A controversial Japanese Buddhist sect has renovated a gracious 19th-century villa and turned it into a shrine honoring the literary genius of Victor Hugo.
Set in the rolling hills about 12 miles south of Paris, the Chateau des Roches, a peach-colored stone mansion once owned by Hugo's close friend, Louis Bertin, opened this month as La Maison Litteraire de Victor Hugo.The museum is the work of the Soka Gakkai, a lay Buddhist organization that portrays itself as committed to peace, education and culture around the world.
The pacifist and anti-nuclear organization did not reveal the purchase price or the cost of extensive renovations. Headed by Daisaku Ikeda, the multimillionaire religious leader and philanthropist, the Soka Gakkai boasts 10 million followers in Japan, and 7,000 in France.
Hugo never lived permanently with the Bertins, but he vacationed there with his family and rented a villa nearby for his mistress, Juliette Drouet. As director of Le Debat, an influential newspaper, Bertin hobnobbed with the leading literary and artistic figures of the day, including composer Hector Berlioz, the painter Ingres and Chateaubriand, the writer.
Hugo would stay a month, punctuating his visit with trips back to Paris to follow rehearsals of his many plays.
After a recent visit, some critics voiced concern that the lavish reproductions of period decor overshadowed the objects on display. One extravagant room is the "Salon Hugo," decorated in deep red and burgundy hues, including trompe l'oeil wallpaper and yards of silk damask covering the ceiling.
Among the museum highlights are manuscripts in Hugo's large, forceful handwriting.
"Hugo only wrote on the right-hand side of the paper, leaving room for corrections, and especially additions, on the left-hand side," said Sheila Gaudon, a manuscript expert.