Translated by Bethszabee Garner

A leading figure of Romanticism, a monument of literature, a peer of France, a political exile and a visionary artist, Victor Hugo was much more than the author of Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris. Born in 1802 and died in 1885, he left an immense mark on the French language, social consciousness and artistic imagination. Behind this committed man was an obsessive decorator for whom each piece of furniture became a myth, a reflection of himself. It is this little-known dimension that is revealed today in the exhibition Hugo décorateur at the Place des Vosges, while La Misérable at the Théâtre Marigny revives the seminal relationship between Hugo and Juliette Drouet, the art that the poet owes to passion, obsession and secrecy. Two perspectives that finally allow us to understand the man behind the monument.

Discovering Victor Hugo, the intimate

Spanning two floors of the house museum on Place des Vosges, the exhibition Hugo décorateur reveals Hugo as an artist in everything he touched. We discover the writer as a creator of worlds, obsessed with objects and their symbolic power. Before his exile, his Parisian interiors (rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, rue Jean-Goujon, Place Royale) already vibrated with this taste for accumulation, contrasts of materials, and the invention of atmospheres saturated with meaning.

The exhibition reconstructs the destroyed dwellings and dispels the myths. The engraved panels at Hauteville House, a masterpiece of exile, the decor is a golden message from the walls to the floors, constituting a score of memory and light. What this journey shows is the momentum of a creator who never separated art from life.

In this journey, we discover a truer portrait of the poet. That of an artist who decorated, wrote and dreamed. The Hugo who reappears today is more real than sensitive and inhabited by a need to dictate his environment.

Juliette Drouet, the beloved: love as Victor Hugo's hidden workshop

LA MISERABLE – Couturière from Wednesday 1 October 2025 at the Théâtre Studio Marigny Photographer ©Emilie Brouchon

The rooms dedicated to the ‘decor of love’ set the tone. Juliette Drouet appears as a faithful companion from 1833 onwards, then as a creative partner. It was with her that he hunted for antiques, imagined spaces, and created engraved panels adorned with monograms of love (‘VH’ and ‘JD’). The homes he designed for her in Guernsey, La Fallue and then Hauteville II, mirrored his own.

This relationship is brought to life in La Misérable, currently playing at the Théâtre Marigny, where Julie Depardieu gives voice to the woman who was muse, lover, scribe, witness and sometimes prisoner of a demanding genius. The play recalls the flamboyant darkness of the poet. A man who hid behind his dominance, a lover who demanded total devotion and drew on this presence as the very driving force behind his art.

Victor Hugo exhibition: decorator

Maison de Victor Hugo, 6 place des Vosges – 13 November 2025 to 26 April 2026

‘La Misérable’ at the Théâtre Marigny

Carré Marigny, since 3 October 2025