Adele Hugo: “La Misérable”

was born in in Paris. She was the fifth and the youngest child of the French poet, novelist and dramatist Victor Hugo and his wife Adele Fouchet. And you'll recognize her father's name from those famous novels that he has written. We all probably had to read one in high school if you grew up in a US city. So we're talking about things like The Hunchback of No Trade Dome and Lemis rob and her family, as you might suspect,

was comfortably affluent. And Adele, her sister Leopoldine, and her brother's sharrows and Francois Victor, grew up surrounded by music and the arts, and her father's famous friends and their intellectual and literary conversations. She did have another brother, Leopold, who was born in eight three. However, he had died as an infant, and Leopoldine would also die tragically later in her life in a boating accident during her honeymoon.

So by all accounts, though Adele was a bit of a sullen child who spent most of her day at the piano, she grew up to be an accomplished musician, and she was an intelligent and ambitious young woman. She was known for her beauty and her long dark hair, and she sat for portraits by several well known Parisian artists. In fact, one of them is possibly maybe it's still being investigated attributed to the Impressionist painter Eduard Money since

two thousand and four. Apparently someone bought the painting and suspected it was her and they're looking into it, which is kind of cool. Um. Her life, though, becomes a tragic story of mental illness and romantic obsession with a British military officer. So the Hugos, though did not raise

their family in France. Victor Hugo was not only a writer, he was also a statesman and a human rights activist, and he was a fierce opponent of the Second Empire of Napoleon the Third and he wrote outspoken pamphlets opposing, among many other things, napoleon the third seizure of power. So, in protest to the anti parliamentary and constitution of eighteen fifty one, Hugo took his family and left France. Others would put this a different way, to say that he

was actually banished. Most I think that I read in my research suggested it was more banishment. It was a muchel yes, I'm leaving, well, good, you should go. We don't want you anywhere um. So, first, after they were not banished, the family lived in Belgium um and then they eventually landed on the island of Jersey, which is

the largest of the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, which is off the coast of Normandy, and the family's relocation to the island happened at about the time in Adele's life, when she was in her early twenties, so she was very likely expecting her life to be focused on establishing her position in Parisian society. She may have been expecting to marry

soon um, but none of those things really played out. Instead, the family stayed among the Channel Islands until eighteen seventy. But it's on those islands where Adele first met a man named Albert Pinson, and a lot of what we know about Adele can be found in biography is written about her father. So in late eighteen fifty five, the family arrived at Hauteville House at Guernsey, that's another island

in the Channel Islands, again seeking refuge. And it's around this time when Adele also started writing a diary, a coded diary which I love. I do too. I want to know exactly I didn't. I haven't seen it, and I got to look it up. This diary was titled Journald de Lexile or Diary of the Exile, and she was twenty two years old when she started keeping it. Adele was a prolific writer, and she recorded pretty much everything in her life, from her thoughts about horse racing

to love affairs. I gotta tell you, reading the horse racing entries were really funny, actually, like you wouldn't expect it, but they were funny. She was a funny lady, I believe it. And she kept this diary throughout the time that she lived on the islands of Jersey and Guernsey. Adele and Albert met on the island of Jersey actually in June of eight before and for Adele, who was in her early twenties at the time, the affair began as a summer romance, and she wrote about their meeting

in her diary. Of course right, and now we know um and we quote her because these diaries are public. He saw me for the first time on a bench on the terrace in Jersey. She said, I was sitting down reading. I was absorbed in my book and I didn't see him, but he saw me, and from that day he loved me so. Albert, who went by Bertie Pinson, was a lieutenant in the British Army. He was an aristocratic man and he was considerably older than Adele. He and we actually have a quote describing him, was of

average height, rather handsome, and decidedly stylish in appearance. He wore long mustaches and took great pains to appear in most an exquisite mode. So he was fancy. He was fancy every time I hear the description of him and his long mustache desire. That's the part that gets new, right uh. Pinson was also, though described as ill tempered

and ill mannered and untrustworthy. So he might have looked fancy, but he wasn't apparently very delightful, and he also had a bad reputation of being both a womanizer and a gambler. Yet Pinson and Adele became close, and he also became close to the Hugo family, reportedly visiting for dinner several times a week. Pinson proposed to Adele, which was probably the biggest surprise in research that I found. Um he did actually propose to her, and she refused him, but

she would later on regret that refusal. She would sincerely believe in months after this that she had taken the alternate path and that she was married to the lieutenant.

By September, Pinson left Jersey for England, and upon leaving Adele, Pinson promised her, we quote, with every token of sincerity and honor, that she should join him in England, and in fact she did at least a few times, and he also continued to visit with the Hugo family and this cordial, seemingly mutual adoration or affection went on from about eighteen fifty four to eighteen sixty one. So that's

a significant relationship, exactly. Those are that many years. So because her father was in political exile slash banished, slash moved away. The family did move again in eighteen fifty five, and this time they went from one island to another. They went from Jersey to Guernsey and they stayed there until eighteen seventy. So at this point Adele's feelings for prison were, as we said, reciprocated, but circumstances would change.

And we're going to take a quick break here, but when we returned, we will start talking about how Adele was likely beginning to succumb to mental illness. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's now talk about what happened when Adele followed Lieutenant Pinson to Nova Scotia. So by eighteen fifty six, Adele was falling into a depression that continued to deepen, and by this time in her life, it is believed she was very likely showing signs of a mental illness.

She seemed to be beginning to lose contact with reality, and she was exhibiting symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations, but her symptoms were mostly overlooked, or at least nothing was done about them. In a letter to Victor written in eighteen fifty six, Adele's mother expressed her increasing concern over her daughter's mental state, and we can quote her because this letter is also public. She is forced in

upon herself. She thinks a great deal and her ideas often erroneous since nothing flows in from the outside to modify them, become like burning lava, which is sort of a poetic way to describe a depression. I have to say, like you are trapped in your own mind. And her mother saw that much of it, but couldn't really address it.

So in eighteen sixty one, several years later, Pinson's regiment, which was the sixteenth, move from where it had been stationed in Ireland to alder Shop, which is a town in southeast England famous for being the home of the

British Army. So this meant that geographically he was actually quite near the Hugo family, and with Pinson so close, Adele told a lie about going to see her mother, who had gone to Paris for temporary stay, and instead Adele went to see Pinson on the Isle of Right, and she brought her maid Rosalie with her for this, which Holly and I have talked about. There was really no particular reason for Rosalie to go with her, except

perhaps they were her friends. Adele had traveled solo prior to this, right, I mean, who among us hasn't been like, I'm going to go on a road trip and had a friend go, can I go? Exactly right. It wasn't like protection or I don't know how to do this or anything like that. I think they were just friendly. In December of that year, Pinson spent Christmas with the Hugo family at Guernsey, and Adele urged her father to

let her marry the Lieutenant and victor. Though he was agreeable to a marriage between the two, he didn't really think that Pinson had made a commitment to his daughter, and frankly he was right after her initial rejection of the marriage proposal. Pinson never formally courted Adele, and he

never asked her parents for permission to marry her. Yeah, so they had actually kind of been just friends for a bit at this point for like a decade now, but by the year's end, Pinson's regiment was ordered to Nova Scotia. Adele's obsession, though, did not dim with his absence, and though she had previously turned down his proposal, she began insisting that they were going to get married, and she even ran away from home to join him in Halifax,

referring to herself as Mrs Pinson. Adele's family, believing that there was an arrangement between her and Pinson, actually shipped her her clothing in care of a Mr. And Mrs Saunders. Right, I mean, why why I think that she's lying? They've known each other for such a long time. I can see why they would. Adele continued to write daily letters

to Pinson when she wasn't around him. She tried to meet with him, but Pinson had lost interest in her and he soon started to ignore her and her romantic advances. But Adele was undaunted. She began disguising herself as a man while pursuing him, which she would do both day and night, and though Pinson insisted he did not want to be with her, Adele continued to follow him around. She would peer through his windows and rent rooms in his vicinity, and she journaled all of her activities and

her feelings in her diary. In eighteen sixty two, when all of this was happening, Adele actually refused a different marriage proposal from another man who was an Italian poet. And we should mention that Pinson was not Adele's first love. Remember we talked about how she was considered quite beautiful.

She had this long, dark hair. There were a lot of people interested in her, and when she was sixteen, she fell madly in love with a man named August Vacquerie, who was ten years her senior, and that was also her brother in law through her sister Leopoldine's marriage, and the two actually planned to marry, although the family agreed to the marriage, but they felt that Adele was too young at that time, so while they were waiting for her to age up, over the next four years, she

kind of fell out of love with a goost and they did not marry. She also had many many crushes, most of whom were men that her parents did not care for, such as French sculptor and painter Jean Baptiste Pleasangie. He has his own story, which is that her parents were right about him. By the way, he ended up married to George Song's daughter and eventually caused a huge rupture between her and her mother. Uh. Just he's a problematic figure. There we go, that's how to describe him.

So the Hugoes were correct in thinking this was not a good person for their daughter to fixate on. Yes, and and you know what I mean. Victor was pretty right on with Pinson too, where he's like, I'm not so sure that you're committed. So the Hugo seemed to be aware, at least when their daughter is interested in and and likes so Adele she received many marriage proposals, but here's what's interesting about her is that she refused

them all. It was Pinson or nothing. While in Halifax, Pinson, unknown to Adele, became engaged to a woman named Agnes Johnson, and that engagement was called off because Ms. Johnson's parents decided that Pinson was not what they wanted in the family. I hear he's no manner, right. He looks fancy, but he's crabby and unpleasant. Yeah, personality goes a long way. So a few years later, which puts us in eighteen sixty six, now, Pinson moved with his unit from Nova

Scotia to Barbados. Uh, there's a big weather change. Adele, still obsessed by him, also traveled to Barbados, and once she arrived, she moved into a room at a Mrs Chatterton's residence and she spent her days exploring the streets in search of Pinson. So throughout all of this she continued to call herself Mrs Pinson, and that includes when she went to Barbados. She also started to refuse to eat. She was taking very poor care of herself, and her

overall physical and mental health continued to decline. There was actually a study by the American Journal of Psychiatry that found that over a ten year period, people living with schizophrenia had measurable cognitive declines in memory, verbal learning, and vocabulary. And Adele, of course, during this time, was still not diagnosed. And what started to happen was she was spending her

nights pacing in her room, just talking to herself. By the time she had followed Pinsent to Barbados, Adele had spent almost all of her money and regardless, she was still following him, and she was still hoping and maybe we should say, expecting that the two would marry, and perhaps in some moments, believing they already had. Here is the deep tragedy Here. What she did not know was that shortly after arriving in Barbados, Pinson actually left Barbados.

He soon traveled to England and out married to a woman named Katherine Edith Roxburgh. Yes, this is all while Adele was still in Barbados roaming the streets looking for him or sad girl. So we're gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and when we're back, let's talk about what obsessive love is. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about how undiagnosed mental illness was likely fueling Adele's stalker behavior. Right, so, but first let's be very clear.

We're not saying that having a crush on someone means that you have a mental illness. But when there's an obsessive part to it, when it's obsessive love, there are some problematic behaviors that mental health professionals um will tell you go along with it, and those include making repeated calls or texts or letters, giving unwanted and intense attention towards the object. Of your affection and even making unexpected,

unannounced visits at their work or home. Um, and that's those are the examples of when we moved into what's considered stalk or behavior. And there's no list of criteria that can solidly distinguish what's real love from what's become obsessive love. Right if my husband turned around and said I'm not into you, I would look super stalkery, wouldn't

we all, I'm very attached to that gent. But we do know that obsessive love is considered delusional jealousy, and both real love and obsessive love have some addictive qualities to them, and there can be a few things going on in what differentiates this being something abnormal and not healthy versus something that you know is part of just an intense and deeply held relationship. Yes, I'm defending myself. I know I'm obsessed with my husband. You just have

a lot of dopamine when you're around him. It's fine, just hitting it off like a rato maze. So much so I don't mean to laugh about this is his mental health issues. So I'm going to talk now about a condition called eroto mania, And we have talked about this before on this show, but we'll we'll do a quick overview because we've talked a lot of things before, so let's just refresh um. This is a condition when a person believes that another person loves them, whether or

not that person does or not. They're convinced. The individual often believes that they're being sent messages from their admirer, and that could be anything from like license plate numbers to wearing a certain color sweater. It's it's very odd and very specific. Arotomania has been considered different things depending on which decade you're in. So in Adele's time in the early nineteenth century to about the beginning of the twentieth century, the mental health condition was believed to be

caused by unrequited love. It wasn't until the early twentieth century, though, when it began to be considered a subtype of a delusional disorder. Yeah, it's an interesting thing that the cause and effect there was believed to be someone else not loving you back, rather than there being something going on with your brain chemistry that was making you perceive the situation in quickly. So Arotomania has two forms, primary and secondary, and the primary form is a condition that exists alone.

The onset is sudden and there's no identifiable cause. The second form is diagnosed along with other mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, which Adele likely lived with. And the secondary form often includes symptoms like persecutory delusions, hallucinations, and grandiose ideas, and it has a more gradual onset than the primary form, though this can turn into Stoker behavior, and we have

told many of those stories. Now, this description of erotomania, at least to us non medical professionals, it doesn't really feel quite like the right fit for Adell. Right. There is also a condition that is known as obsessive love disorder, and that's when you become obsessed with one person that you think you may be in love with. The distinction

here is that with erotomania, you think they love you. This, however, obsessive love disorder was first called fittingly Adele syndrome, and it's still not widely recognized as its own mental health condition. It's usually tied to other things. And this is an expression, right, um, But there's another thing. There's Adele's undiagnosed mental illness and her symptoms of mental illness. They were likely the fuel

for her fire of irrational and obsessive behavior. And we're gonna focus on because aprenia, because that's kind of what everyone is assuming was happening with the doll's five. So, schizophrenia is a mental illness that can be disabling. It's generally characterized by a variety of things like thought related and behavior related symptoms. Um, it could come in the form of delusions, hallucinations, or just a general unusual way

of thinking. So by the time she was in Barbados, it had become really quite obvious to those around Adele that she was exhibiting some delusional, if not other odd behaviors, and though not diagnosed, people who knew her recognized that she was clearly unwell. So as we talk about all of this, you know, we have to acknowledge it is always, really, really a tricky proposition to diagnose someone post mortem when they are not around to be assessed by a mental

health professional. But this, this association with schizophrenia on the part of Adele, is something that modern biographers and historians have pieced together multiple times. Like all of the evidence indicates something along these lines. Um, there is also a very good likelihood that she inherited it because it is known to run in families, and her father's brother Eugene, is also said to have lived with it. So those living with this particular mental illness often experience psychosis, which

happens when you lose your connection with reality. You might not know it, but people around you will notice this. And delusions are are false beliefs that aren't based in reality, and most people with schizophrenia will experience these as well. And delusions could manifest in a few ways. Um you might think you have special abilities, or you might believe that you're being harassed by anyone from your neighbor to

the cia Um. Delusions could also leads you to believe you have that another person is in love with you, and those false beliefs often lead to paranoia. So there are a few different stories of exactly how Adele was extracted from Barbados and brought home to her family, but most historians believe that she was actually accompanied back to Paris by a woman named missus Celine Alvarez Ba in

February of eighty two. Ultimately, in the tragic story of Adele, her father committed her to a mental institution when she was home from Barbados, and she lived there from when she was about forty or forty two years old until her death at eighty five years old. Um and we have an excerpt in a letter from one of his visits. It's not too long, I'm gonna quote it. I saw her again in the mental institution. She recognized me, I embraced her. I spoke words of tenderness and hope to her.

She was calm and seemed sometimes to be asleep. It was just one year ago today that I left for Bordeaux with Charles, who would not return alive. Today I see Adele again, what sorrow. And Victor Hugo bequeathed his manuscripts, which include a significant part of Adele's exile diary as well as her signed scores, to the National Library of France. It's really easy to forget that she was a prolific writer and musician, because her symptoms and her travels around

the world really seemed to cloud that. And I like that we have various points that we can look at. We can look at her father's manuscripts, which we can look at her I suppose it took a little while, but we could look in her code to diary there. Yeah, there's a few places to get things from her. And so interestingly, in looking at Victor Hugo's manuscripts, we know that this episode was it was a downer. It was

downer for everyone. So to end a bit less somber, I'm gonna share a little anecote about Victor Hugo that that turned up during our research. And so Victor knew everyone, and he was known for having large dinner parties, which he would have almost every night of the week. There were at least twenty or thirty people present, and he had really one heck of a party trick that he would pull out and just buris yourselves for a moment.

He would shove an entire orange in his mouth, and then he would fill his cheeks with as many lumps of sugar as would fit, and he would kind of then like churn it all up in there. I can't imagine he could have shut very well because of that whole orange um and then he would he would swallow it down with two glasses of gearch. So let's hope that Holly is not making us all swallow a whole orange in this episodes Chasers, But maybe she is. No,

doesn't not sound miserable and orange? You know, I keep thinking him like, you know, a little like cute E's or mandarins. This whole well, and I always think of you know, when you take too big of a mouthful of some very sugary and the sugar goes down the wrong way, like that is one of the worst relatively harmless pains. I can. No, there's no whole orange, but I thought it would be fun to do something orange flavored.

And so I am calling this cocktail Victor's party trick, because you're also creating something that tastes like something else delicious, Yes, and not everyone could fit the whole orange in their mactic And why would you want to, Victor, you fool. He was loaded with vitamin C, so that's great. But so for the party trick, into a shaker, you will pour two ounces of triple sec two ounces of whipped to vodka. You'll also see it like as whipped cream vodka.

There are a few different brands. One ounce of simple syrup or vanilla syrup if you have it, and then you're gonna shake that with ice, give it a good heart shake, and then pour it into a martini glass and then top it with three ounces of a hard seltzer. If you want a hard seltzer that has a flavor to it, that's fine. Like a citrus or even something like a pineapple works here because when you take a sip, it tastes like a creamsicles. That's the party trick. It

turns into a yummy dessert. The first version of the party trick, I doubt tasted like a creamsicle. I don't think it did, know, but I like things a little more delicious than that. Yes, the point of yours is to be a drink. The point of his was look what I can fit in my mouth? Like I'm right. No one else wanted to do that, but everyone will want to drink if they are in fact a drinker. This is also one if you wanted to do a

uh like a variation on it. If you're not a drinker, I bet you could do, like, you know, a few ounces of an orange soda and yeah, it is some vanilla syrup with that and then like a a not hard seltzer, and you would get something closesh. You wouldn't quite be right. It's one of those things. Orange juice is the natural tendency to want to go for when you're recreating it. But usually in my experiments it's very yummy.

I love an orange juice with a vanilla vodka, but it's a little too acidic, whereas like the orange soda or an orange liquor is not as acidic. Usually you don't have that bite of citrus. So I love that she did a citrus drink this week, because I know how you feel about citrus. It's not my favorite, it's mine, but then it grows on me because I'll turn up

something like this. And even the sixteen sixties French lemonade that we did give a season one was really quite yummy, but also had a half pound that may have been yunny because of the half a bag of sugarage. Yeah, so I mean, at that point, what are you actually tasting sugar? Just put some water on some sugar, just drink it. So Victor's party trick, triple sack whipped vodka, vanilla stare up in a little hard seltzer and you're

off to the races. Uh. It was so delicious. So we hope that you have enjoyed not only a delicious sip of something delightful but also spending this time with us, and we hope to see you back next week right here in Criminalia. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.