Alphonse Daudet : d
Who doesn't know Blanquette, the Field Sub-prefect or Cornille Master
At the birth of Alphonse (13 May 1840), his father Vincent, trading in silks, was practically ruined. The Daudet family took refuge in Lyon and lived in near misery.
At 16, Daudet was a pawn at the college of Alès; He soon joined his brother Ernest in Paris, where he hoped to publish his first tales. Thanks to Empress Eugenie who – it is said! – would have appreciated a collection of his verses, he is hired as secretary near the Duke of Morny, an understanding boss because from then on, the young Alphonse led a life of bamboche enjoying orders of mission (with a fictitious title of sub-prefect!): he travels to Provence, Algeria... and engange memories that will give birth to the Letters from my mill in which we read The Sauterelles, The Field Sub-prefectAnd of course Mr Seguin's Goat : “… how pretty she was with her soft eyes, her non-commissioned beard, her black and shiny hooves, her zebra horns and her long white hairs that made her a houppeland!" Gradually, he became famous for his frascism and friendships as well as his literary works.
Long before that, he meets Julia... Alphonse is in love and Julia is far from being insensitive to the charm of this boy "with a senseless hair, an unforgettable look, a poet's forehead"! Julia's parents – Jules and Léonide Allard, a literary ferus – do not see this nascent idyll with a very good eye... They inform... and give in to their daughter's will. After all, the little secretary of the Duke of Morny seems promised to a beautiful literary future... so... then Julia marries his beloved on January 28, 1867!
Morning so active after an almost white night; his arrival [that of Alphonse] at about eleven o'clock; [...] he then enters; I'm afraid he doesn't think I'm beautiful; my hair a little changed, and then my bodice makes a fold, there, on the shoulder; He himself is very pale; But it is a blessed look that we exchange. The start in the rain for the church but at the exit a beautiful ray of sun surrounds us... [...] Lunch my parents; and everyone leaves, we make music until evening... [...] then, this is the little apartment my white dress holds all the stairs.
Julia's pen will mingle with that of Alphonse: Their two scriptures follow each other, simmering. […] He covered the pages after the pages of his little writing tight, nervous, elegant. A first draft, from the first jet, served as a sort of canvas. That's when Julia came in! My childhood memories show me my father and mother working at two juxtaposed tables... I was carrying the copy from one to the other, my mother very literate and good writer correcting here, adding there, writes Léon Daudet.
From this union three children will be born: Leon (16 November 1867); Lucien (9 June 1878); Edmée (29 June 1886).
December 1867
"How are you, Mistral? Are you happy? What are you doing? One word, please.
I am a father; That's amazing! I had all the doors of my office quilted so as not to hear the baby; But hey! I still hear it, and its small cries bite my bowels deliciously."
It ends with these words: Write to me – I beg you – the subrestor at Mistral.
For many years, Daudet wrote especially in Champrosay, a district of Draveil (neighborhood of l'Essonne, 22 km from Paris) because it is necessary to twist his neck to a legend: he never lived, nor stayed at the Fontvieille mill... No rabbits or old owl on his arrival, no fifes or mules on the road... For years, Daudet spent his summers and sometimes a few months winter in the upper coast house, close to Ris-Orangis station, close to the Seine. There, he welcomes his friends: Delacroix, Maupassant, Flaubert, Proust, Zola, Mistral of course, and a few others... And especially the most intimate, the most faithful, the most appreciated of the couple, the one that Alphonse calls "my Goncourt", Edmond!
Another lie! Paul Arene would be the author of the Letters from my mill and Daudet is accused of having widely plagiarized the Sisteron author... an act denied by the two interested! They were not friends all their life but it is not the suspicion thrown on the Letters who drew fire between the two men.
Daudet – famous epistolian! – is the author of some 40 works.
Success, love, friendships... is all happiness in the Daudet? No... to the troubles of all life add the disease: probably contracted to a lady in the world of the empress's entourage, Daudet suffers from syphilis which he will not cure. By remissions that may last for years, by worsening phases, the parasite evolves, reaching the spinal cord, the lungs. He sometimes suffers like a damned, doulou and the doses of morphine prescribed by the doctors frightened Julia.
On December 16, 1897, Alphonse Daudet died in Paris.
"He deserves a national funeral!" said Georges Clemenceau... but they were refused.
Julia died on April 23, 1940.
Sources: Julia and Alphonse Daudet in Draveil – A couple of writers in Champrosay – C.L.H.D. – 1997
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