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How the beautiful daughter of a great writer lost her mind from unrequited love: Adele Hugo
How the beautiful daughter of a great writer lost her mind from unrequited love: Adele Hugo

Video: How the beautiful daughter of a great writer lost her mind from unrequited love: Adele Hugo

Video: How the beautiful daughter of a great writer lost her mind from unrequited love: Adele Hugo
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"Adele's syndrome" - such a name in the literature bears a painful attraction, an unrequited passion that captures completely and burns from the inside, interfering with leading a normal life and being a full-fledged person. The story of one such addiction - the love of the daughter of the writer Victor Hugo - gave its name to this - alas - quite common phenomenon.

Younger Mademoiselle Hugo

Often, when telling about the fate of Adele Hugo, only her feelings for Albert Pinson are mentioned, and the whole story of this woman's life - quite a long one - becomes just one manifesto against love addiction. But it is impossible to take this life out of the context of history, events within the Hugo family - and if you omit them, the story turns out to be somehow too melodramatic, and even implausible too. Apparently, it is impossible to find out the whole truth about the events in the life of this woman - too much was hidden from prying eyes, and besides, the eyes of a loving family were inaccessible.

Adele Hugo
Adele Hugo

Adele was born on August 24, 1830 in Paris - the time is not easy for France: less than a month ago, the country was engulfed in another revolution, an uprising broke out in the capital against the Bourbon regime that existed at that time. And the writer Victor Hugo could not be called indifferent to politics and public life. Adele, or Dede, as she was called in the family, grew up in a large family - she was the fifth child (her elder brother Leopold died in infancy), the youngest of two daughters; Among her father's friends and acquaintances were numerous writers, poets, musicians, public figures - and she herself, having grown older, earned a reputation as a beauty and a gifted pianist.

Adele Hugo, nee Fouche, mother of Dede
Adele Hugo, nee Fouche, mother of Dede

Adele Hugo Jr. (her mother, nee Fouche, also bore the name Adele) was really extremely pretty. Of course, Dede had admirers and marriage proposals. She herself, like all girls of her age, fell in love with one or the other, listening to the advice of her parents regarding marriage - and refusing candidates for husbands.

Leopoldina, Adele's older sister
Leopoldina, Adele's older sister

When Adele was thirteen, her sister Leopoldina died tragically - she drowned while sailing on a yacht on the Seine. Together with Leopoldina, Didine, her young husband Charles Vakry, who until the last tried to save the girl, passed away. The spouses were buried in the same coffin. For Victor Hugo, this death was a terrible blow, let alone a teenage girl, who would later claim that she retained a connection with her deceased sister - a connection through seances.

Leopoldina is reading. Drawing by Adele Fouche
Leopoldina is reading. Drawing by Adele Fouche

Exile and wanderings

Hugo, an active participant in the political life of France, after the revolution of 1848 was elected to the Constituent Assembly, where he opposed the radicals, defending the need to abolish the death penalty, defending freedom of speech and press, promoting republican values. When the coup d'état of 1851 took place and the Second Empire was established instead of the Second Republic, Hugo was forced to leave France, first to Belgium, then to the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey. The family followed him - with the exception of the Adele brothers, who were serving prison sentences in France on political charges.

Adele Hugo in the fifties of the XIX century
Adele Hugo in the fifties of the XIX century

Adele Hugo met Lieutenant Albert Pinson in 1854, when she was already living on the island of Jersey. This admirer of her was significantly older than the girl, distinguished by self-confidence and courtesy in dealing with ladies, was known as an interesting interlocutor. Pinson was fascinated by the girl - apparently, at first more than she was to him, he was a frequent guest in Hugo's house, took part in table-turning sessions. Feelings arose between him and Adele, Pinson was ready to marry the girl, and she herself was ready to become his wife. But as time went on, the groom began to grow cold towards Mademoiselle Hugo. In 1861, without announcing this to Adele, he went to serve in Canada, in Halifax. The parents, confident that Pinson would soon return and the wedding would take place, without suspecting anything, let Adele go on a trip to Europe, while the girl herself went to fetch her windy boyfriend across the ocean.

Adele Hugo
Adele Hugo

Arriving in Halifax, she checked in under the name "Miss Lewley" and set off in search of Albert. There is information that he did not resist too much of the girl's desire to be around - in any case, he willingly accepted money from her. But his feelings for Adele completely cooled down, while she was already seized with a real mania - to bring Pinson back into her life and force him to marry. She even hired a hypnotist for this purpose. In letters to her family, she informed about the wedding, and Hugo even ordered an advertisement in the newspaper of the island of Guernsey, where he lived at the time, about the joyful event. But Pinson did not think about any marriage - on the contrary, he tried to get rid of the young woman who was pursuing him. While still in Canada, he attempted to marry the daughter of a wealthy local official, but Albert's reputation and Adele's constant attempts to attract his attention led to the engagement being upset. In 1866, Pinson was transferred to Barbados, Adele, of course, followed him.

From the film "The Story of Adele G."
From the film "The Story of Adele G."

Return to France

In Barbados, she was often seen wandering the streets, recording something, muttering to herself. Once a beautiful girl with a Roman profile, sparkling eyes and a keen gaze, with dark wavy hair, she was now often slovenly dressed and unkempt, the whole meaning of Adele's life was reduced to the need to be with Albert Pinson. He himself went to London one day and got married there, while Adele remained in Barbados. A friend helped her to return to Europe, to France. Of the whole family by that time, only Hugo remained alive, who by that time had returned to the country. He placed his daughter first under the supervision of a family doctor, then in a psychiatric hospital near Paris.

Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo

Adele Hugo lived to be 84 and died thirty years after her father. She inherited his fortune, but she could not use it - and she did not want to. The doctors who treated her found in the patient signs that Adele suffered from hallucinations, bipolar personality disorder, and schizophrenia.

Isabelle Adjani in The Story of Adele G
Isabelle Adjani in The Story of Adele G

The diaries of Adele Hugo have survived - in them she describes in detail the life of a family in exile in the Channel Islands. here.

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