We know the classics
"my love"
,
"my treasure"
or
"my darling"
.
Some couples set their sights on more singular love names:
"my barley sugar"
,
"my pretty rooster"
,
"my sweet cat"
... French writers were not left out.
They were also men, made of flesh and blood.
In the privacy of an alcove or a letter, they gave and received little love names.
Juliette Drouet's
"
Toto"
"My Juju"
.
To think that Victor Hugo adored Juliette Drouet is an understatement.
More than 23,000 letters were exchanged between them, Juliette being ordered to write her impetuous lover two letters a day.
Scattered with fuss and stormy arguments, their love flowed for fifty years.
Juliette was
"his Juju"
,
"his poor angel of beauty and love"
.
He became
"his admirable Toto"
, his
"good little man"
,
"his beloved big Toto"
.
Sweet as certain amorous nicknames can be, we also find in one of his missives:
“my sublime Toto”
.
Sartre's
"
Beaver"
The
"lovers of the Flore"
Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre never married and did not bother with exclusivity, each living on their own. The couple remained no less linked for half a century. She was
"The Beaver"
by Jean-Paul Sartre. This nickname was imagined by René Maheu, fellow student of the student, inspired by the name Beauvoir,
beaver
in English, which means
"beaver"
.
"Beavers go in packs and they have a guiding spirit
," he explains to her. The author of The
Second Sex
ignores sobriety and nicknames Sartre:
"my dear little soul"
,
"my horizon"
,
"my universe"
,
“my little ally”
,
“my life”
... She uses a more maternal tone from time to time:
“my sweet little one”
.
“Gui” and “Lou”
Sometimes a simple diminutive suffices.
When Apollinaire meets the
"big and beautiful doe eyes"
of Louise de Coligny-Châtillon, he does not yet know that he will have to be patient.
They live a passionate love, nourished by regular correspondence.
He is
"Gui"
, she is
"Lou"
.
Sheltered in the trenches, while the Great War was raging, Apollinaire made a ring using shrapnel.
He had it engraved, before sending him:
“Gui loves Lou”
.
"Butterfly", "lobster" and "fly"
The language of love sometimes draws on an astonishing register.
Voltaire was consumed with love for his
"butterfly"
, in the person of Mademoiselle de la Tour du Pin.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline gave
"my lobster"
, and Rabelais, through his creation Pantagruel, was ecstatic in front of his
"tendrette"
, his
"fly"
.