The crusade against poverty which Victor Hugo had been leading for a long time was coloured, after 10th March 1862 by a gesture which was not just symbolic: He extended an invitation to dinner to poor local children.
A few days later he said;
We will half open the door of Hautville House in exile to the rich but will open it wide to the poor
On June 1862 he wrote to Octave Lacroix
Every Tuesday, I have invited to dinner 15 poor little ones chosen from the real local children, and my family and I wait on them at table; in this way I aim to show this feudal land the meaning of equality and fraternity
Reproduced from Victor Hugo's Guide to Guernsey by kind permission of The Victor Hugo in Guernsey Society