“Art is the most beautiful of lies, the most sincere, and the one that best tells the truth.”
Victor HUGO
Who is Juliette Drouet?
Known as Victor Hugo’s muse and faithful companion, Juliette Drouet was much more than just a figure in the shadows. A woman of letters and an actress with a singular destiny, she forged a deep and lasting bond with Brittany, through love, exile and writing.
Born in 1806 in Fougères, Ille-et-Vilaine, Juliette Drouet spent the first years of her life in Brittany. Orphaned at an early age, she left the region for Paris, where she began a career as an actress. It was here, in 1833, that she met Victor Hugo and gave up acting to devote her life to him, becoming his confidante, secretary and living memory.
But Brittany never quite disappeared from her horizon. Juliette returned several times, notably during Victor Hugo’s exile. In 1855, she stayed in Saint-Malo before leaving for Jersey, where the couple settled with other Republican outlaws. The Breton shores became a land of transition between the France they had had to flee, and the England that welcomed them.
In her many letters to Hugo – over 20,000 written over the years – Juliette often evokes the sea, the wind and the changing skies. These landscapes, so close to those of her Breton childhood, fed her imagination and accompanied her love.
Juliette Drouet is a discreet but essential figure in Breton literary memory. Fougères, the town of her birth, pays tribute to her with plaques, a school and cultural events commemorating this passionate, free and deeply loyal woman.