DRAWING BY VICTOR HUGO, SIGNED “TOTO.”
Unpublished, belonging to the Author.		THE FLOWER AND THE BUTTERFLY.
Drawing by Victor Hugo for Juliette (Victor Hugo Museum).

Jersey,
Friday, 9 a.m., December 3rd, 1852.

Good morning, my life, my soul, my joy, my happiness.

Dear adored one, from yesterday until the 14th of this month, there is not a moment that does not recall to me the dangers you were exposed to a year ago,[104] and the terrors and inexpressible anguish I endured all through those awful ten days. A year ago, at this very hour of the morning, you stood in the Faubourg St. Antoine, alone, holding and challenging a frantic mob lost to all sense of reason and restraint. I can see you now, my poor beloved, calling upon the soldiers to remember their duty and their honour, threatening the generals, withering them with your contempt. You were terrible and sublime. You might have been the Genius of France witnessing in an agony of bitter despair, the accomplishment of the most cowardly and despicable of crimes. It is an absolute miracle that you escaped alive from that spot which echoed with the solitary force of your heroic fury. When I think of it I still feel terrified and dazzled.

Juliette.

Jersey,
Saturday, 8 a.m., November 27th, 1852.

Good morning, my poor flayed, mutilated darling. How I pitied you yesterday during the long-drawn-out massacre of your masterpiece,[105] which however, like an Immortal, emerged from the ordeal finer and in better fettle than ever. As for me, my treasure, I could only admire and envy your heroic impassivity in the face of that frightful profanation. I could hardly sit still, so vexed and irritated did I feel at the audacity of those wretched strolling mountebanks. Yet Heaven knows how hard they must have worked to be even as ridiculous as they were. One cannot be really angry with them, but it is impossible to recall them individually without laughing till the tears run down one’s cheeks. That is what I have been doing ever since I came out of that horrible little theatre, for I did not sleep very much. My thoughts were busy with you, my adored one; I was seeing you again in imagination, handsome, young, triumphant, as you were at the original performance of your Angélo. I felt all the tenderness and adoration of those old days surging up again in my heart.

Juliette.

Jersey,
Monday, 8 a.m., December 29th, 1852.