Victor HUGO inaugurates his banquets for poor children in Guernsey.

Victor HUGO (1802.1885)

Autograph letter signed to Alexandre Lacour. 

Four pages in-8° square, with Hugolian press collage on the 2nd ^leaf .

Autograph address, stamp and postmarks.

Hauteville house. March 29 [1862]

“The poor are also outcasts; they are exiled from all enjoyments and all happiness. We therefore owe them our fraternity. »

Precious letter from the great man – three days before the publication of Les Miserables – telling his generous correspondent about the health misfortunes of Guernsey and the inauguration of his meals for poor children at Hauteville House.

A good man with a heart, Victor Hugo organized these meals weekly from March 10, 1862 to help the most deprived children on the island, as evidenced by the small press article pasted by Hugo himself to the within this letter. At the dawn of these first meals, the children invited were around ten. The number continued to grow (Hugo mentions in his notebooks the presence of 18 children on April 22, then 22 in July 1862). Quickly, more than forty toddlers came to find shelter, food and care with the Hugo family.

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“Sir, I found your gracious letter on my return from a short trip. I can't tell you how much she touches me. My clientele of outcasts has decreased, but my clientele of poor people has increased ; I accept with gratitude for all these suffering people around me your generous sending. The poor are also outcasts; they are exiled from all enjoyments and all happiness. We therefore owe them our fraternity. My wife gives baby clothes to women in childbirth, and I give meat and wine to the little children. English blood has a great need of French wine; scrofula abound on this island. A seven-year-old boy was scrofulous to the point that the flesh on his fingers was peeling off and falling off. We cured him with cod liver oil; he is saved ; his wounds are closed. Don't you think it's good that help for the English comes from a French product? If you approve of me, please continue to help me. I have established at home a small weekly Easter for twelve poor children ; bare feet are the favorite: I am sending you a newspaper from the island which tells the story.

GOOD EXAMPLE TO FOLLOW. – Mr. Victor Hugo, knowing how much good food is necessary for childhood, in that it serves to develop the body, to prevent terrible and innumerable illnesses, and often death, brings together twelve chosen children at his home every Tuesday among the poorest, and without distinction of country, to whom he gives an excellent dinner, beer and a small glass of wine to each after the meal. Mr. Victor Hugo and his family take pleasure in serving these poor little ones themselves. We attended one of these dinners on Tuesday, and were deeply touched by the concern with which attention was paid to the smallest details for the comfort of these little unfortunates, and by the joy painted on all these young faces.

If the hundred or two hundred rich people of this island wanted to do the same, we would save two thousand children from scrofula and tubercles. Thank my former colleague Mr. Rampaux, thank my honorable friends of the Paris bar, and as for you, Sir, I shake your hand, and as for Madame Lacour, I am at her feet. You can have the 280 fr returned ^. at Mr. Paul Meurice, 26, r. Laval, avenue Frochot who will send them to me. My wife is in Paris for a few days and would be very happy to see Madame Lacour; she lives at 6 rd Verneuil. But she will be ahead of Madame Lacour. Do you know what would be lovely, it would be if you, and Madame Lacour, and your dear children, came to take sea baths in Guernsey this summer. It would be a real joy for Hauteville House. I shake your hand from the bottom of my heart. Victor Hugo. I will take advantage of your sending to increase the number of my little guests to fifteen. Thank you again, and offer my most affectionate tributes to your charming and noble wife.

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Here is an extract from the speech that Victor Hugo gave at the poor children's dinner in 1868: “The small institution of assistance for children, which I founded seven years ago, in Guernsey, in my house, is bearing fruit, and you who listen to me with so much grace, you will be sensitive to this good news. It's not about what I do here, but what's happening outside. What I do is nothing, and not worth talking about. This foundation of the Dinner for Poor Children has only one thing going for it, and that is to be a simple idea. So it was immediately understood, especially in free countries, in England, Switzerland and America; there it is applied on a large scale. I note the fact without insisting on it, but I believe that there is a certain affinity between simple ideas and free countries. I find exile good. First, he introduced me to this hospitable island; then, he gave me the opportunity to realize this idea that I had had for a long time, a practical attempt to immediately improve the lot of poor children - from the point of view of double hygiene, that is to say physical health and intellectual health. The idea was successful. This is why I thank the exile. Ah! I will never tire of saying it: Let us think of the children! Human society is always, more or less, a guilty society. In this collective fault that we all commit, and which is sometimes called the law, sometimes morals, we are only sure of one innocence, the innocence of children. Well, let us love her, let us feed her, let us clothe her, let us give her bread and shoes, let us heal her, let us enlighten her, let us venerate her. Whatever the pains of this life, I will not complain, if it is given to me to realize the two highest ambitions that a man can have on earth. These two ambitions, here they are: to be a slave, and to be a servant. Slave of conscience, and servant of the poor. »