19th Century Authors
The City Observed: Paris in Fiction, Poetry, and Autobiographical works
Henry Majewski, Professor Emeritus of French Studies, Brown University
Represented here are authors who have written about Paris during the 19th century. Works mentioned below are solely those which portray the capital. Suggestions for additional authors or works are welcomed.
Select an Entry:
Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850. One of the greatest novelists in the nineteenth century, Balzac proposed to give a portrait of society in its complexity. He attempted to study all levels of his society from the peasants to the aristocrats and find the underlying laws and principles which governed it. His novels, almost 90 in number, include studies of the political, military, economic aspects of society as well as the customs, philosophy and lifestyles of the representative characters he creates.
A major section of Balzac's series of novels entitled La Comédie humaine is devoted to studies of life in Paris. They have the subtitle: Scènes de la Vie Parisienne.
l. Histoire des Treize:
1. Ferragus (1833). Paris itself is the veritable protagonist of this novel.
2. La Duchesse de Langeais (1833-1834)
3. La Fille aux yeux d'or (1834-35). The novel begins with a detailed description of the city of Paris from a sociological perspective (analysis of the class structure of the city in 1815 when the action takes place). Balzac transforms this presentation into a personal vision of the city as a modern hell. It becomes a series of concentric circles, in which the energy of each class of citizens is dissipated in a destructive effort to move upward from one social category to the next circle of life in Paris.
II. Histoire de la Grandeur et de la Décadence de César Birotteau (1837). The story of the rise and fall of the great bourgeois man of the business world during the period of the Restauration (1819-1823).
III. La Maison Nucingen (1838). The novel of the great Parisian banking family in the years from 1826 to 1836.
IV. Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (1839-1847). A study of the life of Parisian courtisanes or high-class prostitutes. It includes a section on the career of a major recurring character in Balzac's novels, Vautrin. He eventually becomes a chief of police after having been a notorious criminal. The sections of this long novel are entitled: 1. "Comment aiment les filles." 2. "À combien l'amour revient aux vieillards." 3. "Ou mènent les mauvais chemins." 4. "La dernière incarnation de Vautrin."
V. Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan (1839).
VI. Facino Cane (1836).
VII. Sarrasine (1831). A short novel about the life of a castrato who sang in the opera in the 18th century. This text became the basis for Roland Barthes' influential study of the role of literary codes in the analysis of narrative in fiction entitled S/Z.
VIII. Pierre Grassou (1840).
IX. Les Parents pauvres:
1. La Cousine Bette (1846). Balzac's masterpiece about the fall of the great aristocratic family of the Baron Hulot in the period 1838-1844.
2. Le Cousin Pons (1847). Balzac's last completed novel deals in part with music and especially art. A central role is played by the important art collection owned by the protagonist and coveted by his family and others. Balzac's own ideas about painting and the art world are also clearly presented. This novel offers a very bleak portrait of human greed on all levels of society.
X. Un homme d'affaires (1845).
XI. Un prince de la Bohème (1840).
XII. Gaudissart II (1844).
XIII. Les Employés (1837).
XIV. Les Comédiens sans le savoir (1846).
XV. Les petits bourgeois (posthumous, 1854).
XVI. L'Envers de l'histoire contemporaine (1842-1846). The story of a group of religious people surviving in an enclave of medieval Paris in a changing world near the Cathedral of Notre-Dame.
In some of the other major divisions of La Comédie humaine there are novels situated in Paris. The novels of the Scènes de la vie politique contain at least two of these — Un Épisode sous la Terreur (1830) takes place in 1793, and Une Ténébreuse affaire (1841) during the Restauration and The July Monarchy.
XVII. The Études philosophiques:
1. La Physiologie du mariage (1829). Before the concept of the Comédie humaine had taken form, Balzac wrote a series of historical novels and a work entitled La Physiologie du mariage published in 1829. This novel was a kind of sociological study of contemporary marriage that proposed a code of behavior for husbands and wives. It was already based on Balzac's ideas about the influence of milieu and physical conditions on institutions and the lives of individuals. It was considered scandalous at the time because of some of Balzac's recommendations. It is important as an early example of the 19th century tradition of Physiologies, or texts which describe the influence of the physical environment on the individual.
2. La Peau de chagrin (l831). A study of the relationship between desire and human energy that is centered upon a talisman in a Parisian shop of antiques.
3. Le Chef d'œuvre inconnu (l831). This famous study of the painter and his desire to create a perfect masterpiece has inspired many later writers, illustrators, and film makers including Zola and Picasso. Zola's novel entitled L'Œuvre also concerns a painter who is struggling to produce a great painting in spite of his own inherited limitations. Balzac's short novel takes place in 1612 and features historical painters like Poussin and Mabuse. The central argument concerning the relative values of color or line in painting has often been compared to the contemporary debate between the supporters of Delacroix (color) and those who favored Ingres and the classical emphasis on drawing and line.
XVIII. Scènes de la vie privée:
1. Le Père Goriot (1834-1835). The great novel about the difficult progress of a young provincial aristocrat, Eugène de Rastignac, in Parisian society. As he follows the young man's rise in the social sphere, the narrator describes life in several different sections of the city in Restauration Paris from 1818 to 1819. The poor quarter in the 5th Arrondissement is the home of the pension Vauquer where Eugène lives with an assortment of Parisian types. Among these is the infamous criminal Vautrin, one of Balzac's major recurring characters. The quarter of the wealthy bankers and the section inhabited by the aristocrats, the area called Saint-Germain, are also presented.
2. Le Colonel Chabert (1832). A study of the difficult return of a soldier of Napoleon's army to Parisian society. It contains an important portrait of contemporary legal practices and lawyers and could be compared to similar descriptions of the legal profession in Dickens.
3. Illusions perdues (1837-1839, 1843). This novel was placed by Balzac in his Scènes de la vie de province but it deals mainly with the life of Lucien de Rubempré, a young provincial aristocrat who comes to Paris to become a poet and find success in the Paris of the Restauration (1819-1823). It presents the worlds of book publishing, journalism, and the aristocratic society which Lucien attempts to enter and which finally rejects him. The story of his downfall is seen in the context of the world of the courtisans and prostitution. His fate in the corrupted atmosphere of the city is contrasted with that of his provincial friend David Suchard, an engraver and sculptor, who remains in the country. The famous character Vautrin plays an important role in one of his later incarnations. This long novel is divided into three parts: 1. "Les deux poètes." 2. "Un grand homme de province à Paris." 3. "Les Souffrances de l'inventeur."
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Banville, Théodore Fauillain de, 1823-1891. A
prolific poet of the Parnassian school. Among his many collections
of poetry and plays is a volume of poems entitled L'Âme de
Paris. His best known volume of poetry dealt with the milieu of
the clowns in the entertainment world and the circus, Les Odes
funambulesques (1857). The theme of the melancholy saltimbanque
would become important to Baudelaire and to later painters and
artists from the Belle Époque to Picasso.
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Barbey D'Aurevilly, J. (Jules), 1808-1889. An
important novelist who wanted to be the Walter Scott of Normandy;
however, his many novels included studies of aristocratic life in
Paris. His major collection of short stories, Les Diaboliques (1871), develops his major theme of the diabolical presence of evil
in contemporary society. His pessimistic preoccupation with the
corruption of society is often compared to similar thematic concerns
in the poetry of Baudelaire.
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Barbier, Auguste, 1805-1882. A minor poet who
became the political satirist of the July Monarchy. His most
important collection of poetry entitled Iambes et poèmes (1831) recalls Andre Chénier and his poems about the French
Revolution of 1789; they also anticipate Victor Hugo's bitter
criticism of the regime of Napoleon III in Les Châtiments.
His collection Iambes includes a poem entitled "Paris."
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Barrès, Maurice, 1862-1923. An important
novelist, art critic and chronicler of life in France, he moved from
a cult of the self and individual energy, to a profound solidarity
with his fellow countrymen which can be seen as the basis for strong
nationalistic feeling. His most famous novel is Les Déracinés (1897) whose title includes the phrase Le Roman de l'énergie
nationale.
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Bashkirtseff, Marie, 1860-1884. This painter
and writer left an important diary that plays a role in Simone de
Beauvoir's Le Deuxième sexe. A Russian aristocrat, she came
to France as a child and died young of tuberculosis.
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Baudelaire, Charles, 1821-1867. One of the
most important collections of poetry in the 19th century, Les
Fleurs du mal (1857) contains many poems concerning the life of
the city. The poet is an uneasy witness to the transformations the
city is undergoing ("Le Cygne") in its modernization, and celebrates
the life of the flâneur who observes his impressions of life
in the city as he strolls along the streets and boulevards. The Petits poèmes en prose, originally entitled Le Spleen de
Paris, develops the themes of idealism and despair in relation
to the poet's daily existence in a city of beauty and suffering. As
an important art critic he published annual reviews of the official
salons in journals. He admired the painting of Delacroix especially,
and has left a valuable account of romantic painting which is
presented in L'Art romantique and Curiosités
esthétiques published in the complete edition of his works in
1868. In an important essay entitled "Le Peintre de la vie moderne"
from Curiosités esthétiques, he defines the modern artist,
painter or poet, as one who records the complexity of current life
in the city, and makes these observations the substance of his work.
He rejects the traditional emphasis in art on classical subjects,
history and myth in favor of the richness of contemporary manners
and mores. The essay is dedicated to the painter Constantin Guys.
Many readers, however, interpret the text as a justification of the
painting of Édouard Manet who treated many facets of contemporary
life in Paris from the cafés and musical halls to scenes of the
street.
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Becque, Henry, 1837-1899. A dramatist of the
realist school whose plays examine scenes of Parisian life in the
tradition of Balzac. He was a very severe critic of his society
whose plays include Les Corbeaux (1882), a bitter portrait of
the business world; La Parisienne (1886), a satire of
bourgeois marriage and love, and Les Polichinelles (1910), an
unfinished play dealing with the immorality of the world of finance.
His plays offer a dark portrait of French society during the Third
Republic.
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Béranger, Pierre-Jean de, 1780-1857. A
Parisian poet who was beloved by the public and many important
writers, including Stendhal. He is mainly the author of chansons and minor poems which however reflect the views of
the middle class in France from the Napoleonic period to the Second
Empire. He played a role in the political life of the times when he
was elected to the Assemblée Nationale during the Revolution of
1848. His early reputation as a great poet has not survived.
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Berlioz, Hector, 1803-1869. The great composer
of the French romantic school wrote his memoirs — Mes
Mémoires — published in 1858-1859. This work is an invaluable
account of the musical and personal life of a rebellious, romantic
musician who struggles to survive and prosper in the artistic world
of the monarchy of Louis-Philippe, characterized by its
conservative, academic institutions.
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Blanchecotte, Auguste 1830-1895. She was a
poet from the working class whose first collection of poetry was
awarded a prize by the Académie Française (Rêves et réalités,
1855). Her works include Tablettes d'une femme pendant la
Commune (1872) and Les Militantes (1875).
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Bloy, Léon, 1846-1917. A prolific Catholic
writer whose work includes literary studies, autobiographical essays
and mystical meditations. Histoires désobligeantes can be considered
a portrait of contemporary society.
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Boigne, Louise-Eléonore-Charlotte-Adélaide d'Osmond,
comtesse de, 1781-1866. She was primarily a memoir-writer
whose souvenirs are an important document concerning the history of
her time, from the perspective of a woman who was also an
aristocrat. Although begun in 1835, her memoirs, Récits d'une
tante, were not published until 1907.
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Bourget, Paul, 1852-1935. A novelist and
essayist who becomes a strong advocate for traditional values —
monarchy, Catholicism and nationalism. He represents a conservative
view in his anti-Dreyfus stance. He vigorously criticizes
contemporary materialism and science, which he condemns for its
denial of mystery and the religious bases of morality. His most
famous novels are Le Disciple (1889) and L'Étape (1902); the first illustrates his thesis of the recklessness of
scientific experiment without moral concerns, and the emptiness of
life without religious values; the second, the dangers of democracy
and the importance of maintaining traditions.
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Céard, Henry, 1851-1924. He was an important
literary figure known for his friendship with the naturalist writers
and especially Zola, which resulted in a long correspondence
published in the complete edition of Zola's letters. His best known
story is La Saignée; it deals with his personal experience of
the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 and
appeared in Les Soirées de Médan. Among his novels is the
naturalist work Une belle journée (1891).
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Champfleury, 1821-1889. As a novelist and
essayist he is remembered most for his defense of realism in art and
his friendship with Flaubert. His esthetic ideas are collected in
the essays of Le Réalisme (1857); among his novels in the
tradition of Balzac, most deal with the people and the lower classes
in the provinces. A novel set in the capital is La Mascarade de
la vie parisienne (1860).
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Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de,
1768-1848. The great master of early romantic literature was
known for his exotic novels about Native Americans and his
melancholy hero René who became a prototype of the romantic
outsider. He did not write about the city of Paris but in his
influential treatise on religion, Le Génie du Christianisme,
he re-established the value and beauty of gothic art, especially
the cathedrals such as Notre-Dame de Paris. In his most celebrated
work, Mémoires d'outre-tombe, published posthumously, there
are many descriptions of his life in Paris, and his famous literary
and political friendships. His political career during the
Restauration is presented. This memoir is an essential text as the
personal description of the experience of life in the first part of
the nineteenth century of an influential writer, traveler and
political figure.
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Colet, Louise, 1810-1876. A poet and friend of
great writers, especially Flaubert, with whom she exchanged an
important correspondence. Among her novels is Lui (1859), a
fictionalized version of the poet Musset's life in Paris, especially
his struggles with alcohol and many love affairs.
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Constant, Benjamin, 1767-1830. An important
writer and political figure whose novel Adolphe offered the
prototype of the suffering romantic hero. He was perhaps the leading
exponent of liberalism during his political career; he opposed
Napoleon and was an elected deputy during the Restauration. His
famous friendships with Madame Récamier and the novelist Madame de
Staël have been often studied. His Mémoires sur les
Cent-Jours (1820) offer an important portrait of Napoleon's
brief return to power in Paris after his first exile.
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Corbière, Tristan, 1845-1875. An important
poet of the last quarter of the century, his neglected work was
recognized by Verlaine who included him in his book on the "poètes
maudits" of his time. His only published volume of poetry, Les
Amours jaunes (1845-1875), contains a section devoted to poems
about Paris. He is considered to be a precursor of the symbolists
and modernist experimental poetry.
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Daudet, Alphonse, 1840-1897. Known primarily
for his stories and plays about Provence, Daudet became a serious
chronicler of life in Paris after the Commune. Zola considered him a
naturalist who observed and described Parisian manners and morals
with precision and insight. The Contes du lundi (1873)
present the Franco-Prussian war and the Commune as background for
bitter personal experiences. Froment jeune et Risler aîné (1874) and the following novels deal with various aspects of
Parisian life: Le Nabab (1877) presents the business world; Numa Rumestan (1881) the world of politicians; L'Immortel (1890), the Académie française; Les Rois en
exil (1879), the dissolution of contemporary society. Parallel
to Zola he becomes the painter of life during the Second Empire and
beyond. Stylistically he has been called an impressionist as well as
a naturalist for his sensitive notations of sensations and
impressions.
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Daumier, Honoré, 1808-1879. The great painter,
illustrator and caricaturist of the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe
and the Second Empire, wrote a personal journal entitled Actualités of great interest due to his perceptive observations of historical
events.
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Delacroix, Eugène, 1799-1863. The most
important painter of the romantic period in France recorded in the Journal his life as a painter in Paris and his relations with many
famous artists and writers such as George Sand and Baudelaire.
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Du Camp, Maxime, 1822-1894. Known primarily as
an important witness of the Second Empire and the society of his
time, this great friend of Flaubert wrote travel literature, art
criticism, poetry and novels. Les Chants modernes (1855)
represents a new social poetry concerned with the industrial
revolution and modernity. His novel Les Forces perdues (1867)
criticizes the experience of romantic anguish, and predates
Flaubert's L'Education sentimentale which it may have
influenced. A study of contemporary Paris, Paris, ses organes,
ses functions et sa vie (1869) was a great success and earned
him election to the Académie française.
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Dumas, Alexandre, 1802-1870. The great,
prolific popular novelist wrote primarily historical novels and
plays which did not deal with contemporary Paris. His very
successful play Antony (1831) was one of the first, however, to
present the suffering of the anguished romantic hero. One of his
last novels is entitled Les Mohicans de Paris (1854).
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Dumas, Alexandre, 1824-1895. Son of the
popular novelist, he is best known for his novel La Dame aux
camélias (1848) which he presented as a drama with the same title. As a
dramatist he wrote a series of plays dealing with contemporary life
and current issues, such as the demi-monde. The problem of
illegitimacy, which is the subject of Les Idées de Madame
Aubray (1867), is inspired by his friendship with George Sand and her
feminist viewpoint.
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Duranty, Edmond, 1833-1880. Novelist,
playwright and critic, he was a friend of Zola and wrote
controversial reviews of the impressionist painters in a series of
"salons."
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Duras, Claire de Durfort, duchesse de,
1777-1828. Currently a highly regarded novelist, she is
remembered especially for Ourika (1823). Her portrait of a
young black woman who is brought to France and suffers the anguish
of an impossible, romantic love for a white Frenchman is an early
study of an interracial romance. Her other published novel is Édouard (1825).
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Duval, Georges, b. 1772. Playwright of
comedies who also left souvenirs of the Revolutionary period in
Paris — Souvenirs de la Terreur de 1788 à 1793, 4 Vols.
(1841).
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Faguet, Émile, 1847-1916. A very influential
literary critic who maintained academic traditions during his long
career and whose work is characterized by a humanistic insistence on
the importance of the personality of the writer. He is responsible
for the traditional critical methodology referred to as L'homme
et l'œuvre. He also wrote essays on political and social issues.
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Feydeau, Georges, 1862-1921. This celebrated
author of comedies and vaudeville theater satirized the customs and
manners of his day. His plays are still widely performed in France
and in translation elsewhere. La Dame de chez Maxim (1899)
and La puce à l'oreille (1907) are among the best known of
his farcical works.
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Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880. The great
novelist, often considered to be at the origins of modernism in
literature, wrote one important novel dealing with Paris, L'Éducation sentimentale (1869). The protagonist of this
novel is a version of the dandy or the flâneur. He arrives from the
provinces to search for love and success in the city, much like
Balzac's Eugène de Rastignac, but he is profoundly bored with
existence in the city. He is totally lacking in the energy of
Balzac's protagonists and is mainly characterized by his ennui.
Ironically, he is absent from the city during the first days of the
Revolution of 1848, which he spends in Fontainebleau with his
mistress. Nevertheless, Frédéric is an excellent observer of the
worlds of the middle class, art and the demi-monde. For many critics
this is the essential novel for an understanding of the city at the
beginnings of the dominance of the bourgeoisie economically and
socially. His other fiction treats primarily subjects taken from
history, myth and provincial life. He also left a very important
correspondence with many important writers of the day including
George Sand.
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Fourier, Charles, 1772-1837. An important
critic of contemporary society, his utopian thought influenced many
writers such as George Sand. He is distinguished from the
Saint-Simoniens since he did not propose a radical transformation of
the economic life of France; instead he emphasized the need to form
small utopian societies called phalansteries where each individual
performed necessary tasks and no central authority is needed. He is
remembered for his contribution to the ideas of romantic socialism
after 1830.
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France, Anatole, 1844-1924. He was a poet of
the Parnassian School, a novelist and critic whose many books were
highly appreciated during his lifetime. A humanist and satirist he
is often compared to Voltaire. He won the Nobel Prize for literature
and was a strong supporter of Dreyfus. Proust used him as a basis
for the character of Bergotte the novelist. The novel M. Bergeret
à Paris (1901) features a provincial professor in the city.
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Fromentin, Eugène, 1820-1876. He was a painter
as well as a novelist and an art critic. His only novel, Dominique (1863), partly takes place in the student milieu of
Paris. It is an important novel of romantic, impossible love. His
painting is valued for his scenes of Algeria, and his major work of
art history, the Maîtres d'autrefois (1876) is still
considered to be one of the earliest and most important studies of
its kind.
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Gautier, Judith, 1845-1917. The daughter of
Théophile Gautier, she was a novelist, playwright and famous
salonnière. Since she was an oriental scholar her works deal mainly
with travel and "exotic" subject matter.
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Gautier, Théophile, 1811-1872. He was an
important figure in the development of romanticism and the founder
of the aesthetic movement in France usually referred to as art for
art's sake ("l'art pour l'art"). He is the author of important
poetry which marked the beginnings of the Parnassian school of
poetry in France, primarily the collection entitled Émaux et
Camées (1852). His Poésies complètes, published first in
1844 contains many poems dealing with contemporary Paris. L'Histoire du Romantisme (1872) is a valuable account of
Gautier's understanding of the romantic movement in France. It
includes portraits of the major literary and artistic figures of the
period, and describes some of the principal events in which he
participated such as the infamous opening night of Hernani (1830) by Victor Hugo. This play caused a scandal and announced the
battle between the classicists and the romantics. He was a prominent
member of several groups of young romantics — called cenacles — and
wrote a humorous satire of the attitudes and aspirations of the
young generation of romantic artists in Paris, entitled Les
Jeunes France (1831).
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Gay, Sophie, 1776-1852. The mother of
Delphine de Girardin, she was a novelist and playwright as
well as a salonnière who was famous for her wit. Among her many
novels is Un Mariage sous l'Empire (1832).
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Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité, comtesse de,
1746-1830. She was a prominent educational writer, novelist
and memoir-writer whose views were a mixture of progressive ideas
and reactionary attitudes. Among her 80 published works are De
l'Influence des femmes sur la littérature française comme
protectrices des lettres et comme auteurs (1811). Her 10 volume
memoirs were published in 1825.
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Girardin, Émile de, Mme., 1804-1855. A
successful poet and dramatist, she maintained a famous salon which
brought together the major romantic writers of her generation. In
her Lettres parisiennes (1836-1848) she chronicled the
important events of her time. Her fiction includes La Canne de
Monsieur de Balzac (1836).
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Goncourt, Edmond de, 1822-1896
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Goncourt, Jules de, 1830-1870
They are
usually referred to as the "frères Goncourt" since they composed
their works together. The two brothers were very influential writers
who were largely responsible for the revival of interest in French
18th century art and letters after a period of neglect. In addition
to their important works of art criticism they maintained a Journal which is an invaluable resource for an intimate
knowledge of the lives of artists and painters in the second half of
the 19th century. It was not published in its entirety until 1956.
They established the literary society now called the Académie
Goncourt to serve as an alternative to the Académie française,
perceived in their time to be excessively conventional and opposed
to all new trends including realism and symbolism in art and
fiction. The main function of the Academy is to award an annual
prize to the best novel of the year. The brothers are also known as
novelists who wanted to continue the tradition of Balzac and give a
truthful, scientific portrayal in an artistic style of the complex
aspects of contemporary society. They did not limit themselves to
life in Paris. Their long list of novels includes descriptions of
the milieu of medicine (Sœur Philomène, 1861), the middle
class (Renée Maupertin, 1864), the world of writers
(Charles Demailly, 1860), the lives of artists and painters
(Manette Salomon, 1867). After the death of his brother,
Jules continued to produce novels which were an artistic
documentation of contemporary customs and manners.
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Hugo, Victor, 1802-1885. Probably the greatest
writer of the romantic era who excelled in all genres: theater,
fiction, poetry, memoirs, and was an excellent painter as well. He
became a national institution and his funeral in Paris was an event
of great proportions. His list of works dealing with Paris is
extensive; they cover most of the major events in the 19th century
in which he was a participant and prime witness. Among his novels
there are several important texts about life in Paris. Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) presents Paris in the
Middle Ages; Le Dernier jour d'un condamné (1829) uses new
narrative techniques (such as the inner monologue) to study the last
day in the life of a prisoner in the infamous Parisian prison of
Bicêtre. Claude Gueux (1834) and Les Misérables (1861)
offer powerful and sympathetic portrayals of the suffering of the
poor people of Paris.
Hugo's many volumes of poetry include individual poems that treat the history of France and especially events from the Revolution of 1789 through the Commune in 1871. Throughout the volumes of lyric poetry there are also many poems devoted to the city; in Les Contemplations (1856), for example, is found the masterpiece "Melancholia" which offers a series of portraits of the poor and marginalized inhabitants of Paris, including the poet who is alienated and misunderstood. Hugo also wrote poetry with political themes from the beginning to the end of his career. There are poems glorifying Napoleon and the Revolution of 1889; works dealing with the events of 1830 and 1848 when Hugo played a political role in the life of his country as an elected senator. The poetry about political issues traces his own development from a young royalist in the first collections, to a centrist after 1830, and then a socialist who exiled himself during the entire reign of Napoleon III in the Second Empire. His volume entitled Les Châtiments (1853), preceded by the prose work Napoléon le Petit (1852), offers bitter, strong indictments of the tyranny of the new Emperor's dictatorship. He lived to write about yet another revolution, that of the Commune which he describes in L'Année terrible (1872).
Many of his works in prose present his views on the recent history of the city; Choses Vues (posthumous, 1900) is a valuable document offering his perspective on historical figures he knew and important events which he had witnessed himself. Littérature et Philosophie mêlées (1834) is an earlier text in which Hugo also presents portraits of literary figures of his time. Hugo's theater was very influential in establishing the romantic tradition, and the new admiration for Shakespeare, as opposed to the classical French dramatic conventions; it does not deal with contemporary life but presents history plays often dealing with Spain and the Renaissance period in France.
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Huysmans, J.-K. (Joris-Karl), 1848-1907. An
important novelist and art critic whose work evolved from novels
written in the style and philosophy of naturalism. Les Sœurs
Vatard (1879) is a portrait like those of Zola, of the
unfortunate and underprivileged. He was known as a major writer of
the decadence, the disillusioned generation after the Revolution of
1870. His most famous novel À Rebours (1884) has become one
of the best illustrations of the decadent temperament. Its
protagonist, Des Esseintes, lives a solitary life in a Paris
suburb in which he has created a totally artificial existence to
counteract the meaninglessness of life. His final novels illustrate
his development into a religious and mystical phase. Là-bas (1891), En route (1895) and La Cathédrale (1898) (a
glorification of Chartres and Christian symbolism) trace his journey
to religious certainty. While his novels deal little with the city
of Paris (with the notable exception of À rebours), a
collection of sketches aptly entitled Croquis Parisiens proves him to be an astute observer of the capital's social life and
customs.
[Top]
Janin, Jules Gabriel, 1804-1874. He is best
known as a witty critic of theater and Parisian life whose most
important work was his series of newspaper articles appearing weekly
in the Journal des Débats. An important chronicle of the
literary history of his time, they were published together in 1858
under the title Histoire de la littérature dramatique. He
also wrote studies of writers and actors like Alexandre Dumas and
the celebrated actress Rachel. His prose works about Parisian
customs include Un été à Paris (1843), Les Beautés de
l'opéra (1844); L'Américain à Paris (184?) is concerned
with the theme of the flâneur in the city.
[Top]
Jarry, Alfred, 1873-1907. As a playwright he
is best known for Ubu-roi (1896) a satire of the bourgeoisie
and the monarchy which became an important precursor of the theater
of the absurd.
[Top]
Jaurès, Jean, 1859-1914. He was a leading
socialist thinker, a director of the French workers' mouvement , and
probably the greatest orator of the 3rd Republic. His major writings
are articles and essays on socialism, the Dreyfus affair, and the
history of revolution in France. His Histoire socialiste appeared from 1901-1908.
[Top]
Kahn, Gustave, 1859-1936. An important poet in
the symbolist school, he produced many volumes of poetry influenced
by Baudelaire and Verlaine as well as art criticism. A dramatic poem
in one act entitled La Pépinière du Luxembourg was published
in 1923.
[Top]
Kock, Paul de, 1793-1871. He and his son,
Henri, wrote many successful light comedies and vaudeville
characterized by their bourgeois taste and clever observations of
contemporary life and customs in Paris and its suburbs. A typical
example of his boulevard style comedy is La Pucelle de
Belleville (1834). He also wrote a series of sketches of
Parisian life.
[Top]
Krysinska, Marie, 1857-1908. She came to Paris
from Poland at the age of 16. Primarily a poet she is credited to be
the first to develop free verse in France. She died in poverty. Her
collected works include Rythmes pittoresques (1890) and Joies errantes (1894).
[Top]
La Tour du Pin Gouvernet, Henriette Lucie Dillon,
marquise de, 1770-1853. She left an important memoir that
describes her youth at Court, her experiences during the Revolution,
emigration and life under Napoleon. Journal d'une femme de
cinquante ans was first published in 1906.
[Top]
Labiche, Eugène, 1815-1888. An excellent
playwright of comedies and vaudeville who produced one hundred plays
about French life and manners.
[Top]
Laforgue, Jules, 1860-1887. He was an
important member of the symbolist school of poetry who published in
contemporary journals and is remembered for melancholic, ironic poems
in collections like Les complaintes (1885).
[Top]
Lamartine, Alphonse de, 1790-1869. Lamartine
is considered the first great poet of the romantic era. His
collection Les Méditations poétiques (1820) inaugurated a new
kind of poetic sensibility; melancholic, religious, escapist,
forever seeking an impossible love and refuge in nature. His
successive collections reaffirmed his position as the great French
romantic poet, but have little to do with Paris. However, he also
had an important political career and became the provisional
president of the Second Republic after the Revolution of 1848. He
incarnated the romantic ideal of the poet, a spiritual leader and
humanitarian guide of the people. His term was brief because he was
unable to act decisively and choose between the right and the left
politically. His most important prose work L'Histoire des
Girondins (1848) was very popular and influential at the time of
the Revolution of 1848; it was a political manifesto presenting the
Girondin group of the first Revolution (1879), a centrist party of
moderation, as a kind of model for political action. In 1849 after
his fall from power he published L'Histoire de la Revolution de
1848. He prepared a series of autobiographical works called Les Confidences after 1849. He also wrote novels that are
strongly personal in nature, especially Raphaël (1849). They present
the point of view of the poet- politician during this time of
revolution and change.
[Top]
Leroux, Pierre, 1797-1871. The romantic
philosopher who proclaimed himself a socialist exerted an important
influence on Hugo and especially George Sand in her utopian,
socialist novels. His influential writings included De
l'Égalité (1838) and De l'Humanité (1840). He played a
role in the Revolution of 1848 but always insisted on the need for
solidarity among the classes instead of conflict. He was primarily
for the elevation of the poorer classes through reform not violence,
and advocated democratic principles to favor the extension of
property to the proletariat, not the abolition of traditional values
like the followers of Saint-Simon.
[Top]
Lévi, Eliphas, 1810-1875. He was one of the
mystic, occultist thinkers who influenced the romantic writers,
especially Victor Hugo in his later religious works such as La
Fin de Satan. He and a circle of his friends, including
Esquiros, were known as les Illuminés, the theosophists of their
time. La Clef des grands mystères (1869) is typical of his
work.
[Top]
Lorrain, Jean, 1855-1906. A poet and novelist
usually considered as a member of the decadent school, he was
influenced by Baudelaire and the symbolist poets. He is best known
for his novel M. De Phocas (1901) that seems to be modeled on
the life of the elegant dandy and friend of Proust, Robert de
Montesquiou. He also wrote a series of memoirs entitled Poussières de Paris (1899). They are a valuable source of
portraits and documents that illustrate the mentality of the fin
de siècle.
[Top]
Loti, Pierre, 1850-1923. Loti was a well-known
novelist whose works are primarily about travel to lands considered
exotic at the time. He did not write about the city, but his works
illustrate the desire for escape from contemporary society
characteristic of the fin de siècle temperament. Pêcheur
d'Islande (1886) and Madame Chrysanthème (1887) about
Japan (the source for Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly), are major
examples.
[Top]
Mallarmé, Stéphane, 1842-1898. One of the
greatest French poets, he was a leader of the symbolist school and
wrote rich, complex works with little attention to the city. He did,
however, edit a journal about current fashion in 1874 and 1875, La Dernière mode, which is a precious document presenting the
great poet and dandy's reactions to contemporary Parisian style in
clothes, furniture and jewelry.
[Top]
Maupassant, Guy de, 1850-1893. He is
celebrated for his short stories about his native province,
Normandy, and the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. He
also has a cycle of Parisian short stories in which he depicted the
world of the working middle class (La Parure, En
Famille), or the world of leisure (Yvette, La Femme de
Paul). He is also the author of important novels which make him
the contemporary Balzac; he presents the life of the ambitious
opportunist in Bel-Ami (1885) in a historical portrait of
Parisian life like those of Balzac. The protagonist has indeed been
called the Rastignac of the Third Republic. Other important novels
are Pierre et Jean (1888) which treats the world of middle
class shopkeepers, and Fort comme la mort (1889); it presents
the loves of a contemporary painter.
[Top]
Meilhac, Henri, 1831-1897. A popular
playwright of light comedies who collaborated with the composer
Offenbach on several operettas such as La Vie Parisienne (1867). He wrote several plays that dealt seriously with customs of
fin de siècle Paris (Tricoche et Cacolet, 1872).
[Top]
Mérimée, Prosper, 1803-1870. He was a very
important writer of short fiction and plays during the romantic
period. He frequented the other famous writers of his time in Paris,
but is best known for his stories with a foreign or exotic setting
such as the Spain of Carmen (1845). Very few of his short
works concern Paris with the exception of "Arsène Guillot" (1844);
it deals with the theme of the prostitute or courtesan in Paris and
anticipates Dumas' La Dame aux Camélias (1848).
[Top]
Michel, Louise, 1830-1905. She was a teacher
who played a role in the uprising of the Commune. An activist and
anarchist, Michel wrote a series of books about the plight of the
poor and the inferior condition of women. Among her works are La
Misère (1881), Les Méprisées (1882), La Fille du
peuple (1889) and La Commune (1889). She wrote her
souvenirs in Souvenirs et aventures de ma vie (1905).
[Top]
Michelet, Jules, 1798-1874. Perhaps the
greatest of French historians, he wrote a Histoire de la
Révolution (1847) in addition to his voluminous Histoire de
France (1833, 1855-1867). His study of the people of France
(Le Peuple, 1846), also presents the life of the city.
[Top]
Millevoye, Charles, 1782-1816. A minor poet of
the pre-romantic period whose volumes of poetry include Les
Embellissements de Paris (1807).
[Top]
Mirbeau, Octave, 1848-1917. He was a novelist,
playwright and journalist of the realist and naturalist school who
is best known for his naturalist novel, Journal d'une femme de
chambre (1900). His plays Les Corbeaux and Les
Affaires sont les Affaires (1903) are virulent satires of the
moneyed classes.
[Top]
Murger, Henri, 1822-1861. One of the most
important writers of popular literature, he initiated a journal of
criticism entitled La Muse française (1823-1824). The journal
published many writings of the young romantics, their manifestoes
and articles of criticism. He is best known for his sentimental
stories of the lives of young artists in Paris during the romantic
period, Scènes de la vie de bohème (1848), later produced as
a play. Finally, in the opera version by Verdi it became perhaps the
most famous story in opera about 19th century artistic life. The
expression popular bohemia is now used to express his version of the
suffering but optimistic artist living on the margins of bourgeois
society.
[Top]
Musset, Alfred de, 1810-1857. He remains the
archetypical French romantic poet whose works define the young
romantic generation of Paris in 1830. He excelled as a playwright;
his works often dealt with Renaissance themes (Lorenzaccio, Andrea del Sarto) or the pursuit of a perfect but impossible
love (On ne badine pas avec l'amour). His importance as a
writer of Paris lies in his ability to define the malaise of his
generation; the term "l'enfant du siècle" is used to identify the
young romantics of 1830 who were disenchanted with contemporary
bourgeois life and dreamed of evasion and spiritual fulfillment. In
his personal memoir, Confession d'un enfant du siècle (1836),
he generalizes his experience in love and art to include the young
people of his generation; according to Musset their anguish and
sense of failure can best be understood in terms of the historical
context. They are victims of the failures of their fathers — the
revolution and the restoration left the young generation with the
feeling of helplessness and lack of meaning. The text is thus an
essential document describing the situation of the young Parisian
artist in 1830. His best poetry also presents the emotions and
anguish of the young poet especially the series entitled Les
Nuits and Rolla. In addition to his very personal poetry
based on his emotions and love experiences, he wrote art criticism
and a series of satirical letters gently mocking his own generation
of writers; the Lettres de Dupuis et Cotonet is an important
document about the contemporary condition of artists in Paris to be
compared with Les Jeunes-France of Gautier. His correspondence
should be consulted, especially the letters between him and Goerge
Sand. Their failed love is the major theme of his Confession de
l'enfant du siècle.
[Top]
Musset, Paul de, 1804-1880. A prolific writer
of novels and plays no longer read, he is best known for his
passionate defense of his brother Alfred in the novel Lui et
Elle (1849). It was published in the same year as George Sand's
presentation of her side of the famous love affair between her and
Alfred de Musset (Elle et Lui) which took place in Venice.
These two works and Musset's Confession constitute important
cultural documents concerning romantic attitudes and the psychology
of love.
[Top]
Nadar, Félix, 1820-1910. The great French
photographer captured images of the famous writers and celebrities
of his time. He also wrote plays and short stories of a satirical,
comic nature.
[Top]
Nerval, Gérard de, 1808-1855. He was one of
the most important poets of his time whose influence extends to the
surrealists; his work makes extensive use of myth, the worlds of
dream and madness. Paris was not really his subject, and yet he is
remembered, like Verlaine later, as a Parisian poet. He was a member
of the Cenacle of artists associated with Gautier, and for some is
the quintessential romantic artist living in the world of his own
imagination. His short stories, collected under the title Les
Filles du feu (1853), and the poetry, including the sonnets Les Chimères (1854), are considered masterpieces in their
genres. He wrote texts about his many travels such as Le Voyage
en Orient, and is associated with the countryside outside of
Paris around Senlis which he immortalized in his short story
"Sylvie."
[Top]
Nodier, Charles, 1780-1844. The famous short
story writer developed a French brand of the genre of the fantastic,
le conte fantastique, in which the world of dreams predominates. He
is not a writer of the city, but gives a portrait of the romantic
poet of his time, lost in reverie and mystical contemplation, in Jean-François les bas bleus (1832).
[Top]
Pixérécourt, R.-C. Guilbert de (René-Charles
Guilbert), 1773-1844. The melodrama was the most popular
genre in the theater during the first half of the 19th century. He
was known as the king of the boulevard for his innumerable plays and
particularly melodramas.
[Top]
Planche, Gustave, 1808-1857. He was a friend
of the great romantics, including Vigny and G. Sand, and is best
known for his many articles and portraits of contemporary artists
and writers in the important literary journal, La Revue des Deux
Mondes. His Portraits littéraires (1836) were followed by Nouveaux portraits littéraires in 1854.
[Top]
Ponsard, François, 1814-1867. A minor poet and
playwright he wrote several comedies of interest to those who would
study the customs of the business world in Paris in the middle of
the 19th century, L'Honneur et l'argent (1853) and La
Bourse (1856).
[Top]
Proudhon, P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph), 1809-1865. He
is a philosopher, socialist and student of art whose thought had a
great influence in the middle years of the century. He defined a
kind of French version of socialism that stresses solidarity,
equality and justice without the presence of a state bureaucracy.
His influence waned with the advent of Marxism and the rise of
industrialization in France. A close friend of the realist painter
Courbet, his treatise on art and literature is entitled Du
principe de l'art et de sa destination sociale (1865).
[Top]
Quatremère de Quincy, M. (Antoine-Chrysostome),
1755-1849. Known as the influential esthetician of
neo-classicism, he was called the French Winckelmann. He defended
the classical ideal in art and esthetics during his entire career
against the development of romantic art. One of his many treatises
on art and esthetics is Essai sur la nature, le but et les moyens
de l'imitation dans les beaux-arts (1823).
[Top]
Quinet, Edgar, 1803-1875. An important
political figure, as a deputy he was exiled at the beginning of the
Second Empire for his impassioned support of the Revolution of 1848.
He was also a prolific writer who produced many texts about the
history of France and especially the Revolution. Among his works are Histoire de la campagne de 1815 (1862) and La Révolution
(1865).
[Top]
Rabbe, Alphonse, 1786-1830. He is an important
precursor of a group of poets who specialized in the poem in prose,
including Baudelaire. A melancholy poet who committed suicide, his
works are imbued with the anguish of the mal du siècle of the young
romantics. His best works are included in the posthumous edition of
1835-1836 entitled L'Album d'un pessimiste.
[Top]
Rachilde, 1860-1953. Marguerite Eymery wrote
under the pseudonym of Rachilde. Primarily a novelist she was also a
dramatist and journalist. She is now considered to be one of the
most important fin de siècle writers whose works exemplify the
decadent imagination. Her very well-written novels treat gender
transpositions, sadism and the love of the artificial; they were
often considered to be scandalous. Her novels include Monsieur
Venus (1884), La Marquise de Sade (1887) and Les Hors
Nature (1897).
[Top]
Régnier, Henri de, 1864-1936. He wrote short
fiction and novels not primarily concerned with the city. His poetry
evolved from the Parnassian and classical trends to the symbolist
impulse under the influence of his friend Mallarmé. It is
interesting for his efforts to transpose art works, mainly marble
sculpture and metal pieces into poetic form in collections such as Les Medailles d'argile.
[Top]
Renard, Jules, 1864-1910. A writer of fiction
best known for Poil de Carotte (1894), he became an important
representative of theater in Paris at the turn of the century with
theatrical adaptations of his works.
[Top]
Rimbaud, Arthur, 1854-1891. One of the
greatest French poets, he became a visionary whose rebellion from
bourgeois values and natural genius revitalized French poetry. He
was born in the provinces and died in Marseille. While most of his
poems celebrate forms of evasion from the stifling confines of
contemporary life, several deal with the Paris Commune, while The
Illuminations contain pieces with urban themes, ostensibly
inspired by a trip to London. His major works include the
extraordinary poem « Le Bateau ivre » and the collections Les Illuminations and Une saison en enfer.
[Top]
Rochefort, Victor-Henri, 1830-1913. An
important journalist, he was considered to be the very incarnation
of the Parisian temperament at the end of the century. He founded La Chronique parisienne in 1858 and later was editor of Charivari. He wrote many plays and satirical novels; he
published his Chroniques in 3 volumes entitled Les
Français de la décadence (1866-1868).
[Top]
Rostand, Edmond, 1868-1918. He was a very
important playwright whose plays often featured the famous actress
Sarah Bernhardt. His best known works are Cyrano de Bergerac (1897), and L'Aiglon (1900) his play about the tragic life of
Napoleon's son which was a favorite role of the great actress. One
of his last plays was Chantecler (1910) a poetic fable. His
works are not particularly concerned with the city but seem to
continue the romantic tradition of history and poetic theater.
[Top]
Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin, 1804-1869. He
was the most influential critic of his age; he strongly supported
the first romantic generation, especially Victor Hugo, and lived to
befriend the generation of Flaubert and Baudelaire. His criticism
was primarily based on historical fact and the lives of the writers.
The Causeries du Lundi (1851-1860) contain the major texts of
his criticism of writers and works gathered from journal
publications. Proust wrote a famous study Contre Sainte-Beuve in which he stressed the need for a new kind of criticism based on
the texts instead of the approach that emphasized treating the work
as a disguised biography (the infamous l'homme et l'œuvre method which dominated literary studies until the 20th century). His
poetry and novels are very personal in nature and appear now as
romantic expressions of his own experiences and inner sentimental
life. Poésies de Joseph Delorme (1829) is a typical example
of romantic sensibility, and "Les Rayons jaunes" attempts an
interesting kind of ekphrastic correspondence between color and
poetic form. Les Consolations (1830) perfect this vein of intimist
poetry and provide an excellent example of the romantic temperament.
His most important novel is Volupté (1834), a fictional
transposition of his love affair with the wife of Victor Hugo,
Adèle. It offers a penetrating portrait of the young romantic
generation and of French society in Paris at the time of the
royalist reaction against Napoleon, the period of Sainte-Beuve's
youth.
[Top]
Saint-Hilaire, Émile-Marco de, d. 1887. A
novelist without much success, he devoted most of his talent to a
long series of memoirs and studies of the age of Napoleon. He is
recognized for his contribution to the creation of the legend of
Napoleon that influenced literature throughout the century. Some of
his titles are: Souvenirs intimes du temps de l'Empire (1838-1840), 6 vols. and Les Deux Empereurs, Napoleon Ier et
Napoleon III (1853).
[Top]
Saint-Simon, Henri, comte de, 1760-1825. He
was a very important social philosopher whose ideas influenced
thinkers and writers for several generations. His utopic plans for
the future included a religion of universal harmony and a new social
order based on the reorganization of the economy with emphasis on
new means of production and technology. One of his major works is De la réorganisation de la société européenne, ou De la
nécessité et des moyens de rassembler les peuples de l'Europe en un
seul corps politique, en conservant à chacun son indépendence
nationale (1814).
[Top]
Sand, George, 1804-1876. The great romantic
novelist produced almost 60 novels in her long career ranging from
feminist texts (Indiana, 1832), to books about the country
province where she lived, Le Berry, such as Les Maîtres
sonneurs (1853), to novels for children and works influenced by
socialist thought such as Le Compagnon du tour de France (1840). Under the influence of Pierre Leroux, the socialist thinker,
she wrote utopian novels and played an important political role in
the early phases of the Revolution of 1848. She wrote about the city
of Paris in a few texts including La Ville noire (1861) whose
background is the city and the beginnings of the industrial
revolution. Her novel Horace (1842) describes the bohemian
milieu of artists and writers in Paris around 1830. Elle et
Lui is a biographical text presenting her point of view
concerning the failed love affair between George Sand and the poet
Alfred de Musset after their trip to Venice in 1834. Her
autobiography, Histoire de ma vie (1855), is the best source
of information about her career as a writer in the city as well as a
detailed chronicle of 50 years of her life. She contributed articles
on Paris in at least 2 important documents — in Le Diable à
Paris (1844) which includes texts by Balzac and engravings of
Gavarni, and in Paris Guide, prepared for the exposition of
1867. In the former, she writes a harsh criticism of the city; in
the latter, she prepared a very positive and praiseworthy
introduction to Paris. Victor Hugo and Gautier also contributed to
this publication.
[Top]
Sardou, Victorien, 1831-1908. He was an
important playwright whose well-made comedies and satires were
extremely popular during the Second Empire and the Third Republic.
Several plays were political satires from a fairly conservative
point of view (Les Ganaches, 1862); his plays became
portraits of life at the fin de siècle (Théodora, 1884 and Madame Sans Gêne, 1893). They were often interpreted by the
great actress Sarah Bernhardt. La Tosca (1887) became the
source for Puccini's greatest opera. He also wrote plays dealing
with French history.
[Top]
Schwob, Marcel, 1867-1905. A poet and fiction
writer, his knowledge was encyclopedic and his writing showed the
influence of the symbolist tradition. His best work is considered to
be Les Vies imaginaires (1896) that announces modernist works
like Gide's Les Nourritures terrestres.
[Top]
Scribe, Eugène, 1791-1861. His comedies for
the boulevard and dramas were very popular during the Restauration
period and the July Monarchy. He is best known as the writer of
well-made plays for the middle class; he represents their social and
political views without romantic anguish or liberal views.
[Top]
Ségur, Sophie, comtesse de, 1799-1874. A
prolific author of novels of manners for young women, she is still
read today. Les Malheurs de Sophie (1864) is one of her best
known.
[Top]
Senancour, Etienne Pivert de, 1770-1846. He
was a writer of autobiographical texts who exerted a very important
influence on the romantic generation; his emphasis on solitude,
melancholy reverie and personal introspection , especially in his
masterpiece Oberman (1804), is to be found in the romantic
heroes and their disenchantment with life. He did not write about
the city, and is best remembered for his description, new in
fiction, of the mountains, particularly the Swiss Alps, as a place
of refuge and sublime beauty.
[Top]
Séverine, 1855-1929. Caroline Rémy de Guébhard
was a journalist who wrote under the pseudonym of Séverine for the
newspaper of her lover, the revolutionary socialist, Jules Vallès.
She directed the newspaper, Le Cri du peuple, after his
death. Her writings include Pages rouges (1893) and Notes
d'une Frondeuse (1894).
[Top]
Staël, Madame de (Anne-Louise-Germaine),
1766-1817. One of the most important woman writers in French
literature, Mme de Staël wrote two influential novels Delphine (1802) and Corinne (1807) which are
considered to be early feminist works. She played a political role
and was exiled for her courageous refusal to accept the dictatorship
of Napoleon. In the history of letters she is especially admired for
her two treatises on the development of literature in Europe from
the ancients to the moderns; De la littérature considérée dans
ses rapports avec les institutions sociales (1800) and De
l'Allemagne (1810) were influential as theoretical foundations
for the new romantic literature. She developed the distinction
between Northern literature of mystery and introspection (the
romantic impulse) and the literature of the South dominated by
rational clarity and the epic spirit (the classical tradition). She
does not deal with the city as subject, but her political writings
evoke Paris and its history — Considerations sur la Révolution
française (1818) and Dix années d'exil (1821).
[Top]
Stendhal, 1783-1842. He is considered by many
to be the greatest of French novelists. La Chartreuse de
Parme (1839) situated at the court of Parma in Italy is probably
his masterpiece. Le Rouge et le Noir (1830) and Lucien
Leuwen (1834-1835) both have sections of the novels which deal
with Paris. The first treats the complexities of the ecclesiastical
world but takes place primarily in the provinces. Lucien Leuwen is
the major text of Stendhal that treats the city in a detailed way.
The novel is often compared to Balzac's Illusions perdues;
both novels present a young man from the provinces who must confront
the harsh realities of the city.
It offers a satirical panorama of Parisian society in the central portion of its triptych structure. The novelist caricatures the government ministers and the police; he uncovers the machinations of the political machine in the city. Unlike Balzac, who attempts to analyze the causes and laws governing society, he does not deal with the economic and social forces behind the machines. In addition to his fiction Stendhal wrote important autobiographical works (Souvenirs d'égotisme, 1832), and La Vie de Henri Brulard (1835). He also produced studies of musicians such as Haydn and Rossini, and essays on art and Romanticism (Racine et Shakespeare, 1825). During his years in Paris he also composed an illuminating essay on the psychology of love, De l'Amour, 1822.
[Top]
Stern, Daniel, 1805-1876. A talented writer,
Marie d'Agoult wrote under the pseudonym of Daniel Stern. She was a
member of the court of Charles X and had a famous love affair with
the musician Franz Liszt. She was the basis of one of the main
characters in Balzac's novel about Brittany entitled Béatrix.
She established an influential salon for artists and reformers, and
was a strong advocate for the emancipation of women, democratic
politics and the elimination of poverty. Her many works include
fiction, articles on music and literature, a history of the
revolution of 1848 and her memoirs. Nélida is an
autobiographical novel; Mes souvenirs was published
posthumously in 1877; Histoire de la Révolution de 1848 was
published between 1850 and 1853.
[Top]
Sue, Eugène, 1804-1857. One of the most
important writers of popular fiction, he began his career with
novels about the sea. He became the master of the feuilleton novel
(published in weekly installments in the newspapers), and
represented a very democratic, anti-clerical, anti-monarchical point
of view. His best known works are Les Mystères de Paris (1842-1843), which treats the Paris underworld, Le Juif
errant (1844-1845), and Les Mystères du peuple (1849-1856). Because he could not accept the legitimacy of the
Second Empire, he exiled himself in Savoy until the end of his life.
Balzac and other contemporary novelists also published many of their
novels in the weekly newspaper or magazine format.
[Top]
Sully Prudhomme, 1839-1907. He was a
well-known poet of his time who dealt with philosophical
generalities. In spite of his association with the Parnassians and
even the early representatives of the symbolist school, he is
regarded as a mediocre poet of bourgeois views and values.
[Top]
Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893. He was an
important historian, philosopher and theorist of aesthetics. In six
volumes he studied the history of France from the Ancien Régime to
the Revolution and the modern period (Les Origines de la France
contemporaine (1877-1894)). His many texts on art were brought
together in 1882 under the title La Philosophie de l'art. The
guiding principle in his criticism of literature and the arts was to
study the determining influences of three major factors — race,
environment and the moment. His theories provided the basis for much
naturalistic and determinist analysis of writers and their works,
and were often misinterpreted and narrowly conceived as scientific.
[Top]
Tastu, Amable. She was a poet, a writer about
education and a literary critic. She is known mainly for her poetry
in which she occasionally expressed personal doubts concerning her
role as a woman writer. Her principal collections are Poésies (1826) and Poésies nouvelles (1835).
[Top]
Thiers, Adolphe, 1797-1877. The famous
statesman (Minister under Louis-Philippe) was also an important
journalist who wrote for the Globe, and an important
historian. He published a six-volume study of the French Revolution in
1830, followed by the 20 volumes of his Histoire du Consulat et
de l'Empire (1869). He was the primary representative of the
"juste milieu," the point of view of the bourgeoisie of business and
banking; during the Commune in 1871 he became the temporary head of
the government that repressed the revolutionary uprising.
[Top]
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805-1859. He was a
famous political thinker who wrote the influential study La
Démocratie en Amérique (1840). In addition to other studies of
the political regimes in France he left an admirable portrait of the
Revolution of 1848 in Paris in his Souvenirs published posthumously in 1893.
[Top]
Tristan, Flora, 1803-1844. An early feminist
she worked for the moral and judicial improvement in the status of
women. She was a strong advocate for the formation of union
organizations for the workers in every country and actively
participated in the socialist movement of her time. She was the
grandmother of the painter Gauguin. Her works include Nécessité
de faire bon accueil aux femmes étrangères (1835), Les
Pérégrinations d'une paria (1838) which related her efforts to
find the roots of her family in Peru, and L'Union ouvrière (1843). This last work is a sophisticated study of the working class
and proposes a form of social security.
[Top]
Ulliac-Trémadeure, Sophie, 1794-1862. She was
a translator, novelist and journalist who wrote primarily for a
young audience. Some of her works deal with the problems facing a
young woman writer in a society which expects her to conform to a
life of convention. Some titles are Valérie ou la jeune
artiste (1836) and Émilie ou la jeune fille auteur (1837). Her memoirs are entitled Souvenirs d'une vieille
femme (1861).
[Top]
Vallès, Jules, 1832-1885. Much of his work is
autobiographical; his most famous text is L'Enfant (1879) in
which he relates a rather fictionalized version of his very unhappy
childhood near Puy. He was active in politics especially during the
Commune when he played the role of moderate but staunch supporter of
the working class. He records the events of 1870-1871 in L'Insurgé, and then founded the journal Le Cri du
peuple in Paris in 1871. He was an elected member of the Commune
for the XVe arrondissement and took refuge in Belgium when he was
condemned to death after the collapse of the insurrection. Without
being ideologically a socialist or a communist, he was truly a man
of revolt who struggled in his life and writing to further the cause
of the poor and the worker.
[Top]
Varin, Victor, 1798-1869. One of the famous
writers of vaudeville during the reigns of Louis-Philippe and
Napoleon III. Among his numerous plays often dealing with life in
the city is Paris, Orléans et Rouen (1843).
[Top]
Verhaeren, Émile, 1855-1916. He was a great
Flemish poet who lived in France and founded the unanimist school of
poetry which emphasized the solidarity of man with nature and his
fellow man in the manner of Victor Hugo and Walt Whitman. His best
known volume is Les Villes tentaculaires (1895).
[Top]
Verlaine, Paul, 1844-1896. The great French
poet of the fin de siècle temperament did not write specifically
about the city as subject. In his life and art, however, he became
the symbol of the tragic, melancholy poet of Paris who suffered from
the rare and tormented form of "mal du siècle" associated with the
end of an era. He is known for his association with the poet
Rimbaud. His changing states of being from conversion to Catholicism
to expressions of decadent sensibility are expressed in his many
volumes of poetry. He is also credited with emphasizing the role of
music in poetry that became a basic tenet of the symbolists. His
poetry includes Les Romances sans paroles (1874) and Sagesse (1880); among his prose works is the important text Les Poètes maudits (1884).
[Top]
Verne, Jules, 1828-1905. He was the author of
more than 63 novels, destined for a young audience and anticipating
the concerns of science fiction today. His interest in exploration
of unknown regions and knowledge of contemporary science are found
in a series of novels including De la terre à la lune (1864).
His Paris au XXe siècle, published in 1995 long after his
death, depicts a futuristic Parisian society in which arts and
letters have been all but abandoned.
[Top]
Veuillot, Louis-François, 1818-1883. He was an
important and prolific journalist and Catholic writer. Among his
many works there are several which deal with Paris and the history
of revolution and empire: Les Francais en Algérie (1845), Waterloo (1861), Les Odeurs de Paris (1866), Paris
pendant les deux sièges (1871).
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Vigny, Alfred de, 1797-1863. He was one of the
greatest poets of the romantic generation who also wrote plays,
novels and prose works. Usually termed a philosophical poet he was
an aristocrat by birth who thought the poem should illustrate an
important idea through its images and symbols. In his first
collection of poetry, Poèmes antiques et modernes (1822-1837), there is a meditation about the city of Paris entitled
simply "Paris," in which he comes to terms with the nascent
transformations of the city into a modern metropolis. As a
playwright he was influential in bringing Shakespeare to the French
stage through his translations and adaptations. His novels do not
deal directly with the city, but are concerned with contemporary
issues. Servitude et grandeur militaires (1835) presents three
stories about military life, and Les Consultations du Docteur
Noir; Stello ou les diables bleus (1832) offers the
portrait of a young romantic poet afflicted with "le mal du
siècle," a melancholic disenchantment with life. Stello is the
idealistic, suffering poet while the Docteur Noir represents
the realist, pragmatic doctor whom he consults. He is patterned
after the famous Docteur Blanche who offered consultations to
several famous poets in Paris including Nerval. The book thus
presents an early version of psychiatrics therapy. Le Journal
d'un poète published in 1867 is an important document in which
Vigny reveals the complexity of his own personality. His best known
work is the collection of poetry entitled Les Destinées (1864) in which his concept of poetry and his stoical philosophy are
expressed most profoundly.
[Top]
Villemot, Auguste, 1811-1870. An important
journalist, he wrote a series of articles about Parisian life in the
newspaper, Le Figaro, which were brought together in two
volumes in 1858 under the title La Vie à Paris.
[Top]
Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Auguste, comte de,
1838-1889. He was an important writer of the fin de siècle sensibility. An idealist, a dandy and an aristocrat, he wrote novels, short stories and plays which satirized the customs and materialism of the ruling bourgeois class, and presented
his fervent idealism about love and spirituality. His short stories
are sometimes set in Paris (Contes cruels, 1883, 1888) among
the jaded aristocrats. His most important novel L'Ève future (1886) anticipates modernist themes as the inventor Edison creates
an artificial woman who incarnates the feminine ideal. His best
known play Axël (1890) was first performed four years after his
death and represents his thought in its most accomplished
representation. The conflict between the real world he disdains and
the cult of the ideal and the spiritual is given a vivid dramatic
form.
[Top]
Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène-Emmanuel, 1814-1879. The famous architect who designed romantic additions and repairs for
many gothic monuments in Paris and Carcassonne. He has been
criticized for embellishing medieval gothic excessively and creating
a kind of false romantic gothic. Among his many volumes concerning
architecture is Entretiens sur l'architecture (1858-1872).
[Top]
Willy, 1859-1931. Before collaborating with
his wife, the great novelist Colette, on the series of novels
about the young Claudine, he wrote fiction bordering on the
pornographic. Among the titles are Lettres de l'ouvreuse (1890) and Un Vilain monsieur (1898).
[Top]
Zola, Emile, 1840-1902. The greatest novelist
of the last quarter of the 19th century, Zola was also an art critic
and a journalist. He wrote a famous study of the painter, Manet,
which stressed the formal aspects of his modernity. As a journalist
he was the courageous advocate of Dreyfus; in 1898 he came to the
defense of the falsely condemned captain in a famous tract entitled
"J'accuse," in which he exposes the anti-semitism of those involved
in the trial. He exiled himself to England for a year after being
condemned himself. He is also an important literary critic who
developed his ideas about naturalism and his methodology in a series
of works such as Le Roman expérimental (1880) and Les
Romanciers naturalistes (1881). His most important work is the
20-volume series of novels concerning the history of the family
Rougon-Maquart, L'Histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille
sous le Second Empire. Zola studies the rise and fall of several
generations of this family involving all levels of society; in
effect, he continues Balzac's project to record the complex life of
his society, but with a methodology he considered to be scientific.
He believes his novels to be experimental studies of the effects of
biological heredity on the successive members of the family; most of
their lives have been determined by a fatal, hereditary flaw such as
alcoholism or madness. In many of the 20 novels the city of Paris is
the important scene of the family's life and in some novels Paris is
the veritable protagonist. A list follows of the novels in which
Paris plays a major role:
1. La Curée (1871). This novel depicts the frenzy of economic speculation during the years of Haussman's transformations of the city. Rich speculators build, destroy and reconstruct entire quarters of the city; Zola describes their graft, greed and general moral degradation.
2. Le Ventre de Paris (1873). Zola's novel of the Halles section of the city is an important document that portrays the rich, colorful life of the market center of the city, now destroyed. The plot concerns an outlaw, a member of the former revolutionary Commune, who now serves as an inspector in the market.
3. L'Assommoir (1877). This novels describes the effects of alcoholism on the lives of a poor branch of the family. Gervaise is a washerwoman married to Coupeau a roofer; they are the parents of Nana who live on the street ironically named la Goutte d'or. They both are destroyed by excessive drinking. The poor quarter of the city in which they live, with its many bars that absorb the meager salaries of the workers, is minutely observed.
4. Nana (1880). The great novel of the role of the courtisan in Second Empire society in Paris. The daughter of Gervaise, corrupt and diseased, she occupies an important position in her luxurious mansion on the Boulevard de Villiers from which she achieves the destruction of an entire society of wealthy, influential men of the Second Empire.
5. Pot-Bouille (1882). This novel presents the successful bourgeois class on the Rue de Choiseul in a single apartment building. From floor to floor live the magistrates, stock brokers and other members of the reigning class; Zola exposes their hypocrisy, false values and corruption.
6. Au Bonheur des dames (1883). An important novel about the beginnings of mass consumption and commodification. This prescient, first novel about a department store illustrates the deleterious effects of big commerce on the small merchants of the neighborhood. Its heroine, married to the owner of the enterprise, succeeds, however, in transforming her husband into a philanthropist and supporter of the working class.
7. Germinal (1885). Zola's masterpiece about the strike of the miners in the provinces has nothing to do with Paris, but it illustrates the novelist's increasing use of mythical structures in his narrative (the mine is a devouring beast) and the evolution of his socialist ideology.
8. L'Œuvre (1866). Zola's great novel about art presents a group of writers and painters in Paris who are often considered to be representations of the realist and impressionist schools. His protagonist Claude Lantier, the painter, is struggling to create a masterpiece. He is, however, tragically limited by a hereditary flaw in his physical and moral being which leads to misery and finally death. Lantier is sometimes compared to Cézanne, who was deeply offended by the reference; in effect the characters are probably composite figures of artists prominent at the time and imagined by Zola. The paintings Lantier is trying to realize actually suggest Manet, especially the portrait of the painter's mistress Christine and the scenes of Paris. The writer Sandoz is often seen as a projection of Zola himself. Some critics interpret the text as a critique of impressionism. The narrator would seem to be suggesting that these painters failed to produce a truly great art because they lacked a strong theoretical basis for their work. In any case the novel provides an excellent fictional representation of the lives of artists in the city during the last part of the 19th century, and suggests many of Zola's own ideas about painting and literature.
9. La Bête humaine (1890). This novel presents the effects of the baser instincts and desires in human beings that lead to murder and assassination. It is one of his darkest portraits of the role of biological determinism in society.
10. L'Argent (1891). The story of the negative effects of unscrupulous speculation and banking, it presents the opposition between a bank owned by powerful Catholics and one by Jewish capitalists. It traces the financial ruin of many small investors, and suggests the necessary rise of the socialist concepts of work, revolution and egalitarianism that will finally overcome the capitalist reliance on speculation and profit.
Zola completes the cycle of the family Rougon-Maquart with the story of the defeat of the French in the war of 1870 (La Débâcle, 1892), and the concluding novel Le Docteur Pascal (1893) which presents his philosophy of heredity. His next project is the cycle of Les Trois villes (Lourdes, Rome and Paris), and the Quatre Évangiles: Fécondité (1899), Travail (1901), Vérité (1903); he only completed three in the second cycle. He attempts to trace the social progress of an ex-priest who now devotes himself to humanity and its material and intellectual progress. Paris (1897) offers the story of Pierre Froment the ex-priest now married, whose brother has become an anarchist with the plan to destroy the bourgeois society with explosives he has invented. It is therefore a novel of anarchy in the city, and a resounding faith in science and progress. It also deals with the counter current, the resurgence of idealism and religiosity in the fin de siècle spirit. Zola comes to terms with this new attitude which he cannot accept both in this novel and in the final sequence of the Quatre Évangiles. He proposes socialist values in these works — Fécondité (the creation of a renewed family structure), Travail (he glorifies the new factory organized according to just and equal social values) and Vérité (a juridical drama of justice like the Dreyfus affair). These goals and values, according to the author, will replace those of the Christian gospels or Évangiles of the past.
Panoramic literature
Les Français par eux-mêmes. 8 vols. 1840-1842. A collaborative work published by L. Curmer. A comprehensive survey of French society including many illustrations. The first five volumes deal with Paris and the remaining ones with the provinces.
Le Diable à Paris, Paris et les Parisiens. Edited by Hertzel. 2 vols., 1845-1846. These volumes contain essays by well-known writers including Balzac, Gautier, Musset, Sand and others. They cover a wide range of topics concerning the city and include many stories about Parisian subjects. The books contain important engravings by Gavarni.
References
The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this presentation of writers and texts in the 19th century:
Dictionnaire des Lettres Françaises, vol. 5.
The Feminist Encyclopedia of French Literature.