Juliette DROUET - Autograph letter signed to Victor HUGO.

Juliette DROUET (1806-1883).

Autograph letter signed to Victor Hugo.

Four pages in-8°. Fine restoration to the central fold.

[Paris]. April 26 Monday afternoon 14. ¼ [1847]

“I do not want, as long as I can and I belong to you, to be ridiculous and sordid outwardly. »

Charming autograph letter from Juliette Drouet to her “Toto”: needing two new dresses – and not “ an ostensible and damaged public patchwork ” – the actress solicits her lover before rejoicing at the revival of Marion Delorme.

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“ No matter what you say and what you do, my poor Toto, you will have to go through two dresses which I absolutely need. I'm talking to you very seriously and if you can't give them to me I'll sell something of my own because I prefer this extreme to the humiliating ridiculousness of an ostensible and corrupted public medley.

You no longer have to fear the training of my coquetry for almost fifteen years. I have given you enough proof of simplicity and economy for you not to dispute the needs I feel. I do not want, as long as I can and I belong to you, to be ridiculous and sordid on the outside . Besides, everything I tell you here is excessive and your opposition is only simulated and to tease me a little.

Well, I'm teased enough as it is; and besides I am unwell . Leave me alone and be quiet. And then you owe me forty-eight cents of the old ones, not counting the new ones. Pay me and I'll hold you accountable for the rest. Voice, voice*, be quiet. It seems that, with the help of the heat, we decided to finally give Marion Delorme to the French theater. This process touches me and fills me with admiration for the administration, the members, the subsidies, the machinist, the blower and the firefighter on duty.

If I even dared I would extend it to you for the disinterested, hardworking and peerless way of France with which you allow yourself to be taken back into the pleasant season of flowers, villas, countryside and travel. We are not more academic or more charming. Come let me kiss you with gratitude. Juliet. »

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*Recurring expression that we find in the writing of Juliette Drouet and in different contexts: “ Voime, voime ”. Florence Naugrette gives an explanation in the glossary devoted to all the neologisms and other unknown expressions used by Juliette Drouet: “Its contextual recurrence suggests that it could mean “ look at me ” (“see me”) or “ ah Yes really ".