Victor Hugo was possibly, as Andre Gide once remarked, France's greatest poet. He was also a playwright, novelist, essayist,  statesmen, and human rights activist.  But Hugo was a complex contradictory man, the consummate egoist, a psychotic genius (Jean Cocteau cryptically described him as "a madman who believed he was Victor Hugo"), and the ultimate satyr. Today Hugo is still revered for Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame),  and Les Miserables.

Hugo was a short, fat, balding man whose egoism and extraordinary sexual drive convinced him that he was irresistible to women, a belief that was apparently constantly reinforced several times a day until his death at eighty-three. When Hugo was seventy, he was still able to seduce the twenty-two year old daughter of the writer and journalist, Théophile Gautier.

Hugo's retreat on the English island of Guernsey was replete with secret staircases and bedrooms through which and in which he daily snuck  in and out several mistresses, chambermaids, and occasional prostitutes, away from the prying eyes of his longtime mistress, Juiliette Droue, an actress whose passion for Victor was evidenced by more than 17,000 love letters.

While Hugo may have been a connoisseur of women, he was not a notable connoisseur  of food. There were only a few dishes named after him, one of which was Caillette a  la Hugo (roast quails), which probably was testament to his numerous mistresses whom he constantly referred to as "mon caillette "(my little quails). Enjoys these while watching his masterpiece Les Misérables (1998)