"Nevermore"

he had so much sex his biographers straight up gave up trying to document all of his sexual partners. he was reported to fuck up to 3-9 times a day. He had a secret sex diary written in code. He had “official” and “unofficial” mistresses. One estimate was that he had ~200 sexual partners in two years. 

Many articles make similar claims to those above. However, much of this information circulates without a clear source, and I have struggled to find reputable/high level sources for some of this information. Therefore, keep in mind that some of this may be exaggerated or potentially unreliable.

Obviously, I cannot account for the sexual of history of every human who has ever lived, but evidence does suggest that Victor Hugo had a… lively sex life.

From Medium: ‘Sex was so involved in Hugo’s daily life that one biographer wrote the following while describing a typical day in Hugo’s life:

“It was not unusual for him to make love to a young prostitute in the morning, an actress before lunch, a courtesan as an aperitif, and then join the also ­indefatigable Juliette for a night of sex.”

[…] Hugo claimed that on the wedding night, he and his wife had sex nine times.’

His encoded sex diary is referenced on Wikipedia, but when I found an English translation of the source, I couldn’t find where in it they were sourcing.

From Wikipedia: 'He systematically reported his casual affairs using his own code, as Samuel Pepys did, to make sure they would remain secret.’

The source is listed as: 'Hugo, Victor, Choses vues 1870–1885, p. 529, ISBN 2070361411, pp. 371, 521 (n. 1).’

I’ve found Choses Vues here in the original French and here translated into English. If anyone can find anything in here about the encoded sex diary, please let me know!

His 'official mistress’ is likely in reference to Juliette Drouet.

From EBSCO: 'Since 1833, Hugo had maintained a liaison with a beautiful female actor, Juliette Drouet, who for twelve years followed a cloistered existence relieved only by six-week summer holidays with her lover.’

His 'unofficial mistress’ is likely in reference to Léonie d’Aunet Biard.

From The Common Reader: 'Overlapping was a seven-year affair with travel writer and Arctic explorer Léonie d’Aunet Biard, whose husband finally brought a police officer to the Paris hotel and caught them in flagrante.’

I have found articles that circulate the '200’ claim, but none that give a source for the information.

From Medium: 'Not only that but he bedded 200 women in this hotel in just two years.’

The claim that brothels were closed on the day of his funeral is again circulated frequently without claim. The only sourced part of the claim I can find is a second hand report that sex workers had 'draped their gentials in black crepe’.

From The Guardian: ’[…] when Hugo died the brothels of Paris closed down for a day of mourning, allowing all the city’s sex workers to pay their last respects to a loyal client. Literary critic Edmond de Goncourt claimed a police officer told him that sex workers even draped their genitals in black crepe as a mark of respect.’

And an estimated 2 million people attended his funeral procession.

From Funeral Conflicts in Nineteenth-Century France: 'Two million people came to see Hugo’s body lying in state at the Arc de Triomphe’

Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?

The answer is they wouldn't. So that means this claim requires further investigation!

This project is called LIQUID 3, and it's not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it's meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.

Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:

Don't have enough space to plant full trees, or

Don't have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.

The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can't wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.

The tanks aren't just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there's room, but where there isn't room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn't a replacement for trees. It's replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).

Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it's needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can't sustain complex installations.