JULIETTE DROITET'S LOVE-LETTERS. [To THE EDIT. OF THE SPECTATOR...3 Sut,—The
recent publication by Messrs. Stanley Paul and Co. of a selection from Juliette Drouet's love-letters to Victor Hugo is accompanied with a statement that these letters hare "recently been discovered in Paris by a distinguished French author ... after ten years' patient work." It would seem from this statement that neither M. Louis Guimbaud, who edits the letters, nor Messrs. Stanley Paul and Co, are aware that in the English Illustrated Magazine of April and Auguat,1994, Mr. H. W. Wack contributed an interesting account of hie discovery in Guernsey of a considerable number of the Drouet love-letters in the possession of a Mr. Luff, who had rescued them from a local junk dealer into whose hand, they had fallen after Victor Hugo's death. Translations of sixteen of these letters appeared in the two articles mentioned. That was, I believe, the first publication, certainly in an English translation, of any portion of these intensely erotic out- pourings of a woman's heart. As editor of that magazine, I had the original letters before me. Mr. Wads states that another large collection was in the hands of a London archivist, whose name is not given. It would he interesting to know from what sources M. Guimbaud gathered the collection he used. Clearly there were in 1904 and subsequently some of Juliette's love-letters in Guernsey, another portion in London, and now we hear of a huge discovery recently made in Paris! She meet have written some thousands of love. letters to Hugo, and, alas ! the accumulation, so devotedly pre. served entire by him, got sold as waste-paper and scattered in many directions after his death.—I am, Sir, &cc., " Harvard," St. Margaret's Bay, Kent. OSCAR. PARKER,
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