Victor HUGO (1802-1885). Autograph manuscript, July 3, 1834, [to Juliette Drouet]; on a small piece of oval cardboard (height 13cm; framed). Precious relic of love, Victor Hugo's declaration of love to Juliette Drouet. [It was in February 1833 that Juliette Drouet, who played Princess Negroni in Lucrèce Borgia, became Hugo's mistress. On July 3, 1834, at the Hôtel de l'Écu de France in Jouy-en-Josas, the two lovers enjoyed an unforgettable night that sealed their unbreakable union. The following day, Juliette sent her lover this pact of love: "Yesterday, July 3, 1834, at half past ten in the evening, in the Auberge de l'Écu-de-France, I, Juliette, was the happiest and proudest woman in the world; I declare that, until then, I had not felt in all its fullness the happiness of loving you and being loved by you. This letter, which takes the form of an official report, is in fact an act that confirms the state of my heart. This deed, done today, must serve for all the rest of my life in the world; on the day, hour and minute it is represented to me, I undertake to restore the said heart to the same state it is in today, that is to say, filled with a single love which is yours and a single thought which is yours"...]. Another witness to this night of love is this relic, intended to accompany a portrait of Victor Hugo, in which the poet proclaims his love for Juliette [The portrait, by Jean Alaux, is kept at the Maison de Victor Hugo]. "These eyes of which you are the light, these ears of which you are the music, these nostrils of which you are the perfume, this mouth of which you are the breath, this forehead of which you are the thought, this hair of which you are the crown, all make a head, and this head would be cut off for you. July 3, 1834. 1 a.m." Reproduced in L'Illustration, July 4, 1914 (p. 15). Former André Bertaut collection (December 14-15, 1983, no. 135).