Alphonse Daudet

Alphonse Daudet first entered into a relationship with a model named Marie Rieu. The time he spent with Marie greatly influenced two of Alphonse’s most prominent works. One was his collection of poems ‘Les Amoureuses’, which was Daudet’s dedication to Marie whom he dearly loved, the second being the novel ‘Sapho’ which spoke about the strains in their relationship.

Alphonse got married in 1867 to French author Julia Allard, who had written novels such as ‘Impressions de nature et d'art’ and ‘L'Enfance d'une Parisienne’. The couple had three children together.

Alphonse had contracted Syphilis at a really young age, and had undergone several unsuccessful treatments for the dreaded disease.

Alphonse was born on 13 May 1840, in Nimes, France. His father Vincent was a silk manufacturer who incurred lot of losses in his business. These miseries in the family made a great impact on Alphonse’s childhood, leading him to depression.

His family moved to Lyon after the silk business failed. Alphonse attended school in this new town. However, he hated his new environment and seldom attended school. Alphonse penned his first novel at the tender age of fourteen.

In 1857, Alphonse moved out of Lyon to the south of France, where he started working as a school teacher. During this period, Alphonse stayed with his elder brother Ernest Daudet who was trying to establish his identity as a journalist.

While staying with Ernest, Alphonse began to write poems, and his collection was published in the form of a book called ‘Les Amoureuses’ in 1858. The book was well received by the critics.

Soon later, Alphonse was offered a job at ‘Le Figaro, a leading French newspaper daily at that time. While working with this daily, Alphonse had penned 2-3 plays which were critically acclaimed. His mature style of writing soon grabbed the attention of people within the literary circles.

Alphonse was hired by Charles De Morny to work as the latter’s secretary. Morny was an influential minister who worked for the emperor Napolean III. The job was of little help to Alphonse’s career. He left this job in 1865, post Morny’s death.

The later half of the 1860’s saw the release of two of Alphonse’s books, namely ‘Lettres de mon moulin’, a collection of short stories, and ‘Le Petit Chose’. The first book which consisted of stories narrated with the backdrop of a windmill was well acclaimed, whereas ‘Le Petit Chose’ didn’t impress the readers much.

Of the dozens of books penned by Alphonse Daudet, it was ‘Fromont jeune et Risler aîné’ which brought Alphonse a lot of fame. This book was so popular that it was awarded the prestigious Jouy Prize by the French Academy. The book was also reprinted and published several times.

Alphonse was always against the French Republic. He even collaborated with many of his contemporaries from French literary circles to form the ‘Antisemitic League of France’ and even worked as an editor of the newspaper ‘La Libre Parole’, which was anti-semitic.