Britain – September 2019

60 BRITAIN

HERITAGE

n 31 October 1855 the poet, playwright

and novelist Victor Hugo arrived in

windswept Guernsey, in desperate search

of exile. Banished from his native France

for aggravating Napoleon III with his outspoken

republican views, he had wandered “from coast to

coast on foreign soil” for four long years, sleeping

in hotel rooms, train carriages and boat cabins.

Guernsey, a little island in the English Channel and

a British dependency, was a safe haven, though Hugo’s

arrival was unpromising: his unnished manuscript

of Les Misérables had almost been tossed overboard

during a stormy crossing from neighbouring Jersey.

But Guernsey, a “rock of hospitality and liberty”,

offered the welcome he yearned for.

Hauteville House, a handsome villa in the island’s

capital, St Peter Port, put an end to the poet’s

wanderings. He quickly put down roots, moving his

family in – his wife, Adèle, sons Charles and François-

Victor and daughter Adèle – and installing his long-term

mistress, Juliette Drouet, a few doors down the street.

Although aggrieved by his exile, Hugo was

galvanised by his foreign surroundings. Now in his

mid-50s, he was more productive than he had ever

been. “A month’s work here is worth a year in Paris,”

he wrote to a friend.

After a morning spent writing, in the afternoons

the poet would stride forth from St Peter Port’s cobbled

streets to explore the wild cliff-edged coastline. He often

swam in the jade-green waters of Fermain Bay or,

closer to home, little Havelet Beach, guarded by Castle

Cornet, Guernsey’s ancient fortress.

He poured his new-found creative energies into the

decoration of his home, scouring the island’s antiques

shops and taking home armfuls of French tapestries,

Turkish carpets, Chinese silks and Delft tiles. He hired

local craftsmen, sketching out outlandish designs for

them to follow.

Hugo’s conicted feelings about his exile are writ

large across every inch of the house, now owned by the

City of Paris and recently restored to its former glory.

Stepping inside, you are plunged into the poet’s world;

in the words of his son Charles, Hauteville House is

an “autograph on three oors and a poem in several

rooms”. Hugo’s decorative style is the polar opposite

of minimalism. Not an inch of plain painted wall can

Clockwise from below:

View from the garden;

the Oak Gallery; Hugo

and his family; the

Smoking Room

Previous page:

The pretty garden

at Hauteville House

PHOTOS: CHRIS GEORGE/VISIT GUERNSEY