PRINCESSE NÉGRONI
Two portraits of Victor Hugo are extant: one by Devéria executed in
1829, the other by Léon Noël in 1832.[3] What a change is visible in the
short space of three years! The "monumental" brow which reminded
Théophile Gautier of the "fronton de temple Grec" is the same; but,
whereas in 1829 it was instinct with lofty thought and pleasant fancies,
in 1832 worry and suspicion have already scored it deeply with lines of
care. In 1829 Devéria recognised and rendered the characteristic
expression of the poet: that bright, upward glance which ten years
before had caused the author of the _Odes_ to be compared to a
stained-glass archangel. In 1832 Léon Noël saw a fixed, overshadowed
gaze, whose severity is further accentuated by knitted brows. In 1829
fleshy, sinuous lips always half ready for a smile or a kiss, indicate
both sensuality and humour. In 1832 they are tightly compressed, their
outline exaggeratedly firm; they give the impression of having forgotten
joy and learnt to express only will. Even in the quality of the
flesh-tints the artists disagree. According to Devéria the pallor
natural to the poet bears the impress of health and placidity, whereas
Léon Noël's rendering reveals sickliness and a sense of doom.
What, then, had happened between the dates of the two portraits? Had the
whole character of the poet changed? Had he lost some precious article
of faith or conviction, or was it that the mainspring of his enthusiasm
had failed him? Nay--his soul still cherished the same treasures of
idealism. The former penitent of the Abbé Lammenais still preserved at
thirty his ardent, perhaps even narrow Catholicism, his cult of purity,
his contempt for physical indulgence, his delight in the joys and duties
of family life. Eager for self-sacrifice, rich in the hopes and
illusions he confided to his few intimate friends, he dreamed of sharing
everything with the people, towards whom the trend of events inclined
him to turn; just as he had once written _Les Lettres à la fiancée_ for
a single reader, so he had now published for the crowd _Les Feuilles
d'Automne_, the curious preface to that collection, and in the
collection itself the sublime _Prière pour tous_. His was a soul
profoundly religious, and a lofty mind which aspired to raise itself
ever higher.
But he did not live by thought alone. Many of those who watched him
working without intermission, with a method and a will that defied human
weakness, who saw how numerous were his lectures, how varied his
researches, and who witnessed the incessant travail of his imagination,
thought that the author of _Hernani_ and _Dona Sol_ must be lacking in
human sensibility. He protests against this. In a letter to Sainte-Beuve
he says: "I live only by my emotions; to love, or to crave for love and
friendship, is the fundamental aim--happy or unhappy, public or
private--of my life."[4] He might equally have added: "That is why for
the last two years my brow is no longer placid, why my eyes seek the
ground, why my lips are so bitterly compressed."
The secret of the change in Victor Hugo's physiognomy lies in the
treachery of his wife and his best friend. Love and friendship failed
him together. His moral distress was immense, his pain unfathomable.
They inspired him with plaints so touching that, after hearing them, one
asks oneself whether it can ever be possible for him to forget or
recover. One despairs of the healing of the man who writes: "I have
acquired the conviction that it is possible for the one who possesses
all my love to cease to care for me. I am no longer happy."[5]
Calmness did return to him, however. It was thus: For the last ten
years, that is, practically ever since her marriage, Madame Victor Hugo
had behaved in such a manner that when the day of the betrayal, in which
she was the accomplice of his friend, dawned, the poet was able to
consider her with contempt. Although fairly gifted in appearance, she
possessed neither taste nor cleverness in the matter of dress; she had
always shown herself to him in careless attire and unfashionable gowns.
Absent-minded and limited in intelligence, she remained uncultured and
oblivious of the genius of her husband, and of achievements of which she
appreciated only the financial value. In addition, she had declined to
share the noble ideal originally proposed to her by her
twenty-year-old bridegroom: love considered as "the ardent and pure
union of two souls, a union begun on earth to end not even in
heaven."[6] The poet was thus authorised, and even forced, to seek
happiness in the arms of some other woman. If Victor Hugo had wished to
avoid that "other woman " he would have had to remain for ever concealed
in his tower of ivory--which certainly did not happen.
[Illustration: VICTOR HUGO AS A YOUNG MAN.
In the possession of M. le D. F. Jousseaume.]
He emerged from it in the spring of 1832, on May 26th, and appeared at
an artists' ball. There he saw Juliette for the first time; but she was
so beautiful and so captivating that he was afraid of her, and dared not
address her. Five years later he recorded this impression of admiring
timidity in the book in which they had agreed to celebrate all their
anniversaries, namely the _Voix Intérieures_.[7]
For more than six months the poet lacked the courage to seek his vision
again, but in the early days of 1833 he found Juliette among the
actresses Harel suggested to him at the Porte St. Martin for his play,
_Lucrèce Borgia_. He accepted her at once and gave her a small part,
that of Princesse Négroni. Then the rehearsals began. Juliette admits in
one of her letters that she showed herself very coquettish and
mischievous.
According to her, the poet made up his mind the first day and the first
hour. But matters did not really proceed so easily. Victor Hugo, who, as
stated above, cherished the highest and purest moral ideal, must have
carried his principles with him into the wings and on the stage. He was
not partial to actresses; he was suspicious of them, and made no secret
of the feeling. One must picture him rather as on the defensive than
bold and adventurous.
His attire and appearance were not calculated to ensure his social
success. We hear from Juliette herself that he wore his hair _en
broussaille_, and that his smile revealed "crocodile's teeth." Allowing
himself to be dressed by his tailor in the fashions of four or five
years earlier, his trousers were firmly braced above the waist, tightly
drawn over his boots, and fastened under the instep by a steel chain. To
sum up, as a dandy who writes these details concludes, he was a worthy
citizen desirous of being in the fashion, but unable to compass it.
Fortunately the said citizen could speak, and his words of gold were
sufficient to gloss over any personal disadvantages. To men he
discoursed of his hopes and plans, and even his forecasts for the
future; to women of their beauty and the supremacy of such a gift. Men
found his arrogance intolerable, and complained that they must always
either listen, or talk to him of himself. But women liked him for
abasing his pride before them; they appreciated his good manners, his
urbanity, and the incomparable art with which he cast his laurels at
their feet. The god took on humanity for them; they were careful to pose
as goddesses before him. Juliette possessed everything needful to
accomplish this end.
She was about to enter her twenty-sixth year; very shortly afterwards,
Théophile Gautier wrote this fulsome description of her, to please the
master:
"Mademoiselle Juliette's countenance is of a regular and delicate
beauty; the nose chiselled 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. Her neck, shoulders, and arms,
are of classic perfection; she would be a worthy inspiration to
sculptors, and is well equipped to enter into competition with those
beautiful young Athenians who lowered their veils before the gaze of
Praxiteles conceiving his Venus.[8]
These elegant phrases probably represent very imperfectly the impression
produced by Juliette. We have had the privilege of perusing some of the
proposals addressed to her, and we have read the cruel novel Alphonse
Karr prided himself on having written about her.[9] Everything conspires
to show that she shone and dazzled especially by her all-conquering air
of youth and ingenuousness. When she passed, spring was over. Her age,
condition, manner of life, had made of her a woman, while her smile and
movements kept her still a girl. Her gait was, in fact, so fairy-like
that her admirers all make use, certainly without collusion, of the
adjective, "aérien." Her face presented a perfect image of calmness and
purity. Did she raise her eyes, a soft, velvety, sometimes mournful gaze
was revealed--did she lower them, it was still the dawn, but a dawn
concealing itself behind a veil.
All beautiful countenances have a soul; upon Juliette's could be read
less contentment than unsatisfied ardour, more melancholy than
serenity. Neither luxury, nor pleasure, nor flattery, was able to
satisfy the dearest desire of her heart from the age of sixteen, which
was, to become the passionate companion of an honest man. She lent
herself to her lovers, but her eyes made it plain that she still sought
the perfect one to whom she would some day capitulate. According to
herself--and we have no reason to doubt her--she selected Victor Hugo as
soon as she made his acquaintance. She expended herself in advances and
coquetries, and infused into the study and expression of her small part
all the art of which she was capable. In the third act of the play, when
Maffio said to her: "_L'amitié ne remplit pas tout le c[oe]ur_," she had
to query: "_Mon Dieu, qu'est-ce qui remplit tout le c[oe]ur?_" It seems
that at rehearsals she did not wait for Maffio's answer, but turned
subtly towards the poet and sought him with her eyes. He, however, still
hung back; a tradition attributed to Frédérick Lemaître, which we have
carefully verified,[10] informs us that he surprised even the actors of
the Porte St. Martin by the respectful tone he maintained towards his
beautiful interpreter. Far from addressing her in the familiar manner
customary in theatrical circles, he called her Mademoiselle Juliette,
kissed her hand, and bowed low before her. Frédérick could not believe
his eyes.
At last the evening of the first performance arrived; the success of the
piece was immediate. Juliette had her share of it. She was so beautiful
as the poisoner that, as Théophile Gautier says, the public forgot to
pity her unhappy guests and thought them fortunate to die after kissing
her hand.[11] After the third act she received congratulations even from
Mademoiselle Georges, who folded her in her arms and covered her with
kisses. As for the author, we do not know what he did in the first
blush, but the next morning he wrote thus:
"In _Lucrèce Borgia_, certain personages of secondary importance are
represented at the Porte St. Martin by actors of the first order, who
perform with grace, loyalty, and perfect taste, in the semi-obscurity of
their parts. The author here thanks them. Among these, the public
particularly distinguished Mademoiselle Juliette. It can hardly be said
that Princesse Négroni is a part: it is in some sense an apparition; a
figure, beautiful, young, fatal, which floats by, raising one corner of
the sombre veil that covers Italy at the commencement of the sixteenth
century. Mademoiselle Juliette threw into this figure an extraordinary
virility. She had few words to say, but she filled them with meaning.
This actress only requires opportunity, to reveal forcibly to the public
a talent full of soulfulness, passion, and truth."[12]
Nothing could be better said or more openly declared, and the
interpreter of the part was thus informed of the intentions of the
author. He adopts her, makes her his own, is ready to share his own
glory with the youthful renown of Négroni. For her he will conceive
marvellous parts; she will create them.
Juliette understood him perfectly. With the ardour of a
twenty-five-year-old imagination excited by love, she began to dream of
her poet, of their two lives henceforward united in a common success.
While Victor still wavered, still hesitated whether to seek this actress
of whom thousands of alarming anecdotes were current, she made foolish
projects, settled trivial details, savoured one by one those joys of the
dawn of love which so many women prefer to the delights of possession.
He came at last on February 27th, Shrove Sunday, towards the end of the
afternoon. The weather had been beautiful, one of those soft spring days
that enhance the beauty of Parisian women and make the men pensive. The
streets were littered with booths, noisy with fireworks, discordant with
raucous voices. The Boulevard du Temple exploited a fair where, on that
particular day, masks and songs added variety and movement.
Victor Hugo, who lived in the Place Royale and never drove in a cab, had
to cross this scene on foot. His thoughts were still confused; he, who
was ordinarily so determined in his plans, still debated whether he
should mount the actress's stairs. After all, this child seemed fond of
him--but whom was she not fond of? Who was there that did not figure on
the list of her lovers? Yesterday, Alphonse Karr, loutish, a babbler, a
writer of romances, fairly honest, but so ponderous in his pretentious
and everlasting coat of black velvet! To-day a Russian Prince who was
said to have offered Juliette a marvellous trousseau, copied from the
wedding outfit of Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans. He was also credited
with the intention of installing her in a sumptuous apartment in the Rue
de l'Échiquier.... What should a poet, a great poet conscious of his
mission, want with such a girl?
Then a voice sang in the memory of Victor Hugo, a voice almost
supernatural, like those with which he used to endow the good fairies in
the days when he covered the margins of his lesson-books with fancies.
"_Mon Dieu_," it wailed, "_qu'est-ce qui remplit tout le c[oe]ur?_" And
at last the poet walked up to place the answer at the feet of his new
friend.
Like all great hearts, Victor and Juliette fell head over ears in love,
and thought of nothing else. The poet was no longer to be found in the
Place Royale, or, if he was, he remained abstracted, a stranger at his
own hearth. He, usually so precise, so punctual and methodical, now
neglects his guests and is late for meals. When evening comes and his
drawing-room is filled with voices, song, and discussion, and with women
who smile upon him and men who render him homage, he forgets everything,
even to be polite. His eye is on the clock, he longs for the blessed
hour of the _rendezvous_ at 9, Rue St. Denis. Sometimes he snatches up a
stray sheet of paper and scribbles feverishly. Verse or prose? More
often it is verse, for it will be offered to Juliette, and nothing
flatters her so much as these poetical surprises created in the midst of
the din and diversions of a social circle.
Neither did she give herself in niggardly fashion. From the very
beginning she said to him: "I am good for nothing but to love you!" She
threw herself thoroughly, magnificently, into the part.
Thus quoth she--and wrote likewise, for she, also, wrote from
everywhere: from her room, from a friend's house, from her box at the
theatre, from a chance café. For her tender "scribbles," as she calls
them, any scrap of paper will serve, even an envelope or the margin of a
newspaper; and for instrument a pencil, a blackened pin, even a steel
pen, that novel invention of which every one is talking, but which she
hardly knows how to use.
Of the form of her letters she takes little heed. No lexicon is needed
to say that one loves. A woman in the throes of passion does not worry
about grammar. Juliette is of that opinion, and that is why her early
letters are so full of charm. They exhale the perfume of love, and also
its timidity.
Her letters were not merely a means of giving vent to her feelings: they
seemed to her the only occupation fit for a sweetheart worthy of the
name, when the lover is absent or delayed. On February 18th, 1833,
Victor Hugo had left her early in the morning. She had rushed to the
window to follow him with her eyes as long as he was in sight. At the
corner of the Rue St. Denis, as he was about to turn into the Rue St.
Martin, he looked back; they exchanged a volley of kisses. Then she
found herself lonely indeed, oblivious of her surroundings, like a
somnambulist who walks and speaks and acts in a dream. Around her was an
immense void, in her heart one sole desire: to see the poet again, and
never to part from him. It was to fill that void and beguile that desire
that she took up the habit of writing to him.
[Illustration: JULIETTE DROUET IN THE RÔLE OF LA PRINCESSE NÉGRONI.]
He, on his part, repaid letters and messages as much as possible with
his own presence. Any time he could snatch from his children and work
and visits to publishers or theatre-managers, he gave to Juliette. As
_Lucrèce Borgia_ continued to reap a signal success--the greatest, from
the financial point of view, that the Porte St. Martin had ever
experienced--Harel asked the author for a new play. Victor Hugo wrote
_Marie Tudor_ in very few days, and the principal parts had just been
allotted: to Mademoiselle Georges the Queen, to Juliette, Jane. Under
pretext of rehearsing, we find our lovers lunching together almost every
day. If there was really a rehearsal, they met again afterwards on the
stage, and tasted the rare pleasure of sharing their work, as they
shared their pleasure. When they did not rehearse, they hurried out of
town. Furtively yet boldly, timidly but merrily, they started on one of
those strolls, partly Parisian, and partly suburban, which, according to
Juliette, were the chief enchantment of their _liaison_.
Paris was not then the dusty conglomeration of eight-story-high houses
it now is. Instead of spreading over the surrounding country, it allowed
the country to encroach upon itself. At the foot of Montmartre (which
Juliette always calls a _mountain_), real windmills waved their long
arms; along the Butte aux Cailles a genuine brook purled among the
lilacs and syringa; on the summit of Montparnasse, when there was
dancing, artists and poets, dandies and grisettes, trod actual grass, to
the sound of fiddles! Juliette had always in her a strain of
bohemianism. We may therefore picture her in short, striped, pleated
skirt, tight at the waist but flowing out wide at the bottom over white
stockings, a little silken cape covering her queenly young bosom,
without concealing its fine lines, her head surmounted by a rose-trimmed
bonnet with black ribbons, clasping the arm of her "friend" with
sparkling eyes and cheeks as rosy as her headdress. Happiness, as she
used to say in after-days, is so light to carry, that her feet hardly
touched the ground. Her pride in her companion was such that her glance
defied Heaven. "When I hold your arm," she wrote to him, "I am as proud
as if I had made you myself."
She did _re_make him, to a certain extent, for it was she who insisted
upon his becoming younger and smarter in appearance. He now trained his
chestnut locks over his Olympian brow, in careful but unromantic
fashion; his black eyes, with their blue depths, resumed their upward
glance, when they were not plunged in those of his mistress; his
complexion, which had been so pale, now gained colour, and soon, when
Auguste de Châtillon paints the poet's miniature for Juliette's
pleasure, he will be able to endow him with lips less eloquent than
caressing, without straying from the truth. "The dear little
fashionable," as his companion called him, compressed his sturdy figure
into a really handsome blue coat opening over a shot waistcoat. His
immaculate linen, and the scarlet ribbon of the order Charles X had
bestowed upon him in his youth, stood out in pleasant contrast to the
sombre hue of his coat. His tiny feet, and hands as delicate as
Juliette's own, completed this somewhat incongruous exterior.
And the two made expeditions together, wherever they knew of, or hoped
to find, moss and trees, and an attractive shelter. They went to
Montmartre and Montrouge, to Maison Blanche and St. James, to Bicêtre
and Meudon, Fontainebleau, Gisors, St. Germain-en-Laye, and Versailles.
Sometimes the poet pondered his work as he walked. Silence was then the
order of the day; so Juliette was silent. But more often they talked,
made plans for the future, babbled merry nonsense, and exchanged kisses.
Or else they discussed their past: Victor told of his studious childhood
spent poring over books, of his early works, laborious and chaste.
Juliette recalled her bare-footed school-girl pranks. Both gloried in
the radiant memories of their youth.
But in the midst of those halcyon days of simple pleasures, Fate began
to show herself unkind. First came the failure of _Marie Tudor_, then
Juliette's disappointment at the Comédie Française, and, in addition,
the persecution of her creditors and the consequent quarrels with Victor
Hugo, with their subsequent scenes of tender reconciliation.
The poor girl was, in fact, overwhelmed with debt. When Victor Hugo,
desirous of setting her free for ever, asked her to draw up a detailed
statement of her affairs, she nearly broke down under the task, for
there were not only ordinary bills, such as 12,000 fr. to Janisset the
jeweller, 1,000 fr. to Poivin the glove-maker, 600 fr. to the laundress,
260 fr. to Georges the hair-dresser, 400 fr. to Villain the purveyor of
rouge, 620 fr. to Madame Ladon, dressmaker, 2,500 fr. to Mesdames
Lebreton and Gérard for dress materials, 1,700 fr. to Jourdain the
upholsterer--but also fictitious and usurious debts intended to disguise
money loans, and all the more numerous because they were for the most
part invented under the direction of an attorney who answered to the
name of Manière. She took good care not to reveal to Victor Hugo, whose
own burdens, and practical, economical mind, she was well acquainted
with, the amount of her expenditure and the magnitude of her
liabilities. The moment came, however, when the creditors realised that
they had to deal with a pretty woman inefficiently vouched for by a
poet. They lost patience and threatened her, and it was then that
Juliette had recourse to money-lenders. The remedy was worse than the
evil. Stamped paper soon flooded her rooms. Her furniture was seized,
and also her salaries from the Théâtre Français and the Porte St.
Martin. She tried to save a few clothes, and was had up for illegally
making away with the creditors' property. Her landlord threatened her
with expulsion; she imagined herself homeless, and lost her head.
Instead of confiding in Victor Hugo, her natural protector, she had
recourse to former friends. There were many such, from Pradier, the
sculptor, to Séchan, the scene-painter of the Opera and other theatres.
Pradier replied with advice; he was not without just pretext for
refusal, for, since her intrigue with Victor Hugo, Juliette no longer
wrote to the father of her child except "_par accident et monosyllabes_"
or else in a school-girl's handwriting, calculated to cover the pages in
very few words. Séchan and a few others were less stingy; they sent
small but quite insufficient contributions. She was therefore forced to
take the big step of revealing the whole truth to the beloved.
The scene was stormy, although Victor Hugo did not hesitate for a moment
before complying with an obligation that was also a satisfaction, since
it secured his possession of Juliette. Fussy and meticulous though he
was in the small circumstances of life, he knew how to be generous and
even lavish in the great--but Juliette's petty deceptions had infused
doubts in his mind; moreover, he was in love and therefore jealous.
Towards the end of 1833 and in the early part of 1834, suspicion, anger,
unjust recriminations and noisy quarrels became almost daily affairs. As
invariably happens in these cases, friends, male and female, interfered.
Juliette was slandered by Mademoiselle Ida Ferrier, her understudy in
the rôle of Jane at the Porte St. Martin--who would, if rumour may be
trusted, have gladly understudied her also in the heart of Victor
Hugo--also by Mademoiselle Georges, who was getting on in years[13] and
could not forgive the lovers for not acknowledging her sovereignty in
the green-room and drawing-room as they admitted it upon the stage. To
aspersions and reproaches Juliette opposed, not only indignation, but
angry words, violent retorts, and sometimes even insulting epithets; or
else she protested in innumerable letters and notes, rendered eloquent
by their sincerity. She complained that she was "attacked without the
means of defence, soiled without opportunity of cleansing herself,
wounded without chance of healing"; she affirmed her intention of
putting an end to the situation by suicide or final rupture. Generally
Victor Hugo arrived in time to calm her frenzy with a caress or a
soothing word, and then Juliette would try to resign herself and let
hope spring uppermost once more. But Victor Hugo, under the influence of
some new tittle-tattle, resumed his grand-inquisitorial manner, and the
tone, words, reproaches and even threats appertaining to the part. The
creditors continued to harry her without intermission; so in the end the
couple passed from words to actions.
As we have stated above, Juliette's furniture had been seized, and she
was about to be turned out of her apartment in the Rue de l'Échiquier.
She had endeavoured vainly to interest her friends, past and present, in
her difficulties. Even Victor Hugo, disheartened probably by the
difficulties of the task, had returned a refusal. The lovers therefore
exchanged farewells which they thought final, and on August 3rd Juliette
started for St. Renan, near Brest, where her sister, Madame Kock, was
living. Happily she travelled by the Rennes diligence, and there were
many halts on the way. From the very first of these she sent an adoring
letter to the poet. She wrote again from Rennes, from Brest once more,
and lastly from St. Renan. Victor Hugo responded with expressions of
poignant regret and remorse, according to those who have read them. He
promised to do his very best to find the few necessary banknotes to
satisfy the biggest creditors. In the end, he set out for Rennes
himself, and rejoined his friend. The lovers returned to Paris on August
10th.
Now commences the most singular period of the life of Juliette, one
which has been aptly entitled an "amorous redemption after the romantic
manner."[14] For nearly two years Victor Hugo, taking his mistress as
the subject of his experiment, put into practice the theories, in part
religious, and in part philosophical, which he professed concerning
courtesans, namely: the expiation of faults by faithful, passionate,
disinterested love; love itself being considered as a species of
_sesame_, capable of opening wide the doors of science, and throwing
light upon all hidden things.
The first condition of redemption was poverty, voluntarily, almost
joyously, accepted. The furniture of the Rue de l'Échiquier must be sold
and the beautiful rooms given up. A tiny apartment consisting of two
rooms and a kitchen was taken for Juliette at No. 4, Rue du Paradis au
Marais, at a yearly rental of 400 fr. There she shivered through the
winter, and spent part of her days in bed to economise her fuel; but at
least she proved that she loved truly and was deserving of love.
No more dresses or jewels ... every evening Victor Hugo repeated to his
mistress that dress adds nothing to the charms of a lovely woman, that
it is waste of time to try to add to nature where nature herself is
beautiful; and proudly, as if indeed she were clothed in the hair-shirt
of her former mistresses at the convent, Juliette wrote: "My poverty, my
clumsy shoes, my faded curtains, my metal spoons, the absence of all
ornament and pleasure apart from our love, testify at every hour and
every minute, that I love you with all my heart."
But there can be no true reformation or conversion without work. So
Juliette must work; she must study her parts, make her clothes and even
some of Victor Hugo's, patch others, keep her little house in order, and
spend what leisure she can snatch, in copying the works of the master,
cutting out extracts from the newspapers, classifying and collecting his
manuscripts and proofs.
When he had completed this splendid programme, of which almost every
part, as we shall presently see, was carried out to the letter, the poet
experienced an overpowering need to find himself alone somewhere with
the woman he had finally subjugated. His mind was still quite Virgilian.
He had not yet arrived at confusing duty with politics and happiness
with popularity. His greatest enjoyment, next to love, was in rural
pursuits, and for the indulgence of these he flattered himself he had
discovered in Juliette a companion worthy of himself. The lovers had
barely settled in the Rue du Paradis au Marais before they went off to
the valley of Bièvres. Half mystics, half pagans, worshipping equally at
the shrines of the forest divinities and those of the village churches,
they entered upon the consummation of what they themselves called their
"marriage of escaped birds."
[Illustration: JULIETTE DROUET IN THE RÔLE OF LA PRINCESSE NÉGRONI.]
[Illustration: HOUSE IN THE VILLAGE OF LES METZ, IN THE PARISH OF
JOUY-EN-JOSAS, SEINE-ET-OISE,
In which Juliette Drouet lived while Victor Hugo was staying at Les
Roches. This is the house referred to in _La Tristesse d'Olympio_.]