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Speaker 1: I had a dream last night. I won't go into

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Speaker 1: all the details because the whole thing in the dream

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Speaker 1: as I'm in there, I don't know it's a dream,

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Speaker 1: but I am thinking to myself, this is so boring

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Speaker 1: and I don't want to be going through this event

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Speaker 1: right now. I really want to move past this, but

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Speaker 1: I'm just stuck in it. And I woke up and

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Speaker 1: I was like, what a bring dream? And I mean

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Speaker 1: there was like a motorcycle gang and like a gas

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Speaker 1: station getting robbed and all this stuff. But in it,

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Speaker 1: I'm just like, I just can I just skip this game?

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Speaker 1: Do you ever get that in life where you're just like,

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Speaker 1: I don't want to be sitting through this right It'll

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Speaker 1: be like a really intense experience for someone else, and

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Speaker 1: you're just like, I don't I want this episode to

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Speaker 1: be over. I just did not enjoying it. Can we

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Speaker 1: move past? Oh my god? Constantly? Yeah? Well, I'm sorry.

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Speaker 1: You're dream writers were off their game. Man. They they

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Speaker 1: eleven fifty pm. They were like, oh, ship, we don't

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Speaker 1: have tomorrow's episode. Quick, just give some throw them some

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Speaker 1: trash terrible, pull the drafts out of the trash. Can

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Speaker 1: I woke up not remembering my dream at all, but

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Speaker 1: I know it had something to do with the French Revolution.

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Speaker 1: And I know why because I've been researching Victor Hugo

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Speaker 1: and I had like, I don't know, pitchforks and stuff.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what it was about, but I know

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Speaker 1: it was about the Revolution. Well, I can't think of

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Speaker 1: a better segue to today's episode. That's right, because we're

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Speaker 1: talking about Victor Hugo. All all my dreams are coming

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Speaker 1: true today. So yeah, when we last left Victor Hugo,

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Speaker 1: we had learned about his early childhood being swept up

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Speaker 1: in his parents acrimonious divorce, and that, against his mother's wishes,

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Speaker 1: Victor had become secretly engaged to his childhood friend A

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Speaker 1: del Fuchare now Jenny A, who is at the Perky

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Speaker 1: goth on Instagram. And Cassandracarta both suggested Victor Hugo to

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Speaker 1: us at different times, and they were very right to

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Speaker 1: do it, because this is some rich, ridiculous, romantic, soil

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Speaker 1: incredible stuff. Thank you both for sending in Victor Hugo,

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Speaker 1: because we got two episodes out of it for real,

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Speaker 1: and our boy Victor had an enormous sex drive to

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Speaker 1: match his prodigious writing talent, and it simply could not

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Speaker 1: be confined to a single woman. So let's talk about

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Speaker 1: Victor Hugo and his wife, his mistress, his other mistress,

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Speaker 1: and all the prostitutes in parents of my favorite people. Yes,

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Speaker 1: let's go. Hey their French condition. Well, Elia and Diana

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Speaker 1: got some stories to tell. There's no match making a

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Speaker 1: romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships. A lover might

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Speaker 1: be any type of person at all, and abstract cons

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Speaker 1: adro a concrete wall. But if there's a story where

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Speaker 1: the second clanch ridiculous roles a production of I Heart Radio. Now,

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Speaker 1: thanks to our exploration into his parents love life, we

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Speaker 1: know that when Victor Hugo was born, he was small

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Speaker 1: and sickly. According to a history blog ed heard dot com,

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Speaker 1: Victor was also kind of deformed. He had like an

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Speaker 1: enormous head and a small body, and this apparently made

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Speaker 1: his mother flinch to look at him and made his

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Speaker 1: father compare him to the gargoyles of Notre Dame Cathedral,

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Speaker 1: which helped actually inspire Victor to write The Hunchback of

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Speaker 1: Notre Dame. But as our friend, Victor Hugo biographer Graham

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Speaker 1: rob points out while he might not have been much

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Speaker 1: to look at, Victor actually had the perfect Romantic body

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Speaker 1: because it was like a weak physical corporation struggling to

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Speaker 1: support a massive intellect, you know, like the Romantics as

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Speaker 1: a group, not like romantic body like fabio. Oh no, no,

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Speaker 1: it's not like the perfect body for the Romantic period.

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Speaker 1: You wouldn't be on the cover of a regency rovel um.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, for the Romantic period, the head and the

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Speaker 1: heart were more important than the body, right, So it

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Speaker 1: was something cool that you were like, Oh, my brain,

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Speaker 1: it's just so enormous. Um. Later in his life, Victor

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Speaker 1: would be very proud of his big old head. He's

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Speaker 1: often pictured resting his head in his hands, as though

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Speaker 1: his brain and it's just too heavy for his neck

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Speaker 1: to hold up. Pretty awesome. There's nothing wrong with having

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Speaker 1: a giant head. I know you, I knew you would appreciate. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: big head. Oh I'm sorry you think I have a

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Speaker 1: big head. Um. Yeah, and metaphorically I have to special

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Speaker 1: order hats. It's tough. It's tough to find. One time,

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Speaker 1: my grandma gave you a hat that my grandfather wore. Well,

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Speaker 1: and your grandfather has a notoriously tiny head. He did,

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Speaker 1: he did, which is funny because he was a big man,

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Speaker 1: but he did have kind of a smaller head. And

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Speaker 1: I remember you trying to wear it and it just

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Speaker 1: looks very ridiculous. I'm sorry, Grandma that I cannot preserve

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Speaker 1: this hat for you. It looked like I was wearing

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Speaker 1: like a British fastener. Yeah, was like a false fascinator, Dora.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god. Now Victor's giant head certainly didn't deter

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Speaker 1: his childhood friend Adele Foucher from falling in love with him,

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Speaker 1: and they became secretly engaged when they were just teenagers,

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Speaker 1: which I mean, come on, well, I had teenage friends

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Speaker 1: that we were like, you know, oh if neither of

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Speaker 1: us is married by thirty Uh? Yeah, did any of

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Speaker 1: them ever do it? No? One of my friends. Uh

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Speaker 1: we were already married. And she got married at twenty nine,

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Speaker 1: And I was like, who almost you? And I almost

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Speaker 1: had to have a conversation like Diana before I ever

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Speaker 1: met you. I promised myself, you should have mentioned this

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Speaker 1: before we went developed her. But okay, so Adele and

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Speaker 1: Victor did not, of course get married right away as teenagers.

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Speaker 1: Victor wanted to finish law school first. He confined his

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Speaker 1: passion for her to around two hundred love letters that

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Speaker 1: he wrote during their courtship, and he also entered a

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Speaker 1: poetry contest when he was only fifteen. His poetry was

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Speaker 1: so advanced and well written that the academy absolutely refused

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Speaker 1: to believe that these weren't written by an adult until

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Speaker 1: his mom showed up with his birth certificate. He had

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Speaker 1: to produce a long form no way, this isn't just

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Speaker 1: some diny man with a giant head. Yeah, he's got

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Speaker 1: an adult size head. He's clearly an adult. But despite

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Speaker 1: his incredible talent that fooled even the French academy, his

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Speaker 1: father wasn't interested in his writing. Leopold, you remember from

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Speaker 1: our previous episode, said that Victor's literary career was quote

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Speaker 1: like pouring good wine down an open sewer. Wow, and

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Speaker 1: he refused to help pay for any of Victor's education.

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Speaker 1: He wrote, quote, if you were to elect a career

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Speaker 1: as a lawyer or a physician, I would gladly make

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Speaker 1: sacrifices to see you through university. Caleb, Seriously, I myself,

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Speaker 1: I don't know that this was the case, but it

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Speaker 1: had been implied to me that my grandfather, who was

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Speaker 1: a lawyer, might have paid for my school if I

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Speaker 1: had chosen to go to law school. Oh wow, yeah,

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Speaker 1: see this is just I mean, we're at the French

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Speaker 1: Revolution and parents still be like, you should be a doctor,

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Speaker 1: a lawyer. Think of this art ship, even in France,

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Speaker 1: even in France. Well that, of course, like many artists,

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Speaker 1: made Victor all the more determined to make it as

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Speaker 1: a writer, so that, of course he could prove to

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Speaker 1: his dad that writing could pay more than an army salary.

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Speaker 1: He published his first volume of poetry in eighteen twenty two,

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Speaker 1: and only twenty years old, and it was so good

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Speaker 1: that it earned him a royal pension from King Louis,

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Speaker 1: so he was able to marry Adele Foucher at last.

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Speaker 1: But Adele Foucher also did not care about Victor's writing. Um.

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Speaker 1: She ignored all the passionate love poems that he wrote

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Speaker 1: for her. She told him quote, it is the fault

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Speaker 1: of passionate men to set the women they love upon

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Speaker 1: the pedestal. To be placed so high produces dizziness, and

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Speaker 1: dizziness leads to a fall. Okay, all right, that's fair,

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Speaker 1: that is fair. I had a girlfriend who absolutely hated

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Speaker 1: the notion of anyone like singing a song for her,

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Speaker 1: like writing a song for her. She was just like,

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Speaker 1: it makes me so uncomfortable. I don't even want to hear.

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Speaker 1: To the point where I was like learning guitar and

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Speaker 1: she was like, you're gonna have to do that. I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: I don't want to. I don't want to hear it.

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Speaker 1: I think she had previously dated a songwriter. Wow, that'll

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Speaker 1: sour anybody on a song because you know they're going

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Speaker 1: to go sing it to some other bit. Probably. But

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Speaker 1: once Victor and Adele Fischer got married, Victor could show

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Speaker 1: her his desire and his devotion in a more physical way,

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Speaker 1: and boy didn't he. On their wedding night, he bragged

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Speaker 1: that they had sex nine times before Adele finally was like, no, Victor,

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Speaker 1: get off me. I need to get some sleep. And

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Speaker 1: the guy just could not get enough, and one biographer,

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Speaker 1: Edward Bahar, wrote that Adele's feelings for him were never

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Speaker 1: the same after that night. He described it as a

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Speaker 1: brutal night, which I can kind of believe if nine

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Speaker 1: times is kind of hot. Well, and had they not

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Speaker 1: had sex before they got okay, so he was like

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Speaker 1: off to the races and she was like, okay, that's

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Speaker 1: a little sore, and like, ah, this is not what

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Speaker 1: I expected. I mean, for real, you gotta wait for

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Speaker 1: nine times, let's be honest. But that was not the

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Speaker 1: only drama that accompanied his marriage, because Victor's older brother, Ugeen,

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Speaker 1: was also secretly in love with Adele and he had

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Speaker 1: a bit of a competitive streak with Victor. He was

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Speaker 1: also a poet and Victor's already showing him up as

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Speaker 1: a writer. So when his lady love chose Victor over him,

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Speaker 1: Ujon suffered from a mental breakdown at the wedding, and

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Speaker 1: it was so severe that he had to be placed

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Speaker 1: in an asylum. Tragically, jon never recovered his reason and

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Speaker 1: he died by suicide at only thirty seven years old.

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Speaker 1: It's quite a few little tragedies like that throughout Victor's life. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: over the next eight years, a del Fucher ended up

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Speaker 1: pregnant five times. Their first child a son named Leopold,

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Speaker 1: He died in infancy, and then they had their daughter,

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Speaker 1: Leopoldine in eighteen twenty four, and then Charles in eighteen

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Speaker 1: twenty six. Francois Victor in twenty eight and finally their

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Speaker 1: daughter Adele in eighteen thirty. Adele Jr. I guess um

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Speaker 1: after that, his wife, adel Foucher completely ceased having sex

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Speaker 1: with her husband. I mean, maybe she was just totally

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Speaker 1: exhausted by his you know, absolute insatiability. Maybe she just

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Speaker 1: really didn't want to get pregnant again. Maybe a combo

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Speaker 1: of both, but it sounds like I mean she basically

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Speaker 1: like nailed boards to her bedroom door, like we do

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Speaker 1: not enter, no victors, no victors allowed. But not long

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Speaker 1: after Adele Hugo Adele Jr. Was born, Adele Foucher started

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Speaker 1: having an affair with Victor's friend, and that brings us

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Speaker 1: to our first side peace. I'm a bad boy. Yes,

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Speaker 1: Adele got with Victor's friend, a literary critic named Charles

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Speaker 1: Augustan send Bov. So we're kind of getting shades of

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Speaker 1: Sophie Trebische here, right, Victor's mother, of course, who got

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Speaker 1: with her husband's best friend other Victor Lahari. Yes. Right,

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Speaker 1: But according to Victor Hugo scholar Marva Barnett, Charles quote

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Speaker 1: may have been the perfect lover, as he was apparently

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Speaker 1: physically incapable of sexual intercourse. That's how sick Adele was

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Speaker 1: of having sex after eight years of being married. I'm

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Speaker 1: going to have an affair with someone who doesn't do

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Speaker 1: it like this is a non sexual affair. I guess

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Speaker 1: this is locked in. So they had this emotional affair,

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Speaker 1: but it included secret letters and clandestine meetings, and it

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Speaker 1: really bothered Victor. He wrote to his wife's lover and

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Speaker 1: his friend Charles sent boove quote, I am convinced that

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Speaker 1: it might be that what has all my love might

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Speaker 1: have ceased to love me, and that it may have

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Speaker 1: had a little bit to do with you. It's no

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Speaker 1: good going over everything you have said and telling myself

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Speaker 1: the very idea is folly. It's still a drop of

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Speaker 1: poison sufficient to poison my entire life. Sure, go ahead,

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Speaker 1: pity me. I am genuinely unhappy. I don't know where

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Speaker 1: I stand with the two beings I love most in

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Speaker 1: the world. You are one of the two. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of clunky. She actually says that the clunky writing may

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Speaker 1: have been indicative of Victor's emotional state when he wrote it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's usually it's a little more eloquent. He's kind of

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Speaker 1: a writer sort of thing. So this very cluttered sentence

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Speaker 1: like he's really writing and disgress. Yes, he did not

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Speaker 1: do a second draft of this. Victor became estranged from

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Speaker 1: his friends sent after that. But when Charles was made

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Speaker 1: a member of the French Academy in eighty five, Victor

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Speaker 1: Hugo had to give his reception speech very awkward. Oh lord,

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Speaker 1: what was it? He was up there like distinguished friends

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Speaker 1: of the Academy. It is with great pleasure that we

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Speaker 1: bring on to our membership Charles Augustine's tempo. He has

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Speaker 1: a great talent for critiquing and also for sleeping with

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Speaker 1: other men's wives. But when Adele Foucher stopped sleeping with Victor,

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Speaker 1: he was already a famous writer. He had published several

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Speaker 1: volumes of poetry, a few plays, and a few fictional novels,

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Speaker 1: including the famous Hunchback of Note for Dame, which was

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Speaker 1: published in eighteen thirty, So it's not like he had

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Speaker 1: any trouble finding a lady to replace Adele in his

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Speaker 1: bed or anything. Um. It may be that Victor did

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Speaker 1: not start sleeping with other women until Adele cut him

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Speaker 1: off and started having her own affair, But he was

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Speaker 1: much less picky than she was. In the book The

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Speaker 1: intimate sex lives of famous people by Irving Wallace. He writes, quote,

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Speaker 1: Victor craved affairs with women who were passionate, witty, and challenging,

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Speaker 1: but he often settled for sheer numbers, so unlike a

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Speaker 1: del through share. It was like, I need to find

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Speaker 1: the perfect lover who doesn't actually want to have physical

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Speaker 1: sex with me. Victor was like, I need to find

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Speaker 1: the perfect lover, which is anyone who will have sex

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Speaker 1: with I love love, I'm interested in all of you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he did not care if they were prostitutes, courtisance actresses, servants,

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Speaker 1: married single. He was into it, but he did like

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Speaker 1: him young. Wallace writes quote, In fact, as he grew older,

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Speaker 1: they were often young enough to be his granddaughters. Any

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Speaker 1: woman or girl who was young, attractive, and amenable was

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Speaker 1: fair game. I like the word amenable. It wasn't like

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Speaker 1: forcing his attendance on anyone who didn't want them. Um

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Speaker 1: And according to Graham Rob he would pick up women

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Speaker 1: on Paris buses, and he would also hire prostitutes to

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Speaker 1: put on strip shows for him. One of the young,

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Speaker 1: attractive and amenable women that he romped with was a

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Speaker 1: woman who would become the true love of Victor's life,

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Speaker 1: and that brings us to our second side piece, I

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Speaker 1: Love You. The actress Juliet Drue was a beautiful, intelligent, impulsive,

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Speaker 1: and hot tempered woman with bright eyes and raven black hair.

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Speaker 1: She'd been a precocious child and later became the mistress

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Speaker 1: of a sculptor named James Pardier. And this guy and

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Speaker 1: her had a daughter together named Claire. On Partier's advice,

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Speaker 1: Juliette became an actress in eighteen thirty three. She was

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Speaker 1: playing Princess Nagroni in one of Victor Hugo's plays, Lucrezia Borgia. Now,

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Speaker 1: Victor was just smitten with this young actress in his show,

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Speaker 1: and he swept her off her feet and they consummated

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Speaker 1: their love on February six, which they marked every year

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Speaker 1: as their own little anniversary. And also interesting side note,

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Speaker 1: this is the date of Marius and Cosette's wedding. In

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Speaker 1: lame Is, Victor writes a lot of his own life

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Speaker 1: into especially lame Is. Seems yeah, well, so long, so

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Speaker 1: many opportunities. He's just like, think of a date, what

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Speaker 1: is a good what is a good number for this

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Speaker 1: guy's prison number? Oh what what did my dad, give

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Speaker 1: me that numb. Oh was the date I was conceived,

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Speaker 1: I'll just use that the day my dad was definitely

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Speaker 1: sleeping with my mom on the mountain. They didn't have

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Speaker 1: random number of generators back then, so they said to

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Speaker 1: use what they had in the in their mind now.

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Speaker 1: Later that year, Juliette also starred in another one of

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Speaker 1: Hugo's plays, Mary Tudor, as Lady Jane Gray. But according

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Speaker 1: to Carol A. Setle in her article The Lonely and

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Speaker 1: Devoted Life of Juliet Rue, Victor was afraid that Juliet's

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Speaker 1: uti would attract other men, so he insisted that she

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Speaker 1: just stay home unless he could escort her. God knows,

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Speaker 1: you don't have a will of your own, so if

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Speaker 1: some man sees you and thinks you're pretty, you would

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Speaker 1: immediately sleep with him. You know, Like, what is this nonsense? Victor? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Absolutely so. Consequently, Juliet did spend a lot of time

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Speaker 1: at home, and unfortunately that made her career totally dry up. Plus,

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Speaker 1: apparently it was serious enough between them that Victor's wife,

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Speaker 1: Adele Foucher, got super jealous, and she slowly stopped her

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Speaker 1: own affair with Charles sent Bov and even wrote to

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Speaker 1: theater managers saying that if they cast Juliette it would

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Speaker 1: be descrimental. Did their ticket sales damn after her career?

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Speaker 1: I know that's that's very harsh out, but it must

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Speaker 1: be said that Juliette was also described as a lackluster actress,

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Speaker 1: so I'm not sure how much health the theater managers

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Speaker 1: needed to not cast her in things. You do you

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Speaker 1: think they responded to it. I'm like, oh, do not

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Speaker 1: fear she has no chance? Or they just used that later. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I'm so sorry we cannot cast you. Someone told us

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Speaker 1: you're a bad tickets, ticket sales. Sorry, it's not you,

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Speaker 1: it's you, it's not your talent. It's just that people

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Speaker 1: don't like Your manager is great at making actresses feel bad.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, four young actors. You can't say nothing to

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Speaker 1: her that she wants to hear, except your cast. Carol

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Speaker 1: Setle says in that article that in eighteen thirty nine,

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Speaker 1: Victor and juliet celebrated a secret kind of marriage where

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Speaker 1: Victor swore never to leave Juliette and she renounced the

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Speaker 1: stage altogether to become his secretary and his traveling companion.

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Speaker 1: But even though Victor was totally in love with Juliet

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Speaker 1: and she was totally in love with him, it didn't

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Speaker 1: stop him from enjoying a true Parisian sex smorg is bored. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and we will get to those dirty details right after this.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back everyone to Victor Hugo's crazy sex romp. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Irving Wallace writes in The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous

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Speaker 1: People quote, it was not unusual for Victor to make

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Speaker 1: love to a young prostitute in the morning, an appreciative

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Speaker 1: actress before lunch, a compliant courtesan as an aperative, and

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Speaker 1: then joined the also indefatigable Juliet for a night of sex.

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Speaker 1: I got tired just reading that young prostitute in the morning,

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Speaker 1: appreciative actress before lunch. Okay, now, alright, A lot of

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Speaker 1: actresses out there having sex are very good at seeming appreciative,

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Speaker 1: especially with a famed play right. Okay, there's like thank

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Speaker 1: you for writing apart for me or something right or

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Speaker 1: helping me get cast or whatever. I hope, so that's

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Speaker 1: how we hope he followed through with it. But it

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Speaker 1: sounds like you slept with too many actresses, I know,

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Speaker 1: how could hear of that, he wrote a play called

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Speaker 1: and at least once another character into this show. He

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Speaker 1: even had a little sex code that he used in

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Speaker 1: his diaries, including like Latin and Spanish words homophones, which

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Speaker 1: are you know, words that sound alike. So, for example,

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Speaker 1: the word sang means breasts in French, so he would

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Speaker 1: write sat or satan, Oh I squeezed some saints last night,

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Speaker 1: some good saints last night, right, Or like the French

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Speaker 1: word for stove p o E l or twill, he

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Speaker 1: would write that to refer to p O I L

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Speaker 1: s quell, which means pubic hair. So I'm like trying

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Speaker 1: to read his diary in my head, like, oh, last

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Speaker 1: night I pressed my face to her saints in their

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Speaker 1: soft You're writing at like, what what is he talking about?

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Speaker 1: Soft as a stove? Although I can't imagine it took

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Speaker 1: like some brilliant literary genius to decode his prominence. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so he's talking about pubic hair or hugo. Also, analogies

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Speaker 1: were applied a women's seas or Swiss are her breasts

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Speaker 1: because Switzerland is renowned for its milk. Childish. That's all

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Speaker 1: I had to say about that one. And then we

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Speaker 1: had to lift the rest of this actually off his

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Speaker 1: Wikipedia page because it's the most complete version that I

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Speaker 1: could find. But they write quote after a rendezvous with

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Speaker 1: a young woman named Letitia, he would write jois or

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Speaker 1: happiness in his diary. If he added t N to

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Speaker 1: new he meant that she stripped naked in front of him.

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Speaker 1: So he seduced his servants. He often paid for sex.

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Speaker 1: He slept with married women, but only if they weren't

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Speaker 1: living with their husbands. Gotta have standards. And he had

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Speaker 1: an affair with a famous revolution snary, Louise Michelle, who

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Speaker 1: was actually at Victor Noir's funeral. Remember our episode about

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Speaker 1: the bulge that everybody he was rubbing up on. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he was the journalist who stood up who didn't really

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Speaker 1: want to. He just kind of became a symbol for liberty, right,

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Speaker 1: and Louise Michelle said that she was sorry his funeral

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Speaker 1: had not sparked the revolution. That very day in eighty seven,

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Speaker 1: he even seduced the lover of his own son, Charles,

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Speaker 1: Alice Ozy Damn. The story goes that Charles thought that

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Speaker 1: Alice was seeing other people, so Victor wrote her erotic

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Speaker 1: letters trying to prove that she was cheating, but she

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Speaker 1: responded to those letters. One thing led to another, and

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Speaker 1: Alice and Victor ended up banging, which, on the plus,

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Speaker 1: I did prove her infidelity. It was like, I did

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Speaker 1: it so awkward? Hey, hey, Dad, I think my wife

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Speaker 1: was cheating on me. Would you try and pretend seduce

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Speaker 1: hers to see if she falls for it? And then

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Speaker 1: like two weeks later he's like, son, I got some

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Speaker 1: good those and some bad. Moose. Charles, for his part,

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Speaker 1: apparently understood. According to Victor Hugo's biographer, Graham rob he

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Speaker 1: wrote to Alice, quote, you chose the father and the glory.

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Speaker 1: I cannot blame you any woman would. It was my bad.

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Speaker 1: I sent my dad to try and suduce you. And

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Speaker 1: the man that's got a flawless record, he just never misses.

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Speaker 1: He's hundreds for zero. Now. Alice Ozy herself would actually

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Speaker 1: later become Napoleon the Third's mistress, so did alright. She

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Speaker 1: stayed high in the rank for a while. Victor Hugo

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Speaker 1: also had a bit of a foot fetish, and he

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Speaker 1: was turned on by intrigue. Wallace writes an Intimate Sex

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Speaker 1: Lives quote, he often admitted his mistresses through secret staircases

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Speaker 1: and entertained them in hidden rooms, even when this was

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Speaker 1: not really necessary. During much of his life, he held

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Speaker 1: dinner parties every night with up to thirty guests and

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Speaker 1: would entertain them with his party trick, whereas the Guardian describes,

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Speaker 1: he'd quote shove an entire orange in his mouth, then

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Speaker 1: fill his cheeks with as many lumps of sugar as possible.

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Speaker 1: He'd then churn it all up in his mouth and

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Speaker 1: glugged down two glasses of kirsh which is a brandy

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Speaker 1: maid from cherries before swallowing the lot meat. So he

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Speaker 1: just mixed his own drink in his mouth with a

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Speaker 1: full orange. Victor, my man, use a glass. It sounds delicious.

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Speaker 1: You can afford one. I know. That cracked article by

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Speaker 1: Cedric Bowits says that many guests were encouraged to stay

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Speaker 1: the night after these parties in Victor's vast mansion. Quote

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Speaker 1: but what people didn't figure out until his house was

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Speaker 1: put up for auction after his death was that all

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Speaker 1: the guest bedrooms had peep holes drilled into them. That's

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Speaker 1: very uncomfortable, bikes. Victor was like, I hope you'll get

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Speaker 1: it on becausin I can watch what I mean. Honestly,

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Speaker 1: that's not any different from like having secret cameras installed bedroom.

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Speaker 1: I guess it requires a little more effort on your

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00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: party go from room to room, but the result is

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Speaker 1: the same. I wonder if you know somebody had one

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Speaker 1: of those paintings and the eyes and then his little

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Speaker 1: bug eyes are poking through, it would have to be

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Speaker 1: a big head painting painting. Victor also liked to write naked.

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Speaker 1: He would lock himself naked in his room to work

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Speaker 1: and instruct his servants not to give his clothes back

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Speaker 1: until he had finished a chapter, according to The Guardian.

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Speaker 1: In her memoirs, at del Fucher wrote that while he

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Speaker 1: was writing Hunchback, Victor bought quote a huge gray knitted

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Speaker 1: shawl which swathed him from head to foot, locked his

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Speaker 1: formal clothes away so that he would not be tempted

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Speaker 1: to go out, and entered his novel as if it

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Speaker 1: were a prison. He was very sad. I mean, writers,

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Speaker 1: you know, writing, the discipline of writing is incredibly difficult.

424
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 1: I've heard things just like this, I mean, where people

425
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 1: are like, I have to come up with some method

426
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: of tricking myself for or punishing myself into finishing my work,

427
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: otherwise it just won't get done. I kind of like

428
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 1: the relatability to that. Victor Hugo, one of the greatest

429
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 1: authors of all time, was also like, lock me in

430
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:24,920
Speaker 1: my room and don't let me out until I finish

431
00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: a chapter. Otherwise I'm gonna spend all day just having

432
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:31,440
Speaker 1: sex and swallowing the whole oranges. The minute I get bored,

433
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:34,440
Speaker 1: I'm out there to finding a brothel. Yeah, you can

434
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:36,399
Speaker 1: see why he rewarded himself too that at the end

435
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:40,440
Speaker 1: of the night, I've been naked in my room all day,

436
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 1: in this drafty room, writing incredible literature. I'm gonna I

437
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 1: earned it. I'm gonna go get laid to serve an actress.

438
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: But between all of these prostitutes and servant girls and

439
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: actresses and son's girl friends and even Juliet herself in

440
00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: my be assumed that Victor was busy enough, you know

441
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 1: who has the time. But this guy was insatiable. He

442
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,879
Speaker 1: was always hungry for more. And that brings us to

443
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 1: our third and final side piece. Putting it on Author

444
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 1: and Arctic explorer Leoni don Bard was living with the

445
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:25,680
Speaker 1: painter Francois Augusta Biard in eighteen thirty eight and they

446
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: later married in eighteen forty when she heard about a

447
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 1: scientific expedition to the Arctic, and she convinced Francois to

448
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: get a gig as the official painter and bring her along,

449
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,399
Speaker 1: and this made her the first woman to participate in

450
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:43,720
Speaker 1: a scientific expedition to the North. Can't blame her. She's

451
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: living that um, she's living at Dorothy Putnam life. She's like,

452
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:48,920
Speaker 1: put me on that boat. I want to get out there.

453
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:50,960
Speaker 1: Whatever it takes. Yeah, let me check it out. I

454
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:53,239
Speaker 1: love the idea of an official painter, but it makes

455
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,239
Speaker 1: perfect sense you could take photo and a photographer, right,

456
00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:58,120
Speaker 1: So I love that. There he was like, we really

457
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,879
Speaker 1: need a good painter anyone when your volunteers. How fast

458
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: can you paint? How much white paint do you have?

459
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 1: La And he went on this expedition and she published

460
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,159
Speaker 1: her letters from the time in serial form. When she

461
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 1: returned to Paris, and she would go to those literary

462
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: salons that we all wish we could go to. And

463
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:21,160
Speaker 1: there she met Victor Hugo in the autumn of eighteen

464
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 1: forty three, and he said about forty old, Victor's emotional

465
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:28,960
Speaker 1: state was pretty bad in the autumn of eighteen forty

466
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:33,880
Speaker 1: three because his favorite child, his eldest Leopoldine, had been

467
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: married in February of that year, and she was nineteen

468
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 1: years old and pregnant when she and her husband Charles

469
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: got on a boat in the Scent for a trip

470
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 1: like a few months later in September, and the boat capsized.

471
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 1: Leopoldine's heavy skirts dragged her down in the current, and

472
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: Charles dove in to save her, but tragically they both drowned.

473
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: It like the saddest story I've ever heard, young like

474
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: in love newlywed, so sad, and Victor Hugo found out

475
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 1: when he picked up a newspaper in a cafe, also

476
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: an extra tragedy in my opinion. I know no one did.

477
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 1: No one could get the news to him before they

478
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: got it to the to the I know. So he's

479
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: not a hard guy to find, not really. And yeah,

480
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: he was never really the same after that. Um. He

481
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: became clinically depressed. He had trouble writing much for a

482
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: few years after her death. He was suffering from really

483
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: serious writer's block, although he did write several poems dedicated

484
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: to Leopoldine, and in one of his most famous. He

485
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 1: describes visiting her grave. So let's go down to poetry

486
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: corner and hear Domaine de lobe or tomorrow at dawn, Tomorrow,

487
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: at dawn, at the moment when the land whitens, I

488
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: will leave you. See, I know that you are waiting

489
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,840
Speaker 1: for me. I will go through the forest, I will

490
00:29:56,880 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: go across mountains. I cannot stay away for you any longer.

491
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: I will walk eyes fixed on my thoughts, without seeing

492
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 1: anything outside, without hearing a noise, alone, unknown, back hunched,

493
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 1: hands crossed, sorrowed, and the day for me will be

494
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 1: as the night. I will watch neither the evening setting

495
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: sun nor the faraway sailboats descending upon our floor. And

496
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: when I arrive, I will put on your grave a

497
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 1: bouquet of green holly and heather in bloom Ah. I

498
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 1: just can't even devastating. So when Victor met Leoni Biard,

499
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 1: he was maybe feeling even more open than usual for

500
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: something fresh and fun and gave him like a honeymoon feeling,

501
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 1: and it really devastated at this time in his life.

502
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: So they fell hard for each other. Um they started

503
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: a serious affair that became public knowledge in July, after

504
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: Leonie's husband from Swabillard got suspicious about what his wife

505
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: was up to with this old randy dog Hugo, and

506
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: he got the police to tail her. They followed her

507
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: to a hotel and burst in on her naked and

508
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 1: in criminal conversation with Victor Hugo. Do you remember our

509
00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 1: lady Seymour Worsley episode? Criminal conversation is what they called adultery,

510
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: basically in the crowd and in the courts. But by

511
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 1: this time Victor had been nominated by King Louis Philippe

512
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 1: to the Upper chamber of Parliament. He had just been

513
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 1: inducted that April, so he was able to invoke his

514
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 1: parliamentary privilege. I guess not to be arrested for embarrassing things.

515
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know what his privilege was.

516
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: And he's just like, I'm a peer, you can't take

517
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: me in, so he was let go. Meanwhile, Leone was

518
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 1: arrested and spent two months in prison. Then she was

519
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 1: transferred to a convent for another six months, so she

520
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: got all the blame. Not usual, and but King Louis

521
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 1: Philippe apparently awarded Francois Billard a commission to appease him,

522
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 1: so that he wouldn't drag everybody through like a big

523
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 1: divorce trial because like I let to paint me, you

524
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: just leave it me. I think it's interesting of Victor

525
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 1: Hugo as a senator. If you look up, if you

526
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: just google Victor Hugo, it says Victor Hugo French Senator,

527
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 1: and then like down the way it's like, and he

528
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 1: was an author. I'm like, y'all, and nobody remembers Victor

529
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 1: Hugo for his political position. I mean maybe in France

530
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 1: they do, but I doubt it. He's like one of

531
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 1: the most renowned authors of all times, seriously, and he

532
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: also is really great at drawing. They said if he

533
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: was if he had chosen to be a painter, he

534
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: would have been one of the greatest painters. He was

535
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: good at music, and the guy was good a lot

536
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 1: of things. But yeah, senator, way down the list for me.

537
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: Nobody's like the number one thing I know Arnold Schwarzenegger

538
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 1: for is being a governor covernor of California. Come on.

539
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 1: But even with all this legal hullabaloo, Leoni and Victor

540
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 1: carried on their affair for another six years. He also

541
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 1: gave her money to support her kids for the rest

542
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 1: of her life. And this wasn't really out of the

543
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 1: ordinary for Victor. He was apparently pretty extravagant with all

544
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: of his lovers, and he would give them lavish gifts

545
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:22,280
Speaker 1: or you know, settled houses on them and kind of

546
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: see why a lot of them were like, oh, you

547
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 1: want to sleep with me, that's pretty great. Might be

548
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 1: I maybe the fourteenth girl you slept with today, but

549
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: at least I might get a car, I get a

550
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 1: piece of property from now his wife if you remember

551
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 1: that Victor Hugo has a wife. Chair. She was so

552
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: happy to see a competitor for the actress Juliette Toway

553
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 1: that she visited Leoni in the convent and when she

554
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: got out, she helped her launch her literary career. So

555
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: she was like, better you than that actress. I don't

556
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 1: know why, I guess you just was like, I want

557
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: to dislodge anyone who's been here for a long time, right,

558
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,280
Speaker 1: But Lany did her best to depose juliet two. So

559
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 1: those two ladies are working together against this actress. She

560
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:12,839
Speaker 1: begged Victor to dump her, and when that didn't work,

561
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: Leony gathered up all the love letters that Victor had

562
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 1: written for her and she had them delivered to Juliette.

563
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:22,880
Speaker 1: So of course Juliette gets all these love letters to

564
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 1: another woman, and she's piste off and she's heartbroken at

565
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:29,799
Speaker 1: Victor's and fidelity. How dare you cheat on me the

566
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 1: women you're cheating on your wife with with another woman?

567
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: So I mean, you know, well, she just felt like

568
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 1: little flings with actresses and prostitutes for one thing, but

569
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 1: a committed affair that lasted seven years was another, Like

570
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 1: you you aw me something? But okay. Then Napoleon the

571
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: Third came along and everything was different. Of course, if

572
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: you all remember Maximilian and Carlotta and a number of

573
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 1: other European episodes, Napoleon the Third love thrown wrenches and gears.

574
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,640
Speaker 1: He did, he made his market, and we're going to

575
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: find out more about all of that right after this break.

576
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 1: Welcome back, everyone. So Victor Hugo was a republican, right,

577
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:15,840
Speaker 1: he wasn't into kings and queens. He wasn't it. He

578
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: wanted there to be a Republic of France. He was

579
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 1: really into that. And in his political life he argued

580
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:25,240
Speaker 1: against the death penalty, against slavery, for freedom of the press.

581
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: He wanted an end to misery and poverty, which sounds

582
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 1: really easy to say. I was like what he was like,

583
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 1: I'm doing my part by supporting all the sex workers

584
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 1: in France. I've enriched so many ladies. He also argued

585
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: for universal suffrage and free education for children, so he

586
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 1: was he was really active politically. He really wanted to

587
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:49,719
Speaker 1: kind of form a new France. He wanted to be

588
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,320
Speaker 1: a big part of forming new France. So if you

589
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:54,960
Speaker 1: weren't directly married to him, he treated women pretty well.

590
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 1: He loved it. He was like, you deserve the world, girl.

591
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:02,359
Speaker 1: But in eighteen fifty one, then president of France under

592
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:06,800
Speaker 1: the Second Republic, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte the Third staged Akuta

593
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 1: Top and seized complete power of France. Victor Hugo immediately

594
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: declared him a traitor, and that meant he had to

595
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 1: get the hell out of France very quickly, because they

596
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:20,720
Speaker 1: want to come kill him for sand shit about Napoleon

597
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 1: the Third. And it was Juliette drew A who risked

598
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 1: her life to save Victor Hugo. Carol Setl says that

599
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 1: she arranged his false identity papers a disguise and coordinated

600
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 1: a series of safe houses for him to hide in

601
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: as he made his way to Brussels, which could not

602
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 1: have been easy because Victor Hugo was already so famous

603
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:45,440
Speaker 1: by then that people would steal pebbles from cobble stones

604
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:49,919
Speaker 1: he walked on as souvenirs. Imagine that. I don't even

605
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:53,840
Speaker 1: think Beyonce gets that kind of dream. I would steal

606
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 1: a pebble from Wow. But you got to imagine. The

607
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:02,319
Speaker 1: sky must have been tough because Napoleon the Third could

608
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 1: just tell his men look for a man with a

609
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 1: giant head and the biggest head in friends. I saw,

610
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:08,080
Speaker 1: I saw, I read somewhere there was just a fake

611
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 1: beard and a top hat. It's got to be more

612
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: than that, all right, just a very recognizable guy, no

613
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 1: top hat, Hugo's head. This guy let us raised the

614
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 1: Clark Kent's situation. It's like quick glasses on and everyone's like,

615
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:27,879
Speaker 1: who's this guy. Juliette Drue joined him in Brussels with

616
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 1: trunks full of Victor's works in progress that she had

617
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 1: saved from angry mobs, including two thirds of lame As

618
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 1: Rob which he had been working on since eighteen thirty,

619
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 1: and she was real into it. There's some of her

620
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 1: letters are like, if you don't make these guys suffer

621
00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 1: for the things they're doing. Like, she's such a fan

622
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:49,760
Speaker 1: of the book, so she was really careful with his work.

623
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:52,200
Speaker 1: And I gotta say it reminds me of a number

624
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:56,720
Speaker 1: of other stories we've told where these these famous men's

625
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 1: lovers and wives were often the ones who preserved there

626
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: were exactly. I was thinking a lot about Anna Douglas,

627
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 1: who she smuggled Frederick Douglas out of very right. If

628
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 1: it weren't for her, he would never have been himself

629
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: right now. So it's just really cool. Victor went from

630
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 1: Brussels to Jersey and then he finally settled on the

631
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 1: island of Guernsey and his family joined him there in

632
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five. And if you're a romance movie fan

633
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 1: like myself, go on Netflix and watch the Guernsey Literary

634
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:27,880
Speaker 1: Potato Peel Pie Society is so good and cute. I

635
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 1: love it. I lay on the Byard wanted to come

636
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:33,800
Speaker 1: to Guernsey too, but Victor's wife, a del Foucher, actually

637
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 1: discouraged her. Remember they were even kind of getting along

638
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 1: because they both hated Juliette the second woman so much.

639
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 1: That's I wonder if Adele was like, well, Juliet's already here,

640
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:49,320
Speaker 1: that's enough lady around. But Leoni still wrote to Victor.

641
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: At this point, though, Juliette proved how smart she was

642
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: because she was living near Victor and his entire family

643
00:38:56,560 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: in her own separate residence. Although Victor visited her every day,

644
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 1: they had meals together, they took walks. Carol Setel writes

645
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 1: that she was so much happier during this period of

646
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: time because Victor was less distracted with his plays and politics,

647
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 1: and so he could spend more time with her. Adele

648
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 1: and the kids would come and go, returning to France

649
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:22,360
Speaker 1: for long periods, but Juliette never left his side. Juliette

650
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: was also allowed to leave her home by herself and

651
00:39:24,719 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 1: make a few friends, and even became close to Victor's children,

652
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: But she was always deferential to Adele the wife, and

653
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 1: she never set foot in the family home. She never

654
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:36,799
Speaker 1: done any petty ship to try and come between them,

655
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,440
Speaker 1: and little by little, over the years spent on Guernsey,

656
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:44,359
Speaker 1: Juliette actually won Adele over. They become friendly and even

657
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:46,879
Speaker 1: sent each other gifts on occasion, and in her will,

658
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:50,759
Speaker 1: Adele told her kids that they should look after Juliette

659
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 1: if Victor should die before her. Wow, I think that's nice.

660
00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:56,399
Speaker 1: She was like, all right, you're just part of There's

661
00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:58,880
Speaker 1: even like a family photo with Juliette in it, all

662
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 1: the kids and Adele like she was just like, you're

663
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:03,759
Speaker 1: part of the family now. I guess I gotta wonder

664
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:06,560
Speaker 1: if Leoni felt a little betrayed by Adele, Like I

665
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: thought you and me were working against this this actress together,

666
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:14,479
Speaker 1: and now you're friends with her. Sorry, Leonie, I mean, yeah,

667
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 1: it's too bad. There was no going back to Leoni

668
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: at this point. But don't worry about her. She got

669
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:22,000
Speaker 1: legally separated from her husband, the painter franch Sois, in

670
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five, and Leoni became a distinguished author in

671
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: her own right. So she did, Okay, the go girl,

672
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: handle it handle It probably would have been hard to

673
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:35,359
Speaker 1: be a distinguished author as Victor Hugo's mistress, you know,

674
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 1: like they're in a shadow there a little bit very true,

675
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 1: very true, or they would like immediately be like, oh,

676
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:43,240
Speaker 1: he must have helped you write this, so he probably

677
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 1: even like wrote it and you put your name on it,

678
00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:48,960
Speaker 1: like I could see all kinds of did that happen

679
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:52,319
Speaker 1: with that? Collette? Collette? Yeah, yeah, Willie got all the

680
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 1: credit for Claudine novels. I know later in her life

681
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 1: she she got all her credit, but originally, yeah, they

682
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 1: were published under his name. You're telling me that a

683
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 1: man got credit for a woman's hard work at some

684
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: point in history. I don't. I don't buy it. So

685
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 1: hard to believe, so hard to believe. But these things happen,

686
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 1: you know, these things happen. To see the receipts. Oh,

687
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 1: there are plentiful receipts here they are. I'm drowning in receipts.

688
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:21,880
Speaker 1: Excuse me. It's like the Harry Potter again, his letter right.

689
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 1: The whole time Victor is living in exile and Guernsey

690
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: he was writing. He wrote three collections of poetry, pamphlets

691
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 1: against Napoleon. The third he convinced Geneva, Portugal, and Columbia

692
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 1: to remove the death penalty from their constitution. And you'll

693
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: be happy to know, Eli that he did plead in

694
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:47,280
Speaker 1: Vain with Wuarez to spare Maximilian the first of Mexico. God.

695
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:49,359
Speaker 1: And we were all we were all trying to get

696
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 1: Warez to get off that ship. Everyone I know wrote

697
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 1: a letter in the Wuarez all my friends, please let

698
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: that guy. But Warez he just couldn't, I mean politically

699
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: it didn't anyway, Go lessla episode. If you haven't heard it,

700
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:08,240
Speaker 1: it's my favorite story. Victor Hugo also finally finished Lame

701
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 1: as a Rob after seventeen years. It's one of the

702
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:15,880
Speaker 1: longest novels ever written, at nineteen hundred pages in the

703
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:19,439
Speaker 1: original French and fourteen hundred in English, which just goes

704
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:21,359
Speaker 1: to show you how much more concise we can be

705
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:23,759
Speaker 1: over here. If he ever described with the time that

706
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 1: was a whole page. It's also still considered one of

707
00:42:27,040 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: the greatest books ever written. But even though Victor was

708
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 1: a political exile in danger of having his book heavily

709
00:42:33,600 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 1: censored by the French, he was determined to be paid

710
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:40,680
Speaker 1: the most anyone has ever been paid for a book.

711
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 1: He had to show Debt that's right. He was like,

712
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 1: take this, Leopold, and he got it. Of Seltzer fans

713
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:51,040
Speaker 1: will enjoy this one because it was Belgian publisher Albert

714
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:56,480
Speaker 1: la Croix who won the deal. I don't know. I

715
00:42:57,080 --> 00:43:00,879
Speaker 1: like to think so he went from publishing to bubbly water,

716
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 1: from publishing sparkling the Albert Lacroise story. Lacrosse story. Uh,

717
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: he had just launched his own publishing company and he

718
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:11,680
Speaker 1: had very little money, kind of like Laquise have very

719
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:14,720
Speaker 1: little flavor. And as soon as he heard that Victor

720
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: Hugo had a new book, he hot footed it to

721
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:20,320
Speaker 1: Guernsey to negotiate because he knew. He's like, this is

722
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:23,359
Speaker 1: gonna sell if I get this book, my company is set.

723
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:28,240
Speaker 1: Hugo was paid three hundred thousand francs for an eight

724
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: year license, not not even a lifelong copyright. Eight years.

725
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:35,399
Speaker 1: This guy got this book and let me pull out

726
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:41,439
Speaker 1: the conversion calculator transferred we that's around three point eight

727
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:45,960
Speaker 1: million dollars in today's money. According to biographer David Bellows,

728
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:49,759
Speaker 1: it still stands as the highest figure ever paid for

729
00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 1: a work of literature, and it's also likely the first

730
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: time a bank ever made a loan to finance a

731
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 1: book because Albert didn't had the money. So he was like, hey,

732
00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:02,280
Speaker 1: just one of these situations where it takes a Victor

733
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:04,239
Speaker 1: Hugo for a bunch of people look around and say,

734
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I think the arts might have value.

735
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 1: I mean, it's also the first book to be published

736
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:15,920
Speaker 1: under embargo, which means that no advanced copies were given

737
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:20,080
Speaker 1: out to like get reviews and stuff. Um. Instead, they

738
00:44:20,120 --> 00:44:24,760
Speaker 1: released the first part Fantine by itself. It sold six

739
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 1: thousand copies on the first day. Hugo had insisted that

740
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 1: cheap copies be made available, not just like fancy hardback copies.

741
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 1: This was a really smart move because Lama's rob was

742
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 1: brutally panned by critics, including Hugo's friend and fellow novelist

743
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:45,279
Speaker 1: Alexandre Duma, but the people who loved it, which makes sense.

744
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 1: People's story, and when subsequent chapters were published, shoppers showed

745
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 1: up to bookstores with wheel barrows so they could buy

746
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:57,800
Speaker 1: as many copies as possible, mostly to sell them on

747
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:01,960
Speaker 1: the black. And I've already read that one. I need

748
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:05,000
Speaker 1: a fresh coffee. I don't think Albert Lacroix was really

749
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 1: into that idea, but common scheme, I imagine. And it

750
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:11,440
Speaker 1: just did so well that it only took a few

751
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:14,279
Speaker 1: months for Laquais to pay off his huge bank loan.

752
00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 1: But he did all right, and he took that money

753
00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: and he put bubbles in water bubbles in water and

754
00:45:21,239 --> 00:45:25,800
Speaker 1: let let a line pass over it. Just that, speculations station.

755
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 1: I have no idea he was involved, totally speculations station.

756
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 1: We don't know how to pubbly water now adele fouchere.

757
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 1: Victor's wife passed away in eighteen sixty eight, and just

758
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:39,840
Speaker 1: two years later. Victor returned to Paris in eighteen seventy,

759
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 1: and he was there when the Prussian army laid siege

760
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:46,640
Speaker 1: to the city. Victor was so starved for food at

761
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 1: this point that he was eating animals that had been

762
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:56,520
Speaker 1: gifted to him by the Paris Zoo, which is upsetting.

763
00:45:56,600 --> 00:46:02,480
Speaker 1: I mean, I assume it was like marmots or uh sloths.

764
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 1: Did he have a giraffe? He just wrote that he

765
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:09,800
Speaker 1: was reduced to eating the unknown, the unknown, so I

766
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 1: don't I wonder if they even the animals were killed

767
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 1: or died because there was no food, right, and it

768
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 1: turned into meat before it ever reached him. So he

769
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:21,839
Speaker 1: didn't even know what it was. You know, it could

770
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 1: be a giraffe. It wasn't like he had like a

771
00:46:23,320 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 1: rhinoceros in his backyard and was like, well, I do

772
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:27,279
Speaker 1: not know what it is, but I know I can

773
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 1: eat it. Fire up the grill. At one point, Victor

774
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:34,719
Speaker 1: feared the worst for himself, and he wrote to his family, quote,

775
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:39,319
Speaker 1: juliet she saved my life in December of eighteen fifty one.

776
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:44,359
Speaker 1: For me, she underwent exile. Never has her soul forsaken mind.

777
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 1: Let those who have loved me love her. Let those

778
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 1: who have loved me respect her. She is my widow.

779
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 1: Which is funny because even after Adele died, he didn't

780
00:46:55,600 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 1: marry Juliette, but he was definitely like, this is my lady. Yeah,

781
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: look look at everything she did for me, and like

782
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 1: you said that, she risked so much to preserve his

783
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:10,359
Speaker 1: work and his name. In eighteen seventy three, Juliette came

784
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:13,760
Speaker 1: back to Paris and she and Victor were finally able

785
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:15,959
Speaker 1: to live in the same house for the first time.

786
00:47:16,640 --> 00:47:19,960
Speaker 1: I mean that's like fifty years they were together. But

787
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 1: he was still hound dogging it just like always, I mean,

788
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 1: in Spector Hugo. He's like, I'm not gotta turn this off, baby,

789
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 1: I am who I am, even though he was seventy

790
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: one years old by the time, Juliette found a love

791
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:37,279
Speaker 1: letter to him from one of their servants, a young

792
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 1: woman named blunch, and Juliette wrote Victor a letter of

793
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 1: her own, saying quote, I won't long withstand this incessant

794
00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 1: conflict rising from my poor, aging love, fighting against the

795
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 1: young temptations that are offered to you when perhaps you

796
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 1: are not seeking them right now. I forgive you because

797
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 1: I want God to also forgive you. He who a

798
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:02,600
Speaker 1: loan has the right to punish and the power to

799
00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 1: deliver me as soon as possible from this hell on

800
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,520
Speaker 1: earth where my pitiful heart has been placed on the

801
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:11,840
Speaker 1: rack since the first minute that I gave myself to you. Damn,

802
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:17,720
Speaker 1: that's a lot. She's literally like, Okay, maybe you weren't trying,

803
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:20,719
Speaker 1: okay to have sex with your servant girl. I'm just

804
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 1: gonna assume you weren't, and I'm going to go ahead

805
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 1: and forgive you. But you're making me feel absolutely insane,

806
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 1: and I can't wait for God to get me out

807
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 1: of this hell, deliver me to to Heaven the piece

808
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:37,400
Speaker 1: of death. I mean, but that says something. She was

809
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:39,719
Speaker 1: really obsessed with him. It's like a lot of her

810
00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 1: letters are just like gushing about his genius and how

811
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 1: she just like barely deserves to be around him and

812
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:49,800
Speaker 1: all this stuff. So he probably liked that a lot,

813
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 1: and I feel sorry for her that she couldn't. I

814
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 1: almost feel sorry for her that she couldn't really shake

815
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 1: it off, even though I can't be sorry that she

816
00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:01,520
Speaker 1: preserved La miss and stuff. Her obsession really lead to

817
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:03,880
Speaker 1: us getting to read a lot of his work. I

818
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 1: got to imagine. I don't know, maybe you read this somewhere,

819
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:09,520
Speaker 1: but it sounds like the impression I got is that

820
00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:13,440
Speaker 1: when Victor was with someone, he probably made them feel incredible,

821
00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:17,520
Speaker 1: like the center of the world, right, And then of

822
00:49:17,560 --> 00:49:19,800
Speaker 1: course the next morning he's onto someone else. But Juliette,

823
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:22,840
Speaker 1: he keeps coming back to. She's She clearly had a

824
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:27,719
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I don't know what kind of choices

825
00:49:27,719 --> 00:49:30,719
Speaker 1: she had available to her, but she was, as far

826
00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 1: as we can tell, willing to give up everything else

827
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 1: she ever wanted to pursue to devote herself entirely to him,

828
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 1: even to the point where when he was exiled, she

829
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:42,600
Speaker 1: could have just been like, oh good, he's gone, but didn't,

830
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 1: but did not exactly. Carol Steedel was saying that she

831
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:50,920
Speaker 1: mainly seems to console herself with like knowing that she

832
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:55,080
Speaker 1: has this privileged position in this great artist life, that

833
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:58,920
Speaker 1: she's like reading his drafts, she gets to hear his

834
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 1: work before anyone else and stuff like that. That seems

835
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: to be kind of and maybe that's true for a

836
00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:05,880
Speaker 1: lot of these women, that they're just like this amazing

837
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 1: artist of insane celebrity of like, you know, a beloved figure.

838
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:14,440
Speaker 1: That's that's enough for me to be I I want

839
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:15,879
Speaker 1: a piece of that, you know, I just want to

840
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 1: be a part of that person's life in some way.

841
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 1: So that really meant something to her. And clearly he

842
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:24,120
Speaker 1: maybe he had a I don't know. I'm very interested

843
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:26,600
Speaker 1: in how he thought about sex and love because when

844
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 1: he was with Adele, it seems like he was pretty

845
00:50:29,239 --> 00:50:32,359
Speaker 1: he was trying to stay faithful to her, but he

846
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:35,320
Speaker 1: they did stay married, you know, they didn't want to separate.

847
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:37,840
Speaker 1: And then when he was like, I'm in love with Juliet,

848
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:41,360
Speaker 1: he he stayed with her for a long time and

849
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 1: he was just like, but I'm going to go out

850
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:47,000
Speaker 1: and like, my my appetites are so voracious. Maybe he

851
00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:50,400
Speaker 1: was really afraid to concentrate that on one woman. I

852
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:53,840
Speaker 1: would imagine that part of him probably learned too. Maybe

853
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:57,400
Speaker 1: he and his wife Adele learned this together after she

854
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:00,120
Speaker 1: stopped wanting to have sex with him, like, hey, you

855
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:02,120
Speaker 1: know what, we can have a marriage with that sex.

856
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:05,160
Speaker 1: Sex doesn't have to be tied to monogamy, right, Like

857
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 1: sex is just a thing that you're doing for pleasure,

858
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:10,880
Speaker 1: for fun, whatever, and I don't want to so if

859
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:14,360
Speaker 1: you do go for it, um, just you know, be

860
00:51:14,480 --> 00:51:17,319
Speaker 1: careful with this, the emotional side of things and if

861
00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 1: you're falling in love with someone else instead of me,

862
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:21,359
Speaker 1: And that almost seemed to lead them into this kind

863
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 1: of proto uh polyamory right where he's like, actually, I

864
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:31,240
Speaker 1: don't love you any less when I love her, um,

865
00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:35,320
Speaker 1: you know how one side of that was obviously, it seemed,

866
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:38,360
Speaker 1: but but there did seem to be that kind of

867
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:40,279
Speaker 1: balance they were all trying to figure out in their

868
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:42,759
Speaker 1: own way at that time of like, well what does

869
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:44,160
Speaker 1: it mean if I just want to go have sex

870
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:47,160
Speaker 1: with someone but I still care intensely about you and

871
00:51:47,200 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 1: you're all I think about. And and interesting that he

872
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:54,719
Speaker 1: found her emotional affair to be as devastating as a

873
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 1: physical affair have been for him, like you're the part

874
00:51:58,239 --> 00:52:00,799
Speaker 1: of you that matters you're sharing with some else, you know.

875
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,239
Speaker 1: He really did feel like that was kind of a betrayal, UM,

876
00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 1: and I do wonder maybe there's some trauma there where.

877
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:08,360
Speaker 1: He's like, I, you know, I was concentrating all of

878
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 1: this on my wife, and now she eight years in,

879
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:13,520
Speaker 1: she's like, I'm done with sex for always, like no

880
00:52:13,560 --> 00:52:16,440
Speaker 1: one's going to fund me ever again. And he's like, oh, well,

881
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:19,680
Speaker 1: I don't want to, you know, do that to someone else.

882
00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:22,799
Speaker 1: And maybe he felt like it was actually a kindness

883
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 1: to spread it around, so he didn't I don't know,

884
00:52:25,719 --> 00:52:29,640
Speaker 1: exhaust want one lady over anyone else. I don't know

885
00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:35,319
Speaker 1: that's speculation station, but yeah, even though Juliette wrote him

886
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:38,200
Speaker 1: that angry letter about how she wished she was dead,

887
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 1: she was always certain so much from him, Randy and around. Um.

888
00:52:43,520 --> 00:52:46,000
Speaker 1: She didn't know who he was. She was very, very

889
00:52:46,040 --> 00:52:49,400
Speaker 1: familiar with Victor Hugo and in intimate sex lives of

890
00:52:49,400 --> 00:52:53,040
Speaker 1: famous people. Irving Wallace writes quote, she herself estimated that

891
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:56,160
Speaker 1: he had sex with at least two hundred women between

892
00:52:56,160 --> 00:53:00,359
Speaker 1: eighteen forty eight and eighteen fifty Within two years. Even

893
00:53:00,400 --> 00:53:03,160
Speaker 1: at age seventy, he managed to seduce the twenty two

894
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 1: year old daughter of writer tail Field Gautier, and it

895
00:53:06,800 --> 00:53:09,080
Speaker 1: is possible that he was carrying on an affair with

896
00:53:09,160 --> 00:53:13,400
Speaker 1: the actress Sarah Bernhardt simultaneously. God her name. He's popping

897
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 1: up in some of these stories to do because she

898
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:21,600
Speaker 1: had many lovers, it's insane. Her personal life on her

899
00:53:21,640 --> 00:53:24,840
Speaker 1: Wikipedia page goes on forever and all big names, a

900
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:26,920
Speaker 1: lot of big names. Yeah. And I'll say, like, the

901
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:30,520
Speaker 1: reason they think that is because the initials SB were

902
00:53:30,520 --> 00:53:33,600
Speaker 1: found in his diary, um, and he was known to

903
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:35,719
Speaker 1: be a friend of hers. But I'll say that on

904
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:38,400
Speaker 1: her Wikipedia page there's no mention of them having an affair,

905
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:42,080
Speaker 1: So I don't know how how clear confirmed that is.

906
00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:43,960
Speaker 1: It's just one of those situations where you're like, well,

907
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 1: each one of them had sex with everyone else, so

908
00:53:47,320 --> 00:53:50,040
Speaker 1: they probably did each other. I could totally at least

909
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:51,759
Speaker 1: one night, being like, I mean, why not, let's give

910
00:53:51,800 --> 00:53:55,840
Speaker 1: it a word. Everyone's gonna think we did anyway. But

911
00:53:56,239 --> 00:53:58,759
Speaker 1: like we said, there's really no denying the place that

912
00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:03,880
Speaker 1: Juliette held in Victor's heart. In eight three, after years

913
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 1: battling stomach cancer, Juliette died in Victor's arms at age

914
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:13,320
Speaker 1: seventy seven. Wallace writes quote, although his sex drive continued

915
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 1: during the remaining two years of his life. Her death

916
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:20,000
Speaker 1: seemed to break his spirit at last. It's also becoming

917
00:54:20,040 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 1: more clear exactly how big a part Juliette played and

918
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:27,960
Speaker 1: some of Victor's writing, because she wrote him twenty thousand

919
00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:32,319
Speaker 1: letters throughout her lifetime. Apparently, he he asked her to

920
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:35,640
Speaker 1: write to him every single day when and so she

921
00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:38,200
Speaker 1: would see. Some of her letters are like, please don't

922
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:39,759
Speaker 1: make me do this anymore. I really have nothing to

923
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:42,040
Speaker 1: tell you because I don't get to go out and stuff,

924
00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:44,359
Speaker 1: so I have nothing to say. But yeah, she wrote

925
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:47,080
Speaker 1: twenty thousand letters to him. It's been a huge project

926
00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:49,600
Speaker 1: to transcribe them and put them online. There's like twelve

927
00:54:49,640 --> 00:54:53,400
Speaker 1: thousand are available now, but they're still working on them

928
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 1: and as more of them are being transcribed. Yeah, it's

929
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:58,719
Speaker 1: kind of clear that she did influence his writing a

930
00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:01,440
Speaker 1: little bit. Carol Steed makes a strong point about this

931
00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:04,760
Speaker 1: because she places a letter from Juliette side by side

932
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:08,479
Speaker 1: with one of Victor's later poems. So let's go down

933
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:11,960
Speaker 1: to Poetry Corner one more time to hear Victor Hugo's

934
00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:17,400
Speaker 1: words in the shadow Doubtless I have you, Doubtless I

935
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:21,440
Speaker 1: see you thought is a wine which makes its dreamers drunk.

936
00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:25,640
Speaker 1: I know it. Nevertheless, I wish you'd dream of me

937
00:55:26,320 --> 00:55:29,319
Speaker 1: when you are thus through an evening with your books,

938
00:55:29,360 --> 00:55:32,040
Speaker 1: without lifting your head and without saying a word to me.

939
00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:34,920
Speaker 1: A shadow rests at the bottom of my heart that

940
00:55:35,040 --> 00:55:39,120
Speaker 1: loves you. And for me to see you entirely, you

941
00:55:39,200 --> 00:55:42,320
Speaker 1: must look at me a little from time to time yourself.

942
00:55:43,520 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 1: And now let's hear Juliette's letter to Victor. Consider that

943
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:50,799
Speaker 1: I barely saw you, after all, since you worked all

944
00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:53,520
Speaker 1: of the time without once lifting your eyes to me

945
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:57,240
Speaker 1: and without addressing a single word to me. I well

946
00:55:57,280 --> 00:55:59,480
Speaker 1: know that I could look at you and did not

947
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:02,719
Speaker 1: deny myself that. But I don't see you as well

948
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:05,120
Speaker 1: when you don't look at me a little yourself from

949
00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:09,200
Speaker 1: time to time. Pretty compelling. Yeah, that at least he

950
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:11,360
Speaker 1: got some of that from her. Oh yeah, it's like

951
00:56:11,400 --> 00:56:14,200
Speaker 1: a cover. Yeah, He's like, oh, I got this letter,

952
00:56:14,239 --> 00:56:16,320
Speaker 1: but I'm going to do my own little poetry version

953
00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:18,560
Speaker 1: of yeah yeah, which I mean, you know, he definitely

954
00:56:18,600 --> 00:56:21,760
Speaker 1: has his own beautiful writing and spin on it and everything.

955
00:56:22,160 --> 00:56:26,320
Speaker 1: But I wonder if he's like, oh, this unrequited you know, emotion,

956
00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:31,400
Speaker 1: what does he really know about unrequited emotion? You know

957
00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:33,080
Speaker 1: what I mean? So he's like, oh, I can use

958
00:56:33,120 --> 00:56:35,440
Speaker 1: that to like write a poem about something a lot

959
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:38,960
Speaker 1: of people can relate to. Yeah, He's like, I don't

960
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:49,080
Speaker 1: everyone requited me. Victor Hugo spent his last few years

961
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:53,440
Speaker 1: living on Avenue Victor Hugo, which apparently is one of

962
00:56:53,440 --> 00:56:56,520
Speaker 1: the only times that an avenue was renamed for a

963
00:56:56,560 --> 00:56:59,000
Speaker 1: person who was still alive. This guy really had a

964
00:56:59,000 --> 00:57:01,600
Speaker 1: lot of pull. He only did, and that really really

965
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:04,760
Speaker 1: hugely appealed to his ego because he had his letters

966
00:57:04,760 --> 00:57:08,120
Speaker 1: addressed to him as to Mr Victor in his avenue

967
00:57:08,280 --> 00:57:12,000
Speaker 1: Perry where to go? Everyone knew where, just like just

968
00:57:12,040 --> 00:57:14,520
Speaker 1: look for where there's a line of ladies up the doors.

969
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:21,040
Speaker 1: There's no cobblestones left. Historian Andrew Martin says that Hugo's

970
00:57:21,120 --> 00:57:25,200
Speaker 1: journals detail eight different sexual encounters he had in the

971
00:57:25,240 --> 00:57:28,920
Speaker 1: final four months of his life before he passed away

972
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:33,640
Speaker 1: in five at the age of eighties three. He's eighty three,

973
00:57:33,760 --> 00:57:36,600
Speaker 1: still dogging it up now. Since he was a man

974
00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:38,880
Speaker 1: of the people, you know, for all his wealth and fame,

975
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:42,240
Speaker 1: Hugo requested a popper's funeral if he wanted to be

976
00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:46,640
Speaker 1: down there streets, you know, but keep it quiet, that's right, yeah,

977
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:50,680
Speaker 1: pretty pretty much. But Paris just could not do that. Okay, sorry,

978
00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:54,200
Speaker 1: you were too beloved and importance. And the famous story

979
00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:57,560
Speaker 1: is that every brothel in Paris closed down for the

980
00:57:57,640 --> 00:58:00,880
Speaker 1: day so all the prostitutes could go hey, their respect

981
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 1: to their best customers. But a historian on Reddit thread

982
00:58:05,160 --> 00:58:08,840
Speaker 1: points out that one to two million people are estimated

983
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:12,840
Speaker 1: to have lined the streets for Hugo's funeral procession, and

984
00:58:12,880 --> 00:58:15,440
Speaker 1: the population of Paris at the time was only around

985
00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:20,280
Speaker 1: two point three million people, so half or more of

986
00:58:20,440 --> 00:58:25,040
Speaker 1: Paris was outside. So if the brothels were closed is

987
00:58:25,080 --> 00:58:29,760
Speaker 1: because the prostitutes were on the streets finding they weren't

988
00:58:29,760 --> 00:58:31,680
Speaker 1: going inside, right, or they just had to be like,

989
00:58:31,720 --> 00:58:36,240
Speaker 1: there's no business today, so let me go out in party,

990
00:58:36,440 --> 00:58:38,280
Speaker 1: which I think it is pretty amazing. They're all like

991
00:58:38,320 --> 00:58:40,880
Speaker 1: hanging out at the windows, like, you knowing, nobody coming

992
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:43,760
Speaker 1: in here. Let's just go out and we can give

993
00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:49,240
Speaker 1: some alle blow jobs or something. Amazing. Wow. So regardless,

994
00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:52,000
Speaker 1: Victor Hugo's death had a serious impact on the French

995
00:58:52,040 --> 00:58:57,560
Speaker 1: economy that day, so true, however, it was apparently confirmed

996
00:58:57,560 --> 00:59:01,200
Speaker 1: by the Paris police that the ladies of the night

997
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:04,840
Speaker 1: did drape their genitals in black cloth as a sign

998
00:59:04,920 --> 00:59:13,000
Speaker 1: of respect, like a funeral merchant vaginning. You don't understand

999
00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 1: how much money it made me. And also Paris must

1000
00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 1: have celebrated Victor Hugo just exactly as he would have liked,

1001
00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:25,160
Speaker 1: because urban legend says that the city experienced a mini

1002
00:59:25,200 --> 00:59:30,959
Speaker 1: baby boom nine months later, So they were out here

1003
00:59:32,320 --> 00:59:37,440
Speaker 1: just enjoying sexual congress, and people, through tears are like, well,

1004
00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:41,400
Speaker 1: what should we do to honor him? I know, I

1005
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:44,520
Speaker 1: think I know what he would have wanted. What what

1006
00:59:44,520 --> 00:59:48,520
Speaker 1: would he be doing right now? What would Victor Hugo do?

1007
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:57,080
Speaker 1: This is for you, Victor amazing. So that is Victor

1008
00:59:57,160 --> 01:00:01,080
Speaker 1: Hugo's Randy Randy Randy lar What a life. I think

1009
01:00:01,120 --> 01:00:03,240
Speaker 1: I mentioned this before, but I'm so mad at the

1010
01:00:03,320 --> 01:00:06,960
Speaker 1: image I used to have of what authors and writers

1011
01:00:06,960 --> 01:00:09,200
Speaker 1: and stuff were like, because you just, I think, when

1012
01:00:09,200 --> 01:00:12,360
Speaker 1: you're a kid, they're just portrayed as these like shy

1013
01:00:12,560 --> 01:00:16,000
Speaker 1: nerds who didn't do anything but sit in their rooms

1014
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:18,520
Speaker 1: with their notebooks, you know, go down to the local

1015
01:00:18,560 --> 01:00:22,960
Speaker 1: Starbucks and just type type type. Seriously, ferious people. Yeah,

1016
01:00:23,080 --> 01:00:27,760
Speaker 1: they were out here living the craziest goddamn lives of anyone,

1017
01:00:28,880 --> 01:00:32,880
Speaker 1: like adventure and sex and like just you know, their

1018
01:00:32,920 --> 01:00:35,400
Speaker 1: own little version of rock and roll going on. I mean,

1019
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:37,360
Speaker 1: it just also goes to show you that the idea

1020
01:00:37,400 --> 01:00:40,480
Speaker 1: of celebrity hasn't changed that much, at least in Western

1021
01:00:40,520 --> 01:00:44,360
Speaker 1: culture over the last few hundred years, because they were

1022
01:00:44,400 --> 01:00:46,800
Speaker 1: all kind of doing the same thing. That's true, and

1023
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:49,440
Speaker 1: it kind of makes sense for for writers, I mean,

1024
01:00:49,520 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 1: especially in the Romantic period. They you know, they were like,

1025
01:00:52,320 --> 01:00:55,400
Speaker 1: the point is that I go out and experience life,

1026
01:00:55,440 --> 01:00:57,960
Speaker 1: you know, and I bottle it up for you, the

1027
01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:01,200
Speaker 1: too timid, you know, to enjoy in your living room

1028
01:01:01,240 --> 01:01:03,600
Speaker 1: because you're not like me. You can't go out there,

1029
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:06,280
Speaker 1: you don't have all these feelings erupting, you know that

1030
01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Do you think that Victor really showed

1031
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:14,840
Speaker 1: his dad. I wonder, like, I you wanted me to

1032
01:01:14,880 --> 01:01:17,000
Speaker 1: go like see the world and join the army and

1033
01:01:17,080 --> 01:01:20,400
Speaker 1: fighting stuff, and He's like, but basically I made millions

1034
01:01:20,440 --> 01:01:24,280
Speaker 1: of dollars, I got laid constantly, and nobody ever shot

1035
01:01:24,280 --> 01:01:27,480
Speaker 1: a bullet towards my head. So I think I would

1036
01:01:27,520 --> 01:01:30,400
Speaker 1: I think I win Dad, I know, I do wonder

1037
01:01:30,440 --> 01:01:32,960
Speaker 1: that because they did reconcile later in his life, and

1038
01:01:33,000 --> 01:01:35,960
Speaker 1: we know that he wrote him the letter about conceiving

1039
01:01:36,040 --> 01:01:38,360
Speaker 1: him on a mountaintop and how he that meant, That

1040
01:01:38,400 --> 01:01:42,560
Speaker 1: meant he had a little something to do. Okay, so

1041
01:01:42,680 --> 01:01:45,360
Speaker 1: maybe you didn't make it as a writer, but it's

1042
01:01:45,400 --> 01:01:49,800
Speaker 1: partly because a mitch quite frankly, I mean right, so

1043
01:01:50,200 --> 01:01:52,600
Speaker 1: you know, I maybe he was proud in his own way.

1044
01:01:52,960 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 1: He couldn't say it because he had been so he

1045
01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:59,080
Speaker 1: gone too hard on the lawyers or something. But but yeah,

1046
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:01,600
Speaker 1: I do wonder if he was out, especially after getting

1047
01:02:02,080 --> 01:02:04,640
Speaker 1: all that money for laim is, if he was like,

1048
01:02:05,040 --> 01:02:07,800
Speaker 1: look at this check, mab. No one's ever been paid

1049
01:02:07,840 --> 01:02:11,560
Speaker 1: as much. Because Leopold himself was kind of a horn dog.

1050
01:02:11,640 --> 01:02:16,720
Speaker 1: But but not he was, well, son, I have slept

1051
01:02:16,760 --> 01:02:19,560
Speaker 1: with seven women in my life, can you believe it?

1052
01:02:19,600 --> 01:02:22,600
Speaker 1: And victors like, oh, Dad, I slept with seven women

1053
01:02:22,640 --> 01:02:26,520
Speaker 1: this morning, but all right, not even at the same time,

1054
01:02:26,600 --> 01:02:29,880
Speaker 1: one after another. I went from house to house, you

1055
01:02:29,880 --> 01:02:36,520
Speaker 1: know another. You know French history, it's just the gift

1056
01:02:36,560 --> 01:02:40,600
Speaker 1: that keeps on given. Sure is, sure is yeah, But

1057
01:02:40,640 --> 01:02:42,600
Speaker 1: we'll get out of France for our next episode. We'll

1058
01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:45,760
Speaker 1: hear some more ridiculous stories coming up soon. Yeah, we'd

1059
01:02:45,760 --> 01:02:47,600
Speaker 1: love to hear from you and what you thought about

1060
01:02:47,840 --> 01:02:53,040
Speaker 1: Victor's story about your own experiences with his work, your

1061
01:02:53,040 --> 01:02:58,160
Speaker 1: own experiences with the brothels, multiple sex partners one day,

1062
01:02:58,280 --> 01:03:02,680
Speaker 1: I mean, whatever you got. Yeah, well we'll hear it. Uh.

1063
01:03:02,760 --> 01:03:04,960
Speaker 1: Please shoot us an email if you'd like a ridict

1064
01:03:05,080 --> 01:03:08,000
Speaker 1: Romance at gmail dot com right or we're on Instagram

1065
01:03:08,000 --> 01:03:11,160
Speaker 1: and Twitter. I'm at Dyanamite Boom and I'm at Oh Great,

1066
01:03:11,200 --> 01:03:14,280
Speaker 1: it's Eli and the show is at ridict Romance. So

1067
01:03:14,400 --> 01:03:17,320
Speaker 1: reach out in whatever way you see fit. Drop us

1068
01:03:17,320 --> 01:03:19,880
Speaker 1: a review on Apple podcasts. We love those, We love

1069
01:03:19,920 --> 01:03:22,720
Speaker 1: positive reviews there, and we can't wait to see all

1070
01:03:22,800 --> 01:03:25,560
Speaker 1: the next episode. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll see you

1071
01:03:25,640 --> 01:03:29,320
Speaker 1: next time. Ye So long, friends, it's time to go.

1072
01:03:30,080 --> 01:03:34,040
Speaker 1: Thanks so listening to our show. Tell your friends name's

1073
01:03:34,120 --> 01:03:37,560
Speaker 1: uncle sandece to listen to a show Ridiculous Romance