Location of Guernsey (Dark Green)
根息島（英語：Guernsey，有時也譯為格恩西島）是英國的皇家屬地之一（參見英國海外領土），位於英吉利海峽靠近法國海岸線的海峽群島之中，同周圍一些小島組成了根息行政區（Bailiwick of Guernsey）。行政區總面積78km²，人口65,031人（2004年），首府為聖彼得港（Saint Peter Port）。
Hugo's Guernsey
Victor Hugo was immediately captivated by Guernsey: he was struck by the harshness of its cliffs and the gentleness of the inland scenery. He appreciated both ‘the breath of the ocean’ and ‘the breath of the flowers’. At the same time that he was creating his amazing home, ‘Hauteville House’, he was completing or publishing major works: La Légende des siècles (‘The Legend of the Centuries’), Les Misérables, Les chansons des rues et des bois (‘The Songs of the Streets and Woods’), Les Travailleurs de la mer (‘Toilers of the Sea’), etc.
He was led to express his gratitude in the dedication of this novel: I dedicate this book to the rock of hospitality, to this corner of old Norman land where resides the noble little people of the sea, to the Island of Guernsey, severe and yet gentle…’.
Victor Hugo Guided Walks
Please contact the Guernsey Information Centtre for further details.
Guided walks covering Hugo and his house are also available on demand. For details please contact the Guernsey Information Centre on +44 (0) 1481 723552 e-mail here or contact the Guide directly: Gill Girard on +44 (0)1481 252403 E-ail: gillgirard@yahoo.co.uk
Please note: the Victor Hugo trail, which takes you through the historic town of St Peter Port, as well as to island wide locations, is currently out of print.
Visit Guernsey
There is much more to discover on the islands of GuernseyFootsteps
Where Victor Hugo Found Freedom
Hazel Thompson for The New York Times
Drawing room in Hauteville House where Victor Hugo lived on Guernsey. It is now a museum. More Photos »
By ANN MAH
Published: May 4, 2012
IN October 1855 Victor Hugo arrived on rainy, wind-swept Guernsey
seeking refuge. A fierce opponent of the Second Empire of Napoleon III,
he had been banished first from his native France, and then Belgium and
the island of Jersey. By the time he landed on this small neighboring
island in the English Channel, the exiled writer was in desperate need
of asylum.
Multimedia
Hazel Thompson for The New York Times
The "lookout," in Hauteville House, where Hugo wrote. More Photos »
He found it on Guernsey. The “rock of hospitality and freedom,” as Hugo
proclaimed it in the dedication of “Toilers of the Sea,” his seafaring
novel set on the island, would become his home for over 15 years.
Undistracted and determined, he poured his creative energy into
masterpieces like his epic novel “Les Misérables,” and the decoration of
his home, Hauteville House, the only home he ever owned.
“Exile has not only detached me from France, it has almost detached me
from the Earth,” he wrote in a letter. In this wild, isolated retreat, a
British dependency just 26 miles from the Normandy coast of France,
Hugo passed the most productive period of his life.
Today, Guernsey is best known for offering a haven of a different kind:
it’s a common overseas tax shelter, thanks to lenient financial laws.
But the Guernsey of Victor Hugo — a place of quiet contemplation,
vigorous cliff walks and seductive swimming bays — is still palpably
present, as are elements of the writer’s life on the isle.
From the minute his boat docked at St. Peter Port, the capital of the
24-square-mile island, Hugo marveled at the beauty. “Even in the rain
and mist, the arrival at Guernsey is splendid,” he wrote in a letter to
his wife.
Today, travelers who arrive by ferry, from either England, Jersey or
France, share this same first glimpse of the port, with its gently
bobbing fishing boats and orderly rows of houses stacked along hills.
Hugo settled in one of these residences at the top of town, a rambling
villa called Hauteville House, surrounded by family and a band of fellow
exiles. He installed Juliette Drouet, his mistress of decades, in a
modest home down the street.
Already a celebrated writer at the time of his exile, Hugo was drawn to
the Channel Islands because of their proximity to France and independent
governance. (Though the islands have been linked to Britain for almost
1,000 years, a 1204 charter still guarantees their autonomy.) For Hugo,
who spoke no English — “When England wants to chat with me, let her
learn my language,” he said with typical grandiosity — the French and Guernsey patois spoken by the island’s Norman descendents were essential to his comfort.
Today, locals speak English more than any other language, but the warmth
of their hospitality remains undimmed. “It’s such a small island,
everyone knows everyone — in a nice way,” said Mark Pontin, the
proprietor of the Ship and Crown, a local pub where Juliette Drouet
first stayed when she arrived on Guernsey. “Most locals know the stories
about Victor Hugo, and people have plenty of time to talk about the
history of the island.”
In his mid-50s when he arrived in Guernsey, Hugo believed that his
“present refuge” would eventually become his “probable tomb.” Fueled by
these morbid fears — amplified, no doubt, by his remote isolation — he
embarked on a staggeringly prolific literary output, as well as his most
tangible work of art, the decoration of his home, Hauteville House.
In 1927, Hugo’s granddaughter, Jeanne, and great-grandchildren, Jean,
Marguerite and François, donated the property to the city of Paris,
which maintains it as a museum, open from April to September. Stepping
into the house, which brims with objets d’art and swaths of tapestry, is
like entering Hugo’s imagination, filled with hidden symbolism, defiant
declarations and winks of humor. “The house is like a journey,” said
Cédric Bail, a conservation assistant who led my guided tour last
summer.
Hugo spent almost six years decorating the house, scouring the island’s
junk shops for functional items that he repurposed into decorative
elements. Under his keen eye, dozens of carved wooden sea chests were
joined into a towering mantelpiece, and curved Regency chair backs
became ornamental window frames. Small faces and words — “bits of
propaganda,” Mr. Bail said — are carved into the wall paneling: A sign
over the dining room door reads, “Exilium vita est” (“Life is an
exile”).
Suffused with a dark oppressiveness that Mr. Bail likened to that of a
prison, the lower rooms gave way to light as we ascended the stairs. At
the top of the house, a glass conservatory, shockingly bright, housed
Hugo’s primary domain: a spartan bedroom — where the notorious
philanderer slept flanked by maidservants’ beds — and an office with
views that stretch across the Channel. Perched here in the “lookout,” as
he called it, Hugo wrote while standing at a foldout desk and gazing at
the islands of Sark and Herm, and, in the hazy distance, his beloved
France.
After mornings of work, Hugo spent his afternoons on brisk walks
exploring the island. His hale figure was such a familiar sight that a
statue in a nearby park, Candie Gardens, depicts him midstride, the wind
catching his cloak. I toured some of Hugo’s haunts with a Gill Girard, a
guide (and the sister of Mr. Pontin, the pub owner), who shared rich
local tales while whisking me around in her car. She stopped to show me
the Creux ès Faïes (“cave of fairies” in Guernsey French), a
Neolithic-era burial chamber that fascinated Hugo. At Pleinmont Point,
on the southwestern corner of the island, our eyes strained through the
fog to see a lonely house that might have inspired a scene in his
“Toilers of the Sea.” Today, massive cement bunkers mar the view — built
during World War II, they are an unyielding reminder of the German
occupation — but the craggy lines of Hugo’s beloved “ravaged, exposed”
coast remain.
On my final afternoon, a fine rain dampened the skies. Undeterred, I set
off to retrace Hugo’s favorite walk, a one-hour hike south from St.
Peter Port along coastal cliffs. Dark woods closed in above me and the
occasional drop of icy rain fell on my neck, but as I scrambled along
the path, all distractions were swept away by the roar of the sea, which
filled my ears even though I couldn’t see it. I rounded a corner and
Fermain Bay appeared below, the jewel-toned waters glowing through the
mist. Hugo came to this sheltered cove, which is still accessible only
by foot, to swim and sit and watch the rising tide. Surrounded by his
thoughts, he found a kind of peace.
Hugo was prepared to die without setting foot again in France,
declaring, “I will share exile and liberty to the very end.” In 1870,
however, the Second Empire fell, and a triumphant Hugo returned to
Paris, though he visited Guernsey again three times before his death in
1885.
And yet Guernsey’s influence on Hugo is evident — not just in “Toilers
of the Sea,” but in the sheer volume of the work he produced there. The
island’s untamed seclusion was at once a burden and a gift, and the
ambitious writer freely embraced both aspects. “A month’s work here is
worth a year in Paris,” he confided in a letter to the writer Auguste
Vacquerie. “This is why I sentence myself to exile.”
HAUNTS AND HOTELS
Getting There and Getting Around
Guernsey can be reached by daily ferry service operated by Condor Ferries (www.condorferries.co.uk).
The trip takes about three hours from Weymouth or Poole on the southern
English coast (£60, about $95 at $1.58 to the pound, round trip), or
two hours from St.-Malo, France (65 euros, $84 at $1.30 to the euro,
round trip). Aurigny (aurigny.com) and Flybe (flybe.com)
airlines offer daily flights to Guernsey from London Gatwick and nine
other airports in Britain. Guernsey’s bus network serves all of the
island’s major attractions.
(Note: Guernsey issues its own currency, pegged to the British pound.)
What to See
Hauteville House (38 Hauteville, St. Peter Port; 44-1481-721-911; victorhugo.gg)
is open from April to September, Monday to Saturday. Visits available
only by guided tour; reservations required. Admission is £6.
Gill Girard (44-1-481-252-403; gillgirardtourguide.com;
£6) leads guided walks and bus tours of the island on a variety of
themes including Victor Hugo, as well as the Guernsey-set novel “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.”
The island has a 28-mile network of clifftop footpaths that follow the rugged coast. Maps are available at the Guernsey Information Center (44-1481-723-552; visitguernsey.com).
Where to Stay
Steps away from Hauteville House, the Pandora Hotel (Hauteville, St. Peter Port; 44-1481-720-971; pandorahotel.co.uk;
from £47), where Hugo’s mistress Juliette Drouet lived, offers flowery,
salmon-pink rooms that are comfortable, if a little shabby.
Old Government House (St, Ann’s Place, St. Peter Port; 44-1481-724-921; theoghhotel.com; from £125), a former governor’s mansion, offers luxurious rooms in the center of town.
Hazel Thompson for The New York Times
While
there, Hugo poured his energy into works like “Les Misérables,” and the
decoration of his home, Hauteville House. Here, the dining room on the
ground floor.
Hazel Thompson for The New York Times
The blue drawing room.
Hazel Thompson for The New York Times
The smoking room on the ground floor of the home.
Hazel Thompson for The New York Times
Hugo spent almost six years decorating the house.
Hazel Thompson for The New York Times
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