The Queen was able to visit a very special home when she spent some time at Hauteville House on Guernsey, the former residence of French author, Victor Hugo.
Queen Camilla was able to visit Hauteville House, now a museum, in St. Peter Port. Hugo was exiled from France for his anti-royalist political views in 1851 and lived on Guernsey from 1855 to 1870 when he was finally able to return to Paris.
Hugo designed his house in Guernsey; The Queen took a tour of the house where she learned about many of his design choices. The gothic and often-exotic design choices reflected Hugo’s own personality, which also shines through in his novels.
Many of Hugo’s most famous novels were written while he lived at Hauteville House; Les Misérables, The Man Who Laughs, and Toilers of the Sea were all written during this period in Hugo’s life.
Queen Camilla has dedicated much of her time to literary-related causes since she married the then-Prince of Wales in 2005. In 2021, she launched The Duchess of Cornwall’s Reading Room, now known as The Queen’s Reading Room, an online book club to bring people together and form a sense of community through reading.
The King and Queen wrapped up a two-day visit to the Channel Islands; they visited Jersey on Monday and finished with Guernsey on Tuesday.
