222 - HUGO (Joseph Léopold, General), 1773–1828.

HUGO (Joseph Léopold, General), 1773–1828. L.A., [Ajaccio (postmark)], undated (c. September 1805, illegible postage stamp), 3 pp., in-4, to his wife Sophie (née Trébuchet). An important and lengthy letter from General Hugo attesting to the definitive breakdown of the couple’s relationship. Léopold, on the verge of leaving Corsica, details his expenses and responds to Sophie’s complaints regarding the money she had sent him in a letter dated 20 Messidor (July 9). The letter highlights the financial difficulties that are straining the couple’s relationship. In response to Sophie’s complaints about the insufficient amounts she had received for herself and their three children, the general provides a detailed account of his expenses and official travels. He reminds her of the 1,205 francs he had already sent, listing her pension, expensive housing in Ajaccio, a servant, laundry, and constant travel. He asserts that he has paid off his debts and can now provide a little more. But behind these accounts, discord is evident: he reproaches her for hoped-for inheritances that never materialized and investments she refused to make, while defending himself—not without harshness—against the accusation of abandoning his family. Money here is both the symptom and the cause of their breakdown. The marriage of Léopold Hugo and Sophie Trébuchet, celebrated in 1797, was soon strained by Léopold’s military absences and constant travels. Three sons were born of this union—Abel, Eugène, and Victor—but the couple gradually drifted apart. At the beginning of the Empire, their de facto separation deepened: Sophie lived apart from her husband—whose conduct and financial situation she questioned—and grew close to General de Lahorie, while Léopold began another affair in Italy. Although they never divorced, they led largely separate lives from that point on, a situation that had a lasting impact on Victor Hugo’s childhood. In its original Charavay slipcase (No. 43465).