Graham Robb

The English lieutenant’s Frenchwoman: the tragic story of Adèle Hugo

Mark Bostridge’s obsession with Victor Hugo’s beautiful daughter almost rivals her own infatuation with Albert Pinson, the naval officer she pursued around the world

Portrait assumed to be of Adèle Hugo (French School). [Bridgeman Images] 
issue 08 June 2024

In 1882, a sneaky reporter from the Figaro managed to track down Victor Hugo’s only surviving, long-forgotten child to an expensive mental asylum on the edge of Paris. He stalked her as she was being taken for a walk in the local park. She had the ‘profile of a duchess’, ‘staring black eyes’, a perilous hopping gait and odd compulsions.

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