Alphonse Daudet

Alphonse Daudet
Daudet by Étienne Carjat
Born	(1840-05-13)13 May 1840 Nîmes, Kingdom of France
Died	Paris, France
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet
Literary movement	Naturalism
Signature	File:Signature Alphonse Daudet.jpg

Louis Marie Alphonse Daudet (French: [dodɛ]; 13 May 1840 – 16 December 1897) was a French author who first worked as a lyricist, then as a playwright and above all as a novelist and short story writer. Successful during his lifetime with almost his entire oeuvre, he is still an established figure in French literary history today. His best-known works are the anthology Letters from My Windmill, the autobiographical novel Little Good-For-Nothing and the trilogy of picaresque stories that featured the character Tartarin.

Biography

Early life and education

Alphonse Daudet was born in Nîmes into a Catholic and legitimist family. His father Jacques Vincent Daudet (1806–1875), whose ancestors came from the Cévennes region, was a weaver and silk merchant. His mother Marie-Madeleine Adélaïde (1805–1882) was the daughter of Antoine Reynaud (1769–1846), a wealthy Ardèchois silk merchant. He spent most of his early childhood a few kilometres from Nîmes, in the village of Bezouce. He then attended the Canivet school of the Lasallian Brothers in Nîmes. In 1849, when his father closed his factory, the family moved to Lyon, and Alphonse entered the Lyceum Ampère. His father's complete ruin in 1855 forced him to give up taking his baccalauréat. He became a tutor at the college of Alès. This painful experience inspired his first novel, Little Good-For-Nothing (1868), in which Daudet combines real events with invented ones, such as the death of his brother.

Bohemian life in Paris

Alphonse Daudet by Nadar

Wishing to pursue a literary career, he joined his brother Ernest in Paris in November 1857. Although penniless, he led a happy bohemian life. But his association with one of Empress Eugénie's entourage led to him contracting an extremely serious syphilitic disease, with complications from which he suffered for the rest of his life, in particular a locomotor ataxia that forced him to walk on crutches.

Working for various newspapers (notably Paris-Journal, L'Universel and Le Figaro), he published a collection of verses, Les Amoureuses (1858), , which met with a fair reception, and that same year began an affair with Marie Rieu, a young model of easy morals. She became his official mistress and inspired the character in his novel Sapho. The following year he met the writer Frédéric Mistral, and this was to be the start of a great friendship. The intense correspondence between the two men, which lasted for almost 40 years, was only tarnished when Daudet published L'Arlésienne (1869) and the novel Numa Roumestan (1881), caricatures of the southern temperament.

In 1860, he was hired as secretary to the Duke of Morny (1811–1865), Napoleon III's half-brother and president of the Corps Législatif. This secretarial work gave him a lot of free time, which he spent writing stories and chronicles. But the first symptoms of syphilis appeared and his doctor advised him to leave for a milder climate. He travelled to Algeria, Corsica and Provence. He did not make a full recovery, but Daudet collected a great deal of material for later works, in particular the Tartarin trilogy. The Duke of Morny died suddenly in 1865. This was the turning point in Daudet's career, and he decided to devote himself entirely to writing, both as a columnist for the newspaper Le Figaro, — then under Cartier de Villemessant's energetic editorship — and as a writer. Soon he began to be recognized in literary communities as possessing distinction and promise.

Successful writer

Portrait of Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897) and his wife (née Julie Allard, 1844-1940) in their study by Louis Montégut (1883)

His first success came in 1862–1865 with La Dernière Idole (The Last Idol), a play successfully staged at the Odéon and written in collaboration with Ernest Manuel (pseudonym of Ernest L'Épine).

Repeated visits to his home in the south of France provided him with ideas and inspiration, particularly for the mostly short stories and sketches that appeared in serialized from 1866 and were published in book form as Letters from My Windmill (1869). The newspaper L'Événement published them as a serial throughout the summer of 1866, under the title Provençal Chronicles. Some of the stories in Letters have remained among the most popular in French literature, such as The Goat of Monsieur Seguin, The Three Low Masses and The Elixir of the Reverend Father Gaucher.

On 29 January 1867, he married the young poet Julia Allard, whom he had met in 1865. Together they had three children: Léon, Lucien and Edmée. Julia became his collaborator.

On April 25, 1871 after the Paris Commune was proclaimed, the Daudet family leaved Paris for Champrosay in Draveil.

Plaque at No. 41 Rue de l'Université in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, where Alphonse Daudet died in 1897

In 1886, he lent money to Édouard Drumont, to enable Drumont to publish a La France juive. He then acted as Drumont's witness during the duel between him and Arthur Meyer, who had been targeted by name in his friend's book.

Later life and death

Daudet suffered the several attacks of an incurable disease of the spinal cord, tabes dorsalis, a neurological complication of syphilis. He continued to publish until 1895 and died on 16 December 1897, at 41 Rue de l'Université in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, aged 57. He was interred at that city's Père Lachaise Cemetery

He died at the height of the Dreyfus affair, having had time to display his anti-Dreyfusard convictions, despite his close ties with Émile Zola. After a religious funeral at Sainte-Clotilde, Zola delivered his eulogy. Georges Clemenceau's request for a state funeral was refused.

Works

Main article: Alphonse Daudet bibliography

Alphonse Daudet's first real novel, Little Good-For-Nothing, which the author himself described as "a kind of autobiography", appeared in the feature section of a magazine and in book form in 1868. In 1874 Daudet decided to write novels of manners such as Fromont and Risler (awarded the Prix de Jouy by the French Academy), Jack (1876), The Nabob (1877), Kings in Exile (1879), Numa Roumestan (1881), The Immortal (1888), etc.

Although Daudet devoted a significant amount of time to the theatre form (he wrote seventeen plays), he did not abandon his storytelling. In 1872, Daudet published Tartarin of Tarascon, whose eponymous character has provided a number of idioms and expressions to the French language. Monday Tales (1873), a collection of often poignant stories about the War of 1870, also bears witness to his taste for this genre.

His experiences, his milieu, the men with whom he was acquainted, people who played a more or less important role in Parisian life, were all incorporated into his art. His friendship with Mistral was of great importance to his development, as was his interest in the themes and subjects of his Provençal homeland. Daudet was also a close friend of Edmond de Goncourt (who died in his house), Gustave Flaubert and Émile Zola, who called him a charmeur.

His style is considered realistic impressionistic, but his work defies any scholastic categorisation into the artistic movements of his time, whether naturalism, realism or impressionism. He also rejected the accusation that he was imitating Dickens (whom he greatly admired).

Daudet was far from faithful, and was one of a generation of French literary syphilitics. Having lost his virginity at the age of twelve, he then slept with his friends' mistresses throughout his marriage. Daudet would undergo several painful treatments and operations for his subsequently paralyzing disease. His journal entries relating to the suffering he experienced from tabes dorsalis are collected in the volume In the Land of Pain, translated by Julian Barnes.

Family

Jacques Vincent Daudet (1806–1875), weaver and silk merchant, married Marie-Madeleine Adélaïde Reynaud (1805–1882), known as Adeline, from Saint-Alban-Auriolles (Ardèche), in 1829.

Name	Birth	Death	Marriage		Their children
			Date	Spouse
Henri Daudet	1832	1856	None		None
Ernest Daudet	31 May 1837	21 August 1921	—	Marie Vernez	Louis Marie Vincent Georges Daudet
Alphonse Daudet	13 May 1840	16 December 1897	29 January 1867	Julia Daudet	Léon Daudet
					Lucien Daudet
					Edmée Daudet
Anna Daudet	2 June 1848	22 October 1936	6 October 1874	Léon Allard	Marthe Daudet

References

Primary sources

• Arène, Paul (16 Décembre 1883). "Pour un fait personnel," Gil Blas, No. 1489, pp. 1–2.
• Arène, Paul (10 Mai 1885). "Juvenilia," Gil Blas, No. 2000, pp. 1–2.
• Bonnet, Batisto (1912). Un paysan du midi. Le "baïle" Alphonse Daudet, souvenirs. Paris: E. Flammarion.
• Brinn'Gaubast, Louis-Pilate de (1997). Le journal inédit de Louis-Pilate de Brinn'Gaubast. Paris: Horay.
• Daudet, Alphonse (1896). Thirty Years of Paris and of My Literary Life. London: J.M. Dent & Co.
• Daudet, Ernest (1898). My Brother and I. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company.
• Daudet, Léon (1940). Quand vivait mon père: souvenirs inédits sur Alphonse Daudet. Paris: Bernard Grasset.
• Delvau, Alfred (2001). Du pont des Arts au pont de Kehl: Voyage avec Alphonse Daudet. Bruxelles: Le Grand miroir.
• Goncourt, Edmond de; Jules de Goncourt (2005–2021). Journal des Goncourt. Paris: Honoré Champion.

Secondary sources

Andry, Marc (1985). Alphonse Daudet, la bohème et l'amour. Paris: Presses de la cité.

Auchincloss, Louis (1961). Reflections of a Jacobite. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Auriant (1980). Le double visage d'Alphonse Daudet. Gouy: A l'écart.

Bannour, Wanda (1990). Alphonse Daudet: Bohème et bourgeois. Paris: Perrin.

Benoît-Guyod, Georges (1947). Alphonse Daudet, son temps, son œuvre. Paris: Tallandier.

Beuchat, Charles (1949). Histoire du naturalisme francais, Vol. 1. Paris: Correa.

Bornecque, Jacques-Henry (1951). Les Années d’apprentissage d’Alphonse Daudet. Paris: Nizet.

Brunetière, Ferdinand (1892). Le roman naturaliste. Paris: Calmann Lévy.

Cerullo, Maria (2016). Alphonse Daudet romancier de la famille. Paris: L'Harmattan.

Chauvelot, Robert (1927). Gustave Flaubert et Alphonse Daudet. Monaco: Impr. de Monaco.

Clogenson, Yves (1946). Alphonse Daudet, peintre de la vie de son temps. Paris: Janin.

Conrad, Joseph (1921). "Alphonse Daudet." In: Notes on Life & Letters. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., pp. 25–31.

Croce, Benedetto (1924). "Zola and Daudet." In: European Literature in the Nineteenth Century. London: Chapman & Hall, pp. 312–325.

Bruyère, Marcel (1955). La Jeunesse d'Alphonse Daudet. Paris: Nouvelles éditions latines.

Daudet, Léon (1898). Alphonse Daudet. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Daudet, Lucien (1941). Vie d'Alphonse Daudet. Paris: Gallimard.

Delattre, Floris (1927). Dickens et la France. Paris: J. Gamber Éditeur.

Diederich, Benno (1900). Alphonse Daudet. Sein Leben und seine Werke. Berlin: C. A. Schwetschke.

Dobie, G. Vera (1949). Alphonse Daudet. London and New York: Nelson.

Doumic, René (1899). "Alphonse Daudet." In: Contemporary French Novelists. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, pp. 127–174.

Dufief, Anne-Simone (1997). Alphonse Daudet romancier. Paris: H. Champion.

Fricker, Elsa (1937). Alphonse Daudet et la société du Second Empire. Paris: E. de Boccard.

Giocanti, Stéphane (2012). C'était les Daudet. Paris: Flammarion.

Gosse, Edmund (1905). "Alphonse Daudet." In: French Profiles. New York: Dodd, Mead and company, pp. 108–128.

Hemmings, F.W.J. (1974). "Alphonse Daudet." In: The Age of Realism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 194–200.

James, Henry (1894). "Alphonse Daudet." In: Partial Portraits. London: Macmillan & Co., pp. 195–239.

Jouveau, Marie-Thérèse (1980–1984). Alphonse Daudet, Frédéric Mistral. Nîmes: Bené.

Kurz, Harry (1929). "Daudet's Atmospheric Sensibility," PMLA, Vol. XLIV, No. 4, pp. 1179–1200.

Mantoux, Charles (1973). Alphonse Daudet et la souffrance humaine. Paris: La Pensee universelle.

Martinet, Yvonne (1940). Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897) sa vie et son œuvre. Mémoires et récits. Gap: Impr. Louis-Jean.

Roche, Alphonse V. (1976). Alphonse Daudet. Boston: Twayne Publishers.

Rouré, Jacques (1994). Alphonse Daudet: Biographie. Marguerittes: Equinoxe.

Sachs, Murray (1948). "The Role of Collaborators in the Career of Alphonse Daudet," PMLA, Vol. 73, No. 1, pp. 116–122.

Sachs, Murray (1964). "Alphonse Daudet and Paul Arène: Some Umpublished Letters," Romanic Review, Vol. 55, pp. 30–37.

Sachs, Murray (1965). The Career of Alphonse Daudet: A Critical Study. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Whibley, Charles (1898). "Alphonse Daudet," The Modern Quarterly of Language and Literature, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 16–21.

Williams, Roger L. (1980). The Horror of Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Further reading

• Albalat, Antoine (1884). L'amour chez Alphonse Daudet, essai. Paris: Paul Ollendorff.
• Albalat, Antoine (1898). "Alphonse Daudet," Nouvelle Revue, Vol. CX, pp. 5–14.
• Bordeaux, Henry (1905). Pélerinages littéraires. Paris: Albert Fontemoing.
• Brisson, Adolphe (1904). Portraits intimes, Vol. 2. Paris: Armand Colin.
• Burton, Richard (1898). "Björnson, Daudet, James: A Study in the Literary Time-spirit." In: Literary Likings. Boston: Copeland and Day, pp. 107–30.
• Crawford, Virginia M. (1898). "Alphonse Daudet," The Contemporary Review, Vol. 73, pp. 182–192 (Rep. in Studies in Foreign Literature. Boston: L.C. Page & Company, 1899, pp. 49–77.)
• Dąmbska-Prokop, Urszula (1960). Le style indirect libre dans la prose narrative d'A. Daudet. Kraków: Nakladem Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
• Favreau, Alphonse R. (1937). "British Criticism of Daudet, 1872-97," PMLA, Vol. 52, No. 2, pp. 528–41.
• Halfants, Paul (1925). La littérature franc̜aise au dix-neuvième siècle. III. Romanciers (1850-1900). Bruxelles: Librairie de Lannoy.
• Hamilton, C.J. (1904). "The Early Struggles of Alphonse Daudet," The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. CCXCVII, pp. 597–608.
• Henry, Stuart (1897). "M. Daudet." In: Hours with Famous Parisians. Chicago: Way & Williams, pp. 31–76.
• Major, John C. (1966). "Henry James, Daudet and Oxford," Notes & Queries, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 69–70.
• Matthews, Brander (1901). "Alphonse Daudet." In: The Historical Novel and Other Essays. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 109–146.
• Maurice, Arthur Bartlett (1901). "Daudet and the Making of the Novel," The Bookman, Vol. 13, pp. 42–47.
• Mauris, Maurice (1880). "Alphonse Daudet." In: French Men of Letters. New York: D. Appleton and Company, pp. 219–244.
• Moore, Olin H. (1916). "The Naturalism of Alphonse Daudet," Modern Philology, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 157–72.
• Oliphant, Margaret (1879). "The Novels of Alphonse Daudet," Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. 125, pp. 93–111.
• Pontmartin, Armand de (1884). Souvenirs d'un vieux critique, Vol. 6. Paris: Calmann Lévy.
• Powers, Lyall H. (1972). "James's Debt to Alphonse Daudet", Comparative Literature, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 150–62.
• Ransome, Arthur (1913). "Alphonse Daudet." In: Portraits and Speculations. London: Macmillan & Co., pp. 57–70.
• Raffaëlli, Jean François (1899). "Alphonse Daudet and his Intimates," Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 64, pp. 952–60.
• Ratti, Gino A. (1911). Les idées morales et littéraires d'Alphonse Daudet d'après ses oeuvres. Grenoble: J.-Léon Aubert.
• Saylor, Guy Rufus (1940). Alphonse Daudet as a Dramatist. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Sherard, Robert Harborough (1894). "Alphonse Daudet at Home," McClure's Magazine, Vol. 3, pp. 137–49.
• Sherard, Robert Harborough (1894). Alphonse Daudet: Biographical and Critical Study. London: Edward Arnold.
• Taylor, Una A. (1913). "The Short Story in France," The Edinburgh Review, Vol. 218, No. 445, pp. 137–50.
• Topin, Marius (1876). Romanciers contemporains. Paris: Charpentier.
• White, Nicholas (2001–2002). "Paternal Perspectives on Divorce in Alphonse Daudet's "Rose et Ninette" (1892)," Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Vol. XXX, No. 1/2, pp. 131–47.

External links

• Official website
• Works by Alphonse Daudet at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Alphonse Daudet at Gallica
• Works by Alphonse Daudet at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Works by Alphonse Daudet at Hathi Trust
• Works by Alphonse Daudet at Unz.com
• Alphonse Daudet at the Internet Movie Database
• Alphonse Daudet at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Daudet family tree

Jacques Daudet (1756–1846), married Madeleine Pourcheron (1770–1842) Antoinette Daudet (born 1789), married Louis Ardouin (1785–1843) Claude Daudet (1800–1839), married Philippine Irma David (1807–1835) Louis Hippolyte Daudet (1827–1909), married Octavie Ambroy (1828–1891) Fernand Daudet (1852–1932), married Marie Beau (1863–1949) Louis Daudet (1888–1914), mort pour la France François Daudet (1890–1914), mort pour la France Etienne Daudet (1898–1971), married Marie Téraube (1900–2000) Pierre Daudet (1904–1945) Alphonsine Daudet (1854–1929), married Emile De Parades (born c. 1850) Marie Daudet (1829–1915) Suzanne Daudet (1832–1902) Vincent Daudet (1806–1875), married Adeline Reynaud (1805–1882) Henri Daudet (1832–1856) Ernest Daudet (1837–1921), married Marie Vermez (born 1839) Georges Daudet (born c. 1865) Hélène Daudet (born c. 1870) Marie-Thérèse Daudet (1874–1959) Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897), married Julia Allard (1844–1940) Léon Daudet (1867–1942), married Marthe Allard (1878–1960) Philippe Daudet (1909–1923) François Daudet (1915–1970) Claire Daudet (1918–1969) Jean Daudet (born c. 1920) Catherine Daudet (born c. 1922) Lucien Daudet (1878–1946), married Marie-Thérèse Benoit (1890–1974) Edmée Daudet (1886–1937), married Robert Chauvelot (1879–1937) Anna Daudet (1848–1936), married Léon Allard (1847–1925) Marthe Allard (1878–1960)