s tragedy struck. His verse drams Les Burgraves failed, and one of his two daughters, Leopoldine, died in a drowning accident.
Hugo became a member of the constitutional government of King Louis Philippe, but when Louis Napoleon III reinstated the Empire in 1851 Hugo was horrified. He went into exile first in Brussels, then in the Channel Islands, where he wrote his wonderful novel about the poor of Paris, Les Miserables, and several volumes of poetry. There he lived with his beautiful mistress, Juliette Drouet, with whom he fell in love after his wife had an affair with his good friend.
After the fall of Napoleon III in 1870 Victor Hugo returned to France to great acclaim. He became a member of the National Assembly and a senator of the Third French Republic.
The house of this important man is well-worth seeing on any visit to Paris. Be careful if you want to do what my husband did if you don’t speak French, however. After going up the stairs, he found himself at a function full of well-dressed French people. He pretended that he was one of the guests, and enjoyed the free champagne!
