Victorian

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.

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.

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]

‘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.

Jean-Baptiste Charcot, ‘the Polar Gentleman.’ Doctor, sportsman, Olympic medallist, polar explorer, friend of Captain Scott, and husband of Victor Hugo's grand-daughter Jeanne, this admirable French hero reserved a special place for Guernsey. [By Dinah Bott]

Opinions on the building of the Castle Emplacement from Victor Hugo and his son Charles. Charles took the accompanying photograph, The Castle Emplacement under construction, c 1856; he also took a fine study of St Catherine's Breakwater in Jersey some years earlier. (Hugo family friend Auguste Vacquerie was also an excellent photographer, and may possibly be responsible for this photograph, but Charles shared his father's appreciation of the effort and skill required to build these types of structures, and of the progress and growth they embodied, and is likely to have found this and the Jersey breakwater an appealing subject). The photograph is in the collection of Paris Musées: Construction de la digue reliant le château Cornet au port, attribuée à Charles Hugo, 1855-6. [By Dinah Bott]

The loss of the paddle-steamer Normandy, 17 March 1870