A Love Story
Romance
Marriage
Real
Life
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"The day when a
woman who passes in front of you and gives off light as she walks,
you are lost; you are in love. There is only one thing to do:
think of her so intently that she is forced to think of you."
---Victor Hugo's comment on Juliette Drouet
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Julienne Jospehine Guavain,
later known as Mademoiselle Juliette, was born on the 10th of
April in 1806, the daughter of a humble tailor and a housemaid.
She grew up in the
suburbs of her father's town, on the road between Fourgeres and
Autrain. She was proud of
her humble origins and wrote on an occasion: "I am of the
people,", as if in these three
words lay the explanation behind her independence, her fiery
temper, and her impulsive
nature.
Certainly, Mademoiselle
possessed a wild nature; before she met Victor Hugo, Juliette
had
at least four lovers. She modeled for James Pradier, who thought
himself as her
guardian. He would sign his letters to Juliette, "your friend,
lover, and father".
Along with advice, he gave to her a child, Claire, whom Victor
later grew to love as his own.
Her lovers also included the millionaire Prince Anatole Demidov-a
smutty little man who
set her up in an apartment in the Rue de L'Echiquier, Alphonse
Karr, a journalist who
borrowed all her money and never paid it back. To insure herself
against poverty,
Juliette made her lovers overlap (Robb, 181), and it was she who taught Victor the
actress's proverb "A woman who has one lover is an angel,
a woman who has two lovers is a
monster, and a woman who has three lovers is a woman" (Robb, 181)
To Paris society, she was
a typical courtesan, a mediocre actress, a
brilliant dresser, and a fluent spender, equally familiar with
pawn-shops and casinos,
physically confident with boisterous sense of humor, unashamed
to show her plebeian
origins, and of course, amazingly beautiful.
And indeed, Juliette was
beautiful. Her age, condition, manner of life, had made of her
a
woman, while her smile and movements kept her still a girl. Her
face presented a perfect
image of calmness and purity. Theophile Gautier once wrote this
fulsome description of
her to please Victor Hugo:
"Madamoiselle Juliette's
countenance is of a regular and delicate beauty; the nose
chiseled and of handsome outline, the eyes limpid and diamond-bright;
the mouth moistly
crimson, and tiny even in her gayest fits of laughter. These
features charming in
themselves, are set in an oval of the suavest and most harmonious
form. A clear, serene
forehead like the marble of a Greek temple crowns this delicious
face; abundant black
hair with wonderful reflections in it, brings out the diaphanous
and lustrous purity of
her complexion…" (Gimbaud,
26)
Juliet had known many lovers,
but her one desire had remained unmet since she first
dreamed it at sixteen. She yearned to become the passionate companion
of an honest man.
She gave herself to her lovers, and many lovers she had during
her lifetime, but in her
eyes it was clear that she still sought that perfect one whom
she could love and be
assured that that love would be returned. She needed Hugo as
much as he needed her.
Juliette entered Hugo's
life at a time when he was deepest in despair. Love and
friendship had failed Victor Hugo altogether, and he was disillusioned
to find that the
love of his life had betrayed him. Adele, his childhood sweetheart,
had betrayed him, and
this betrayal was too painful for him to bear: " I have
acquired the conviction that it
is possible for the one who possesses all my love, to cease to
care of me. I am no
longer happy." (Gimbaud,
22). Hugo describes
feeling a sensation of rebirth, an emergence
of a new Victor Hugo because of his new love for Juliette. She
was among the cast in
Lucrece Borgia at the Porte-Saint-Martin. Hugo gave her a minor
part of the Princess
Negroni. She was more beautiful than she was talented, and proved
to be a clumsly
actress, but Hugo, blinded by love, was oblivious to this fact.
Exactly a fortnight after
the premiere, on February 16, 1833, Juliette became Hugo's mistress.
Adele's betrayal
killed the Romantic poet's heart, but Juliette's love brought
him back.
Hugo placed Juliette in
an isolated house at Les Metz, a hamlet two-and-a-half miles
away
from his home with Adele. Nearly everyday, they met halfway between
the two; at an old
hollow chestnut tree in the woods, and in the hollow trunk Juliette
used to leave her
messages and Hugo left his letters and poems there.
However, their love was
far from the ideal love that Hugo wrote about. There were many
financial problems in their relationship. An especially recurrent
problem was one of finance. Because of her
extravagant tastes in clothing, Juliette was up to her neck with
debts and creditors.
When she confessed she was in debt to Hugo, the miser, this brought
on daily quarrels
between the lovers.
However, their love proved
to be resistant to argument and quarrels. The love was sincere
and the love was mutual. On 19, February, the first anniversary
of their love affair,
Hugo assured her: "Heaven has made my hands to mend your
half-ruined life, my soul to
understand your heart, and my lips to kiss your feet" (Richardson, 69). He loved with
such fervor that he came to believe that he must redeem her.
For nearly two years, he
was to practice his half-religious, half-philosophical theories
on the courtesan.
Juliette became a Romantic heroine, a fallen woman whose salvation
lay in a single
heartfelt love.
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