Charles Vacquerie was a notable figure in the circle of Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....

, his father-in-law.

Life

From a family of pilots and Seine fishermen, he was the eldest son of Charles-Isidore Vacquerie (1779–1843), a shipowner from Le Havre, and was expected to join the family business. However, via his brother Auguste Vacquerie

Auguste Vacquerie

Auguste Vacquerie was a French journalist and man of letters.-Biography:Vacquerie was born at Villequier on 19 November 1819. He was from his earliest days an admirer of Victor Hugo, with whom he was connected by the marriage of his brother Charles with Léopoldine Hugo...

, he met Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....

 and married Hugo's daughter Léopoldine

Léopoldine Hugo

Léopoldine Cécile Marie-Pierre Catherine Hugo, born in Paris 28 August 1824 and died in Villequier on 4 September 1843, was the daughter of novelist, poet and dramatist Victor Hugo and his wife, Adèle Foucher....

 on 15 February 1843 at Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis

Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis

Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis is a church on rue Saint-Antoine in the Marais quarter of Paris. The present building was constructed from 1627 to 1641 by the Jesuit architects Étienne Martellange and François Derand, on the orders of Louis XIII of France. Next door to it is the Lycée Charlemagne, also...

. The couple drowned in a boating accident later that year.