INTERVIEW
The island of Guernsey, located east of Normandy, has certainly been at the heart of tensions between French and English fishermen in recent days. However, it remains a place which bears witness to a common history between France and the British monarchy. Fleeing the French political context at the time, the writer Victor Hugo lived there the third period his exile, for almost fifteen years, after having passed through Belgium and Jersey, another of the Channel Islands. "It is the only place where he was the owner since Hauteville House, the house in Guernsey, is the only one he bought", says Tuesday on Europe 1 Gérard Audinet, general heritage curator and director of Maisons de Victor Hugo on the island.
The "brain of Victor Hugo"
This house, Hauteville House, he speaks of it as "the brain of Victor Hugo". "It was really his brain that he projected in three dimensions on all the walls of the house," he adds. And for good reason, the writer decorated the house from floor to ceiling, down to the smallest corners, endowing it with a "double skin" in the words of Gérard Audinet. "He does this with collages of recycled materials and what he can find on site: woodwork, silks, old tapestries, Goblins or Flanders, Delft tiles or printed felt." All these materials, Victor Hugo always assembles them according to the same principle, but each time in a slightly different way, giving each piece a "special atmosphere" and "each time renewed".
Relations with the population "a little complicated"
In the XIXth century, in the middle of the Victorian period, the presence in this place of the man of letters flattered the Guernesiais to believe the general curator of the heritage. But the relations between Victor Hugo and the local population, "Methodist Protestants", are also "a little complicated". "They looked curiously at this famous man, a writer, who was a political exile and therefore who had a sort of revolutionary scent lying around behind him. And above all, we knew very well that he was there, even if he was very discreet, as discreet as possible, with his mistress who lived a few steps from his home. So all that smelled a little bit of sulfur anyway, it was a bit odd ", recounts Gérard Audinet. He assures that today, "the Guernesiais are very attached to the memory of Victor Hugo".
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The promoter of the "United States of Europe"
A memory that suddenly recalls them while Brexit never stops being at the center of the news on both sides of the Channel. Because Victor Hugo was also a promoter of the concept of "United States of Europe". "Guernsey is a very special case, because they are islands which depend on the British crown, properties of the Queen. It is not really, completely, in the United Kingdom, so that is not all actually concerned by Brexit in principle ", explains Gérard Audinet who admits nevertheless that he no longer understands anything about it. "The Channel Islands did not vote in the Brexit referendum, but they are still a bit affected by it, because they are still dependent on the United Kingdom. All of this is very very complicated. "
The history of the oak and the parasite
For the heritage curator, one thing is certain, however, Victor Hugo, "pioneer of Europe", would have been "very sad" if he had lived in the Brexit era. Gérard Audinet also recalls "his last symbolic gesture before returning to France at the end of exile": Victor Hugo gathered his relatives in the garden of Hauteville House and planted an oak tree "by saying that it would be the oak of United States of Europe ". "He says that in a century there will be no more wars. He makes this gesture which is a gesture of peace and union to which he aspires for the countries of Europe," says the director.
Today, this tree of "union" is still there. However, he was attacked by a parasite, which made Gérard Audinet smile: "I don't know whether to see a symbol or not."