COMPOSITION

V. Hugo’s FriendSHIP & First Love

She was brunette with large, bright, soft eyes, with a straight, little

nose and a beautifully formed mouth. As a young 16-year-old lady, she was

sweet and pretty. She was Adele Foucher, the source of young Victor Hugo’s

idolatry, and his first love. He was a writer growing in talent and fame,

growing before her beauty and shyness. Their friendship can be described as

the ideal romantic tragedy.

Victor had known Adele when they were children. She was a ppart of

bourgeoisie in Paris and the daughter of the pro-French Marques de

Montehermosa. Their two families, the Hugos and the Fouchers, had been

intimate friends before their birth. Their children grew up together.

Parental resistance created the ideal tragic situation for the two lovers.

Adele’s father, Pierre Foucher was Hugo friend. Although Mr.Foucher was

secretly excited about Victor’s rising literary success. But Adele was

warned that young Victor was a boaster, that he was inconstant and lazy. In

spite of that, they sent letters into each other aand began a long and risky

journey of emotional correspondence, which in Hugo’s mind, undoubtedly

would end in marriage. So sure was he, that he boldly signed his first

letter to her “your husband”. After 2 years and 200 love letters exchanged

between the llovers, Victor and Adele got married.

Hugo loved Adele truly and deeply, and perhaps for a time, she believed she

loved him as much. In the early years of their friendship, when her mother

was out, Adele would make her escape from the house, run swiftly

downstairs, and glide along a shady path to meet Victor, who was expecting

her, „under the chestnut trees“. Such relationship between Hugo and Adele

made them emotionally irresistible. But they were too young to know the

true meaning of love, they didn’t understand its needs. It was a childish

love, without thought to its responsibilities or its sacrifice. Even when

they made the supreme confession, they were mere children playing the game

of love. On the day of April 26, 1819 Victor (19 year oold boy) and Adele

(16 year old lady) declared their love.

Adele was young and naive, and felt Victor had placed her too high on his

pedestal. And perhaps she was right. He loved her with all the passion of

two people have never fallen in love, and assured her that “It is our souls

which love each other, not our bodies”. For ten years, that is, practically

the whole of their marriage, Madame Adele Hugo had behaved in such a manner

and it was no surprise wwhen the day of betrayal came.

Mr. Charles Saint Beuve worked closely with Hugo and Hugo considered him a

friend. Hugo helped the young Saint Beuve explore the realms of poetry.

Meanwhile, Saint Beuve had been secretly meeting Adele in churches and

rented rooms. When Hugo found out that Adele was unfaithful, his pain was

endless.

The life with Adele passed through Hugo’s eyes, he remembered all the

wonderful days spent together. Hugo was forced to seek happiness in

Juliette Drouet’s arms; it was the easiest way to forget his first true

love – Adele.