Victor Hugo’s house reopens in Paris

After 18 months of work, the house of Victor Hugo reopens in Paris in the historic Place des Vosges, where the great writer, playwright and poet lived between 1832 and 1848. Now father of five children, author recognized and acclaimed after his triumph at the theater of Hernani, a lover of pomp and worldliness, Hugo decides on 12 July 1832 to leave the house of Notre-Dame-des-Champs in Montparnasse, for an apartment of about 280 square meters on the second floor of the Rohan-Guéméné hotel . A strategic residence, which had subjugated Victor Hugo from the beginning, not only because his neighbor was his lifelong friend, Théophile Gautier, but the place des Vosges, in the historic Marais district, was not far from the library of the ‘Arsenal, the beating heart of the romantic movement and from Notre-Dame cathedral’ protagonist ‘of one of the best known novels, published a year earlier. As Laura Hugo, descendant of the great master, told in an interview with ‘Point de vue’, “what was once called the place Royale became over the years the symbol of the triumph of my illustrious ancestor. Le tout Paris frequented the halls of his residence. , politicians, crowned heads and writers like Dickens, for example, meetings and receptions that will open the doors of the Académie francaise to him and later allow him to also obtain the title of ‘pair de France “. Triumphs and family dramas. In 1843 the first daughter Léopoldine, 19, drowns during a boat trip sucked by the Seine with her young husband. Then in 1948 there is a new branch in the city, the insurgents enter the place des Vosges from the faubourg Saint-Antoine, the square will become their headquarters. Victor Hugo and his family are forced to flee, so it will be possible to visit Victor Hugo’s house in the French capital, which will become the site of exhibitions and retrospectives with the opening of the Mulot café, to admire its ‘flamboyant’ style that mixed Gothic and Renaissance-style décor. The tapestries on the walls, the carpets, the solid wood furniture, the portraits and the busts (such as the one created by David d’Angers in 1837 with the dedication ‘A’ mon ami Victor Hugo), the Louis XIII style canopy bed given to him from the grandchildren Georges and Jeanne, strong colors and an undisputed propensity for flowers, according to the dictates of the fashion of the time, fabrics often designed by the author of the ‘Misérables’ and then that ‘salon chinois’ ‘upholstered’ with ancient Chinese porcelain that Victor Hugo loved to choose and look for personally. And it is also Marie Hugo who confides: “I feel this deep desire to share and disseminate a past linked to my ancestor with an ever increasing number of people, thanks also to the donations made by my family over the years”.