11:22 a.m., Victor Hugo’s house, Paris 3rd.

Dancing in Victor Hugo’s working cabinet. The place is filled with silent voices : genius, poetry, politics, fame, pain, mourning, exile, children… On the wall close to the door, a portrait of Juliette Drouet, a few months before her death. Off-camera, the writing desk where he used to work standing. I don’t dare to look at the figure « Memory of the night of the Fourth » on the dresser, fearing it might strike me down. I connect to the sweet portait of its grand children Georges and Jeanne. From the bronze at the back, images of wind and exile come to me. Here Victor Hugo wrote : Lucrèce Borgia, Les Burgraves, Ruy Blas, Marie Tudor, Les Chants du crépuscule, Les Voix intérieures, Les Rayons et les Ombres, most part of the Misérables, the beginning of La Légende des siècles and of Contemplations. During his stay here, he was elected at The French Academy, named Peer of France, then Deputy of Paris. It’s also as he was living here that he married his daughter Léopoldine and lived the Villequier tragedy.