Léopoldine Cécile Marie-Pierre Catherine Hugo (28 August 1824 – 4 September 1843) was the eldest daughter of

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

and

Adèle Foucher Adèle Foucher (27 September 1803 – 27 August 1868) was the wife of French writer Victor Hugo, with whom she was acquainted from childhood. Her affair with the critic Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve became the raw material for Sainte-Beuve's ...

Early life

Léopoldine was born in Paris, the second of five children and eldest daughter of

and

. She was named after her paternal grandfather,

Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1773–1828) was a List of French generals of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, French general in the Napoleonic Wars. He was the husband of Sophie Trébuchet and the father of four sons. He is best known fo ...

, as was her late brother, Léopold, who died in infancy. Despite her father's growing

anti-clerical Anti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historical anti-clericalism has mainly been opposed to the influence of Roman Catholicism. Anti-clericalism is related to secularism, which seeks to ...

views, Léopoldine grew up as a devout Catholic. Her

first communion First Communion is a ceremony in some Christian traditions during which a person of the church first receives the Eucharist. It is most common in many parts of the Latin Church tradition of the Catholic Church, Lutheran Church and Anglican Communi ...

, which took place in September 1836, was a grand affair.

Auguste de Châtillon Auguste de Châtillon (29 January 1808 – 26 March 1881) was a French painter, sculptor and poet. He was born and died in Paris. He, Théophile Gautier, Gérard de Nerval and Arsène Houssaye formed the "bohème du Doyenné". Life He first exhib ...

painted a portrait of her for the day, and the

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

was attended by

Théophile Gautier Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic. While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and rem ...

Alexandre Dumas Alexandre Dumas (, ; ; born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (), 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père (where '' '' is French for 'father', to distinguish him from his son Alexandre Dumas fils), was a French writer ...

, and members of the Hugo family. A banquet was held at her family's Paris residence afterward. Léopoldine had many suitors for marriage including her future husband, Charles Vacquerie, whom she met while on holiday in 1839.

Later life and death

She married

Charles Vacquerie Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis The Église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis is a church on rue Saint-Antoine in the Marais quarter of Paris. The present building was constructed from 1627 to 1641 by the Jesuit architects Étienne Martellange and François Derand, on the orders of Lou ...

on 15 February 1843, but they both drowned together only a few months later, when their boat overturned on the

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

Villequier Villequier () is a former commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Rives-en-Seine.Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

. He dedicated numerous poems to the memory of his daughter, notably '' Demain dès l'aube'' and ''À Villequier'' in ''Pauca Meae'', the fourth book of ''

Les Contemplations ''Les Contemplations'' (''The Contemplations'') is a song and collection of poetry by Victor Hugo, published in 1856. It consists of 156 poems in six books. Most of the poems were written between 1841 and 1855, though the oldest date from 1830. M ...

''. Victor Hugo did not write for several years afterwards owing to the clinical depression he developed following Léopoldine's death.

Notes

External links

* Complete text o
''Contemplations'', on Wikisource
* The Maison Vacquerie, in Villequier, houses th
departemental Museum of Victor Hugo

Hear "Demain, des l'aube" * Léopoldine –

Série Noire ''Série noire'' is a French publishing imprint, founded in 1945 by Marcel Duhamel. It has released a collection of crime fiction of the hardboiled detective thrillers variety published by Gallimard. Anglo-American literature forms the bulk of ...

(Swiss popband) , musical version of the poem " Demain, dès l'aube," written by Léopoldine's father

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hugo, Leopoldine 1824 births 1843 deaths 19th-century French women Boating accident deaths Deaths by drowning in France French Roman Catholics French socialites Hugo family People from Paris People of the July Monarchy