Day 11 Maison de Victor Hugo

Paris has over 140 museums including some of the most famous in the world. There are however a number of small, interesting and free museums such as Maison de Victor Hugo, a museum, operated by the City of Paris, which is located in the house that Victor Hugo lived in for 16 years from 1832–1848. The museum is on one floor of a very grand house, and it preserves the memory and many of the original furnishings, of one of France’s greatest literary figures.

Paintings in the foyer of Victor Hugo’s military father and long suffering mother (who was divorced by his father) explain something of Hugo’s grand heritage and yet his understanding of real suffering. The main living room is remarkable not least for the view out the window onto one of Paris’s most revered squares, Place des Vosges. On this cold day the kids played in the park in much the same way that Hugo’s much-adored children probably did nearly 200 years ago. Some of his treasured paintings and a huge marble bust of the great man, complete the decorations in the living room.

Moving through the house there is a re-creation of an Asian styled room which Hugo himself designed while in exile on the Isle of Guernsey. The room was designed not for his wife, who did not like his attempts at interior decoration, but for his mistress of over 40 years.

In another room there is a table on which are placed the inkwells of Alexandre Dumas, George Sand, Lamartine and Hugo himself.

The highlight of the museum is his bedroom – and most notably the desk at which he wrote most of his plays, poems, novels and articles. It is a very tall desk, as he always wrote standing up. It was wonderful to see the desk on which the story of Les Miserables was written. It is the story of how the grace of the good bishop of Digne, allowed the convict Jean Vajean, to find redemption and a life of service, honour and love. Les Miserables is a special favourite of many members of the Quadrio family. To be so close the desk, that Hugo laboured at, for almost two decades, to write this amazing story, was truly an honour.