224 - HUGO (Victor), 1802–1885.

HUGO (Victor), 1802–1885. Autograph letter signed “V. H.,” undated, April 17 [1874], 1½ pages in-12 on paper with a mourning border, with envelope, addressed to Madame Pierre Véron. A lovely, friendly letter. His correspondent understood with tact and compassion that he could not be with them the day before. “[…] I can no longer take part in celebrations, even the most cordial and pleasant ones. What exile began, mourning has completed. For twenty years I was a recluse; now I am an absentee. Almost a dead man. Yet that does not prevent my home from hoping for your visit, and the day you step inside, I shall come alive again. […] Tell your dear husband how deeply I am his, from the depths of my mind and the depths of my heart […]” Pierre Véron, a Republican journalist and editor-in-chief of *Le Charivari*, was a friend of Victor Hugo’s from the years of exile onward. Their relationship, which continued after 1870, went beyond the professional sphere and extended to Mrs. Véron, to whom Hugo addressed very affectionate tributes and whom he invited, along with her husband, to Hauteville House. Includes its original cultural property export certificate from the Ministry of Culture.