📍6 Place des Vosges, 75004 Paris, France
1832 – 1848“As a boy I was dragged between my soldier father's postings in Italy and Spain and my mother's rooms in Paris, where the overgrown garden of an old convent became my first kingdom. In 1832, with my plays making my name, we took a 280-square-metre apartment on the second floor of No. 6, Place Royale — today's Place des Vosges, the oldest square in Paris, with its rose-red brick and stone arcades. For sixteen years it was the centre of my life. Adèle and I raised our four children here, and our drawing room filled with friends — Dumas, Balzac, Mérimée, Sainte-Beuve, Lamartine. In my study I wrote Ruy Blas and much of Les Contemplations, and began the novel that became Les Misérables. Our eldest daughter Léopoldine grew up in these rooms, and her loss in 1843 broke my heart and stopped my pen for years. The Revolution of 1848 ended our time here; exile on Guernsey followed. The apartment has been the Maison de Victor Hugo since 1903.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today