The Love Letters of Juliette Drouet to Victor Hugo

Book excerpt: Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III la Tristesse D'olympio IN the neighborhood of Paris, about four miles from Versailles, nestles a valley, which the modern devotees of romance should deem worthy of a visit. Not because it boasts of any special features such as mighty torrents thundering from giddy heights into abysmal chasms below?on the contrary?its character is harmonious and serene; it is more like a French park decked with flowers by nature, and watered by chance. But it was in these classic surroundings that about the year 1830, circumstances led the great men of the new school to seek temporary repose for their fretted souls. To us, these peaceful meadows, flanked by pensive willows weeping on the borders of the silent Bievre, must evermore be peopled by those troubled shades: by Lammenais, the priestly keeper of consciences; Montalembert, the angelic doctor; Ste. Beuve, the purveyor of ideas; Berlioz, the musician, and lastly by the poet, Victor Hugo, who followed meekly in the Love Letters of Juliette Drouet rear, while awaiting the glory of conducting the procession. They used to arrive in the summer, some for a couple of days, others for weeks together, to stay with Monsieur Bertin, editor of the Journal des Debats and owner of Les Roches,1 a property situated midway between the villages of Bievre and Jouy-en-Josas. Genial and lively, as Ingres represents him in his celebrated portrait, Monsieur Bertin loved to divine, promote, and where needful encourage, their vocations and plans. His housekeeping was on a modest scale, but his hospitality delightful?a mixture of go-as- you-please and kindly despotism; perfect freedom outwardly, but in reality, careful ministrations skillfully disguised. Louise Bertin, the eldest daughter of the old man and one of the muses of the period, wil...