Victor Hugo had five children. His first son, Léopold, died as a baby. His surviving children followed at approximately two-year intervals: daughter Léopoldine, his eldest son, Charles, Victor Jr, and last, Adele. Charles and his brother Victor Jr were journalists and writers – Victor had to adopt the name François-Victor to distinguish himself from his father, to avoid the authorities deliberately blaming their father for some incendiary article penned by the son. They were both imprisoned for their beliefs and accompanied their father into exile. In Jersey they were encouraged to take up photography by their father, as part of a family project to publish a travel guide to Jersey illustrated with photographs, which would have been highly innovative had it come about. As a result Francois-Victor published a book, ‘Unknown Normandy’, which includes descriptions of Jersey, and Charles, who travelled to Normandy to take lessons, became an accomplished photographer. His photographs have become justly celebrated for their documentation of the family and its surroundings and for their artistic and technical excellence.
Despite having five children, a series of family tragedies meant that Victor Hugo had only two grandchildren, Jeanne and Georges, by Charles and his wife, Alice Lehaene. On the untimely death of their father, Victor Hugo became their guardian. Georges and Jeanne spent their holidays in Guernsey and inherited both Hauteville House and Juliette Drouet’s house at 20, Hauteville, from their grandfather. They visited often and after Georges’ death Jeanne and their children made Hauteville House over to the City of Paris in 1927. Georges Hugo was a talented writer and a gifted artist, his watercolours and sketches of WWI and those of his grandfather in Guernsey being particularly notable. He served on the Front aged 45 and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. Hugo is a Franco-German surname and anti-German sentiment during the war meant he felt he had to change his name to Georges Victor-Hugo, by which name he is commonly known today. Along with his sister Jeanne his childhood is celebrated in many of Victor Hugo’s later poems and writings. He was the father of the artist Jean Hugo, who attended school in Guernsey. Georges’ first wife, Pauline Menard-Dorian, was a close friend of the Hugo family from childhood; her wealthy socialite parents bought the old house at Icart known as La Marcherie in 1892 as a summer retreat. Here they were visited by Auguste Rodin and other cultural figures. The Nazis destroyed the house in 1944 and it was never rebuilt. François-Victor, an anglophile who had dedicated himself to translating the works of Shakespeare, remained with his father until 1865, when his Guernsey-born fiancée, Emilie de Putron, died. Overcome with grief, he returned to France with his mother the day before her funeral.