Jules Vallès
Encyclopedia
Jules Vallès was a French
journalist
and author
.
, Haute-Loire
. His father was a supervisor of studies (pion), later a teacher, and unfaithful to Jules' mother. Jules was a brilliant student. The Revolution of 1848 in France found him participating in protests in Nantes where his father had been assigned to teach. It was during this period that he began to align himself with the budding socialist movement. After being sent to Paris to prepare for his entrance into Lycée Condorcet
(1850) he neglected his studies altogether. He took part in the uprising against Napoleon III during the French coup of 1851
, fighting together with his friend Arthur Ranc at one of the rare barricades on December 2. Vallès later fled to Nantes, where his father had him committed to a mental institution.(ref 1978, Bernard Noël e.a.) Thanks to help from his friend Antoine Arnould, he managed to escape a few months later. He returned to Paris
, where he joined the staff of Le Figaro
, and became a regular contributor to the other leading journals.
In 1853 he was arrested for conspiring against Napoleon III, but was later freed due to a lack of evidence. He lived in poverty, writing journalism
for bread
(the stockmarket page of the Figaro even, until fired for his bias against capitalism
). It was under these conditions that he wrote his first book L'Argent (1857). Les Amours de Paille (1859), a comedy written in collaboration with Poupart-Davyl, was a failure.(ref 1990 Alain Viala
) At the insistence of his colleague Henri Rochefort he found an administrative job issuing birth certificates for the Vaugirard town hall.(1860) He became a steady friend of Hector Malot
and began to live with his lover, Joséphine Lapointe. He decided to become a pion himself in Caen, but was quickly discharged. Back in Paris, his friend Hector Malot helped him reacquire his job at the town hall. In 1864-1865 he wrote literary criticism for Progrès de Lyon. In 1865 he collected much of his newspaper work in a book Les Refractaires that sold well. A second collection in 1866 La Rue had less success. In 1867 he started the newspaper La Rue, which was later suppressed by the government after a mere eight months of publication.
By this time he was a recognized leader of the republican opposition against the Second French Empire
. In 1865 he had lost his job at Vaugirard for a speech he gave against the capitalist society of the Second Empire, eluding the censorship by advertising a talk on Balzac. In 1868 he was twice convicted for press crimes: one month in prison for criticizing the police, two months for criticising the Empire. At the elections of 1869 he was the candidate to the left opposing the moderate Jules Simon
.
He lost the election and went to work for La Marseillaise
the newspaper of Henri Rochefort, meanwhile contributing to La Liberté
of Émile de Girardin
.
In the summer of 1869 members of several "Chambres syndicales" of Paris workers rented a space at nr 6, Place de la Corderie to hold the meetings of the "Chambre fédérale des Sociétés ouvrières", the "Conseil fédéral des sections parisiennes de l'Internationale", and as the events unfolded the "Comité central républicain des Vingt Arrondissements" (1870) and the "Comité central de la Garde nationale". (March 1871) It was to be the very organisational center of the Paris Commune. Its activities are prominently described in Jacques Vingtras:L'Insurgé. Jules Vallès had friends and connections among all the tendencies represented: Proudhon, blanquist, marxist and while he was himself independent of all of them he represented the active force of each. He was well known and well liked and when in 1870 the Government of National Defence spread the rumour that the candidates of the extreme left including Vallès had been on the payroll of the Imperial police at the 1869 elections, the Corderie gave him a vote of confidence.
(January 10). Jules Vallès and Henri Rochefort found themselves at the head of the mass manifestation at Victor Noir's funeral (January 12); Rochefort interceding with the blanquist
Gustave Flourens
who wanted to begin the anti-imperial insurrection there and then.
In July Napoleon III embroiled France in the Franco-Prussian War
. Vallès was among the very few anti-war protesters, and was jailed as a consequence (August 6). On September 2 Napoleon III capitulated at Sedan
and was captured. On September 4 the Third French Republic was proclaimed and the Government of National Defence installed.(Gambetta
) Vallès was freed from prison and took part in the popular manifestations leading to the formation of the "Comité central républicain des Vingt arrondissements" of which he -like many other leaders of the Paris Commune- became a prominent member; heading even, for a while, a bataillon of the "Garde nationale". On September 18 the Prussians laid siege on a Paris unwilling to accept defeat and calling for all out war by the provinces. On October 5, Flourens marched the five bataillons "Garde nationale" of Belleville in disciplined military fashion to the Hôtel de Ville to show preparedness. On October 31, a first blanquist uprising erupted at Belleville with Vallès in command of his bataillon occupying the townhall of la Vilette. The uprising failed and Vallés had to go in hiding.
. On Mars 11, Vallès was judged for his participation in the October plot. He escaped from the tribunal after hearing himself condemned to six months in prison, and his Le Cri du Peuple which he had started on February 22, banned from further appearance. On March 18, the Commune was officially proclaimed; March 21, Le Cri du Peuple reappeared to become one of the most successful newspapers of the Commune - together with Père Duchêne
. On March 26 he was elected by the 15th district (Vaugirard: 4.403 votes of 6.467 voters) to the Conseil de la Commune; nominated to the commission of Public Education (March 29).
Although quick to the march when it came to demand individual liberties Jules Vallès was also a voice for opposite opinion: he claimed his reserve when the separation of Church and State was proclaimed (April 2), opposed the suppression of the "reactionary" newspapers (April 26), he voted against the institution of the Comité de Salut with its jacobin
tendencies, and together with 22 other prominent members - among them his old friend Arnould, the painter Gustave Courbet
, Vermorel
, Varlin...he signed the manifest of the minority which he published in his newspaper. (May 15)
On May 21 the Versailles
troops entered Paris through the porte Saint-Cloud while Vallès, among minority members reintegrated in the Commune, presided over its last session - in judgement over Cluseret
and his failure to hold the fort of Issy (and with Vallès in sympathy with the defendant). During the Semaine Sanglante (May 21 – May 28) he took part in the fighting, making a last stand in the rue de Paris (now rue de Belleville) on May 28 with his steadfast friend Gabriel Ranvier. Together they managed to escape the fusillades and went into exile. In 1872 both were given death sentences in absentia.
After its banishment by General Vinoy
(1871) on March 11 (nr18) the paper was reissued on March 21 (nr19) and followed through uninterrupted till Tuesday May 23 (nr83).
Its collaborators were: Casimir Bouis, Jean-Baptiste Clément, Pierre Denis, Charles Rochat with occasional articles by Henry Bauer (1851-1915), Courbet and André Leo.
Because of the communal tasks taken up by most other editors the work of chief editor in practice fell to Pierre Denis who set the tone with accent on the Proudhonian ideology, whose tendencies he represented in the First International of which he was a member: recognition of individual liberties, suppression of the permanent army and police, "Laïcité
" and free education, entire benefit of work produced, autonomy of the commune -or Voluntary association
, autonomy
, federation
, union
.
Jacques Vingtras was not written in composed sessions but gestated during the bitter exile following the Paris Commune
.
Jules Vallès went to live in London. In 1875 Vallés, in the absence of Joséphine Lapointe, had a little daughter with a woman he rapidly separated when the child died, 10 months old. The event marked his complete destitution in 1876. His friend Hector Malot
then negotiated the appearance of Jacques Vingtras - L'Enfant as a serial (feuilleton
) in the newspaper Le Siècle (June-August 1878). The extreme realism combined with corrosive irony led to public reaction and abortion of the project. In January-May 1879 Le Bachelier appeared in La Révolution française under the title Les Mémoires d'un révolté. The first book Jacques Vingtras - L'Enfant, Le Bachelier was published by Charpentier and signed 'Jean La Rue' (Vallès had tried to start the paper La Rue in Brussels that same year - a failure).
In 1879-1880 he came to know Séverine
, whose friendship secured the final draft of L'Insurgé and who caused Chapentier to publish the book (1886) after Vallès death.
Among the French authors most influenced by the racy, concise and ironic style of Jules Vallès the author of the child's portrait Poil de Carotte, Jules Renard
must not be forgotten.
Séverine
at least recognised the prose of her friend in his writings (see: Jules Renard Journal 1897-1910)
had managed to get support from Gambetta
for the plight of the many thousand destitutes implicated in the Paris Commune
. On 11 July 1880 a general pardon was promulgated in the wake of which Jules Vallès was able to return to Paris and continue his journalism with renewed vigour. In 1881 he was among the 100,000 mourners following Blanqui's funeral.
In 1883 he was entirely successful in restarting Le Cri du Peuple as a voice for libertarian
and socialist ideas. At the same time he became increasingly ill with diabetes. During a health crisis in November 1884 he was taken to the house of doctor Guebhard and his secretary Séverine
. He assigned Hector Malot
to be the executor of his will and died on 14 February 1885.
His funeral also became a popular manifestation with some 60,000 following the coffin to Père Lachaise.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
.
Early life
Vallès was born in Le Puy-en-VelayLe Puy-en-Velay
Le Puy-en-Velay is a commune in the Haute-Loire department in south-central France.Its inhabitants are called Ponots.-History:Le Puy-en-Velay was a major bishopric in medieval France, founded early, though its early history is legendary...
, Haute-Loire
Haute-Loire
Haute-Loire is a department in south-central France named after the Loire River.-History:Haute-Loire is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...
. His father was a supervisor of studies (pion), later a teacher, and unfaithful to Jules' mother. Jules was a brilliant student. The Revolution of 1848 in France found him participating in protests in Nantes where his father had been assigned to teach. It was during this period that he began to align himself with the budding socialist movement. After being sent to Paris to prepare for his entrance into Lycée Condorcet
Lycée Condorcet
The Lycée Condorcet is a school founded in 1803 in Paris, France, located at 8, rue du Havre, in the city's IXe arrondissement. Since its inception, various political eras have seen it given a number of different names, but its identity today honors the memory of the Marquis de Condorcet. The...
(1850) he neglected his studies altogether. He took part in the uprising against Napoleon III during the French coup of 1851
French coup of 1851
The French coup d'état on 2 December 1851, staged by Prince Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte , ended in the successful dissolution of the French National Assembly, as well as the subsequent re-establishment of the French Empire the next year...
, fighting together with his friend Arthur Ranc at one of the rare barricades on December 2. Vallès later fled to Nantes, where his father had him committed to a mental institution.(ref 1978, Bernard Noël e.a.) Thanks to help from his friend Antoine Arnould, he managed to escape a few months later. He returned to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he joined the staff of Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
, and became a regular contributor to the other leading journals.
In 1853 he was arrested for conspiring against Napoleon III, but was later freed due to a lack of evidence. He lived in poverty, writing journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
for bread
Bread
Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed , fried , or baked on an unoiled frying pan . It may be leavened or unleavened...
(the stockmarket page of the Figaro even, until fired for his bias against capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
). It was under these conditions that he wrote his first book L'Argent (1857). Les Amours de Paille (1859), a comedy written in collaboration with Poupart-Davyl, was a failure.(ref 1990 Alain Viala
Alain Viala
Alain Viala is a professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford and at the University of Paris III and a fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford...
) At the insistence of his colleague Henri Rochefort he found an administrative job issuing birth certificates for the Vaugirard town hall.(1860) He became a steady friend of Hector Malot
Hector Malot
Hector Malot was a French writer born in La Bouille, Seine-Maritime. He studied law in Rouen and Paris, but eventually literature became his passion. He worked as a dramatic critic for Lloyd Francais and as a literary critic for L'Opinion Nationale.His first book, published in 1859, was Les...
and began to live with his lover, Joséphine Lapointe. He decided to become a pion himself in Caen, but was quickly discharged. Back in Paris, his friend Hector Malot helped him reacquire his job at the town hall. In 1864-1865 he wrote literary criticism for Progrès de Lyon. In 1865 he collected much of his newspaper work in a book Les Refractaires that sold well. A second collection in 1866 La Rue had less success. In 1867 he started the newspaper La Rue, which was later suppressed by the government after a mere eight months of publication.
Republican opposition
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
. In 1865 he had lost his job at Vaugirard for a speech he gave against the capitalist society of the Second Empire, eluding the censorship by advertising a talk on Balzac. In 1868 he was twice convicted for press crimes: one month in prison for criticizing the police, two months for criticising the Empire. At the elections of 1869 he was the candidate to the left opposing the moderate Jules Simon
Jules Simon
Jules François Simon was a French statesman and philosopher, and one of the leader of the Opportunist Republicans faction.-Biography:Simon was born at Lorient. His father was a linen-draper from Lorraine, who renounced Protestantism before his second marriage with a Catholic Breton. Jules Simon...
.
He lost the election and went to work for La Marseillaise
La Marseillaise (1869 newspaper)
La Marseillaise is a French weekly newspaper created by Henri Rochefort. It was first published on 19 December 1869. The writing staff included Paschal Grousset, Arthur Arnould, Gustave Flourens, Jules Vallès and Victor Noir....
the newspaper of Henri Rochefort, meanwhile contributing to La Liberté
La Liberté (1865 newspaper)
La Liberté was a French Legitimist newspaper created in July 1865 by Charles-François-Xavier Müller and sold in 1866 to Émile de Girardin. Its last issue was published in 1870....
of Émile de Girardin
Émile de Girardin
Émile de Girardin , was a French journalist, publicist, and politician. He was born in Paris in 1802, the son of General Alexandre de Girardin and of Madame Dupuy , wife of a Parisian advocate....
.
In the summer of 1869 members of several "Chambres syndicales" of Paris workers rented a space at nr 6, Place de la Corderie to hold the meetings of the "Chambre fédérale des Sociétés ouvrières", the "Conseil fédéral des sections parisiennes de l'Internationale", and as the events unfolded the "Comité central républicain des Vingt Arrondissements" (1870) and the "Comité central de la Garde nationale". (March 1871) It was to be the very organisational center of the Paris Commune. Its activities are prominently described in Jacques Vingtras:L'Insurgé. Jules Vallès had friends and connections among all the tendencies represented: Proudhon, blanquist, marxist and while he was himself independent of all of them he represented the active force of each. He was well known and well liked and when in 1870 the Government of National Defence spread the rumour that the candidates of the extreme left including Vallès had been on the payroll of the Imperial police at the 1869 elections, the Corderie gave him a vote of confidence.
1870
The year leading up to the Paris Commune began with the assassination of Victor NoirVictor Noir
Victor Noir, , was a French journalist who is famous for the manner of his death and its political consequences...
(January 10). Jules Vallès and Henri Rochefort found themselves at the head of the mass manifestation at Victor Noir's funeral (January 12); Rochefort interceding with the blanquist
Blanquism
In left-wing discourse, Blanquism refers to a conception of revolution generally attributed to Louis Auguste Blanqui which holds that socialist revolution should be carried out by a relatively small group of highly organised and secretive conspirators. Having taken power, the revolutionaries would...
Gustave Flourens
Gustave Flourens
Gustave Flourens was a French Revolutionary leader and writer, son of the physiologist Jean Pierre Flourens...
who wanted to begin the anti-imperial insurrection there and then.
In July Napoleon III embroiled France in the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
. Vallès was among the very few anti-war protesters, and was jailed as a consequence (August 6). On September 2 Napoleon III capitulated at Sedan
Sedan, France
Sedan is a commune in France, a sub-prefecture of the Ardennes department in northern France.-Geography:The historic centre is built on a peninsula formed by an arc of the Meuse River. It is around from the Belgian border.-History:...
and was captured. On September 4 the Third French Republic was proclaimed and the Government of National Defence installed.(Gambetta
Léon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta was a French statesman prominent after the Franco-Prussian War.-Youth and education:He is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a Genovese grocer who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie. At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye...
) Vallès was freed from prison and took part in the popular manifestations leading to the formation of the "Comité central républicain des Vingt arrondissements" of which he -like many other leaders of the Paris Commune- became a prominent member; heading even, for a while, a bataillon of the "Garde nationale". On September 18 the Prussians laid siege on a Paris unwilling to accept defeat and calling for all out war by the provinces. On October 5, Flourens marched the five bataillons "Garde nationale" of Belleville in disciplined military fashion to the Hôtel de Ville to show preparedness. On October 31, a first blanquist uprising erupted at Belleville with Vallès in command of his bataillon occupying the townhall of la Vilette. The uprising failed and Vallés had to go in hiding.
1871 and the Paris Commune
At the start of 1871 Jules Vallès at the initiative of the "Comité central républicain des Vingt arrondissements" edited the "Affiche Rouge" posted on January 7 : the first call for the proclamation of the Paris CommuneParis Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
. On Mars 11, Vallès was judged for his participation in the October plot. He escaped from the tribunal after hearing himself condemned to six months in prison, and his Le Cri du Peuple which he had started on February 22, banned from further appearance. On March 18, the Commune was officially proclaimed; March 21, Le Cri du Peuple reappeared to become one of the most successful newspapers of the Commune - together with Père Duchêne
Le Père Duchesne (19th c.)
Le Père Duchêne is the title of a newspaper which appeared during revolutionary periods of the nineteenth century. It borrowed its title from the original Père Duchesne published by Jacques Hébert during the French Revolution...
. On March 26 he was elected by the 15th district (Vaugirard: 4.403 votes of 6.467 voters) to the Conseil de la Commune; nominated to the commission of Public Education (March 29).
Although quick to the march when it came to demand individual liberties Jules Vallès was also a voice for opposite opinion: he claimed his reserve when the separation of Church and State was proclaimed (April 2), opposed the suppression of the "reactionary" newspapers (April 26), he voted against the institution of the Comité de Salut with its jacobin
Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety , created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793, formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror , a stage of the French Revolution...
tendencies, and together with 22 other prominent members - among them his old friend Arnould, the painter Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
, Vermorel
August Jean-Marie Vermorel
August Jean-Marie Vermorel was a French journalist.He was born at Denice.A radical and socialist, he was attached to the staff of the Presse and the Liberte . In the latter year he was appointed editor of the Courrier Français, and his attacks on the government in that organ led to his...
, Varlin...he signed the manifest of the minority which he published in his newspaper. (May 15)
On May 21 the Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
troops entered Paris through the porte Saint-Cloud while Vallès, among minority members reintegrated in the Commune, presided over its last session - in judgement over Cluseret
Gustave Paul Cluseret
Gustave Paul Cluseret was a French soldier and politician who served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.-Biography:...
and his failure to hold the fort of Issy (and with Vallès in sympathy with the defendant). During the Semaine Sanglante (May 21 – May 28) he took part in the fighting, making a last stand in the rue de Paris (now rue de Belleville) on May 28 with his steadfast friend Gabriel Ranvier. Together they managed to escape the fusillades and went into exile. In 1872 both were given death sentences in absentia.
Le Cri du Peuple
Jules Vallès' newspaper Le Cri du Peuple -Journal politique qoutidien, 10 centimes was among the most successful of the Paris Commune. Only Journal Officiel, La Commune, Le Mot d'Ordre, le Père Duchêne and le Vengeur appear to have been contending rivals. Its style has been described as "simple firmity, sympathetic authority, reflected realism due to a conviction rendered spontaneously lyrical by its sincerity" by Bernard Noël, who read through the entire press produce of Paris 1871 for his Dictionnaire de la Commune (1978).After its banishment by General Vinoy
Joseph Vinoy
Joseph Vinoy was a French soldier.-Biography:He originally intended to join the Church, but, after some years at a seminary, he decided upon a military career and joined the French army in 1823. As a sergeant in the 14th line infantry, he took part in the Algerian expedition of 1830...
(1871) on March 11 (nr18) the paper was reissued on March 21 (nr19) and followed through uninterrupted till Tuesday May 23 (nr83).
Its collaborators were: Casimir Bouis, Jean-Baptiste Clément, Pierre Denis, Charles Rochat with occasional articles by Henry Bauer (1851-1915), Courbet and André Leo.
Because of the communal tasks taken up by most other editors the work of chief editor in practice fell to Pierre Denis who set the tone with accent on the Proudhonian ideology, whose tendencies he represented in the First International of which he was a member: recognition of individual liberties, suppression of the permanent army and police, "Laïcité
Laïcité
French secularism, in French, laïcité is a concept denoting the absence of religious involvement in government affairs as well as absence of government involvement in religious affairs. French secularism has a long history but the current regime is based on the 1905 French law on the Separation of...
" and free education, entire benefit of work produced, autonomy of the commune -or Voluntary association
Voluntary association
A voluntary association or union is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement as volunteers to form a body to accomplish a purpose.Strictly speaking, in many jurisdictions no formalities are necessary to start an association...
, autonomy
Autonomy
Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...
, federation
Federation
A federation , also known as a federal state, is a type of sovereign state characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central government...
, union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
.
Jacques Vingtras and exile
The foregoing events were all chronicled in the three parts of Jules Vallès major work: Jacques Vingtras: L'Enfant, Le Bachelier, L'insurgé.Jacques Vingtras was not written in composed sessions but gestated during the bitter exile following the Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
.
Jules Vallès went to live in London. In 1875 Vallés, in the absence of Joséphine Lapointe, had a little daughter with a woman he rapidly separated when the child died, 10 months old. The event marked his complete destitution in 1876. His friend Hector Malot
Hector Malot
Hector Malot was a French writer born in La Bouille, Seine-Maritime. He studied law in Rouen and Paris, but eventually literature became his passion. He worked as a dramatic critic for Lloyd Francais and as a literary critic for L'Opinion Nationale.His first book, published in 1859, was Les...
then negotiated the appearance of Jacques Vingtras - L'Enfant as a serial (feuilleton
Feuilleton
Feuilleton was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle of the latest fashions, and epigrams, charades and other literary trifles...
) in the newspaper Le Siècle (June-August 1878). The extreme realism combined with corrosive irony led to public reaction and abortion of the project. In January-May 1879 Le Bachelier appeared in La Révolution française under the title Les Mémoires d'un révolté. The first book Jacques Vingtras - L'Enfant, Le Bachelier was published by Charpentier and signed 'Jean La Rue' (Vallès had tried to start the paper La Rue in Brussels that same year - a failure).
In 1879-1880 he came to know Séverine
Severine
Severine or Séverine can refer to:* the nom de plume of the French journalist Caroline Rémy de Guebhard* a pseudonym of the Hungarian model Eve Angel...
, whose friendship secured the final draft of L'Insurgé and who caused Chapentier to publish the book (1886) after Vallès death.
Among the French authors most influenced by the racy, concise and ironic style of Jules Vallès the author of the child's portrait Poil de Carotte, Jules Renard
Jules Renard
Pierre-Jules Renard or Jules Renard was a French author and member of the Académie Goncourt, most famous for the works Poil de carotte and Les Histoires Naturelles...
must not be forgotten.
Séverine
Severine
Severine or Séverine can refer to:* the nom de plume of the French journalist Caroline Rémy de Guebhard* a pseudonym of the Hungarian model Eve Angel...
at least recognised the prose of her friend in his writings (see: Jules Renard Journal 1897-1910)
Amnesty and last days
After his liberation on 11 June 1879 BlanquiLouis Auguste Blanqui
Louis Auguste Blanqui was a French political activist, notable for the revolutionary theory of Blanquism, attributed to him....
had managed to get support from Gambetta
Léon Gambetta
Léon Gambetta was a French statesman prominent after the Franco-Prussian War.-Youth and education:He is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a Genovese grocer who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie. At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye...
for the plight of the many thousand destitutes implicated in the Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
. On 11 July 1880 a general pardon was promulgated in the wake of which Jules Vallès was able to return to Paris and continue his journalism with renewed vigour. In 1881 he was among the 100,000 mourners following Blanqui's funeral.
In 1883 he was entirely successful in restarting Le Cri du Peuple as a voice for libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
and socialist ideas. At the same time he became increasingly ill with diabetes. During a health crisis in November 1884 he was taken to the house of doctor Guebhard and his secretary Séverine
Severine
Severine or Séverine can refer to:* the nom de plume of the French journalist Caroline Rémy de Guebhard* a pseudonym of the Hungarian model Eve Angel...
. He assigned Hector Malot
Hector Malot
Hector Malot was a French writer born in La Bouille, Seine-Maritime. He studied law in Rouen and Paris, but eventually literature became his passion. He worked as a dramatic critic for Lloyd Francais and as a literary critic for L'Opinion Nationale.His first book, published in 1859, was Les...
to be the executor of his will and died on 14 February 1885.
His funeral also became a popular manifestation with some 60,000 following the coffin to Père Lachaise.
External links
(plain text and HTML)- http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=mediatype%3A(texts)%20-contributor%3Agutenberg%20AND%20(subject%3A%22Valle%CC%80s%2C%20Jules%2C%201832-1885%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Valle%CC%80s%2C%20Jules%2C%201832-1885%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Jules%20Valle%CC%80s%22%20OR%20title%3A%22Jules%20Valle%CC%80s%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Jules%20Valle%CC%80s%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Valles%2C%20Jules%201832-1885%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Valles%2C%20Jules%2C%201832-1885%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Jules%20Valles%22%20OR%20title%3A%22Jules%20Valles%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Jules%20Valles%22)Works by or about Jules Valles] at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(scanned books original editions color illustrated) - Vallès in Le Cri du Peuple (English)
- 1867 Caricature of Jules Vallès by André Gill
- The Child by Jules Vallés new edition from New York Review BooksNew York Review BooksNew York Review Books is the publishing house of The New York Review of Books. Its imprints are New York Review Books Classics, New York Review Books Collections, and The New York Review Children's Collection....
Jacques Vingtras trilogy, audio version