As an adult, Hugo was often written about in the press due to her status in Parisian high society and her connections to other members of the French elite.

A member of a prominent literary and political family, her paternal grandfather had been ennobled as a Pairie de France by Louis Philippe I in 1845.

[2][3] When she was eleven years old, she was gifted a walrus-tusk paper cutter by the Finno-Swedish explorer Baron Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld from his voyage in the Arctic Ocean aboard the SS Vega.

[5] As a young adult, Hugo became a key figure of Parisian high society during the Belle Époque of the French Third Republic and was frequently written about in newspapers.

[6][7] The marriage was performed in a civil ceremony and not a Catholic mass, out of respect for Hugo's grandfather, who had staunch anti-clerical views.

[5] In 1927, after the death of her brother, she went to Saint Peter Port, Guernsey to officially donate Hauteville House to the City of Paris.