Élisa Mercœur

Élisa Mercœur , French poetess, born with Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire the June 24th 1809, died with Paris the January 7th 1835.

Biography

Mercœur (Élisa), woman poëte French, born with Sebastien saint on the Loire on June 24th, 1809, died in Paris on January 7th, 1835. Élisa Mercœur had only twenty and one month when his/her mother remained alone to raise it, with resources more than restricted. Only one family friend came to them to assistance, and undertook the expenses of education of the child who, if it is necessary to believe of it his mother, in the Mémoires whom she left on her daughter, was nothing less than one small wonder. At six years, it embroidered in imagination of the subjects of Conte and about Comédie, and, at eight years, it did not speak about nothing less than to compose a Tragédie in five acts and worms, for the Comédie-Française. At twelve years, Élisa gave to his/her young partners lessons of history, geography, writing, English, French and other things still. It read Virgile with opened book, knew a little Greek, and it was not yet thirteen years old that already it had translated Milton into entirety. The first time that it on the occasion to reveal its talent with the public was the day of the beginnings, on the theater of Nantes, of a famous professional singer. Returned at it, Élisa Mercœur wrote feature very a part of eighty worms and sent it at its address. The following day, all the life applauded this poetic test published by a semi-official friend in the Armorican Lycée , and, as of this day, the young girl, thanks to some other poetries which she hastened to publish, was proclaimed Armorican MUSE . She was then sixteen years old. Helped of the councils and the good officess of some of its admirors, Élisa Mercœur was soon capable to publish the first volume of worms, without being obliged to fight with all the obstacles whose the long way is usually sown which separates the initial writer from the editor. Mr. Mellinet-Malassis, printer in Nantes, were offered to publish the poetic tests of the young MUSE, and a subscription, organized in the living rooms of the city, provides soon a sum of 3,000 francs which covered, and beyond, the expenses of impression. Volume was dedicated to Chateaubriand, to which it young girl addressed an invocation of which here end:

I need, weak child, whom one takes care of my cradle,
And the eagle can, at least, in the shade of its wing,
To protect the shy person oiseau.

The eagle answered to the shy person bird that it could offer shelter to nobody. As for Lamartine, he wrote about the young girl poëte some lines in which he rented it in addition to measurement and that one would not have to take with the letter. Thanks to the encouragements of any kind which came to him from all shares, the reputation of Élisa Mercœur extended soon in all France. The academic Company of the Loire-Inférieure and the polymathic Company of Morbihan, hastened to admit the little girl in their center. But all these successes, all these honors did not suffice for Élisa Mercœur which, as of 1827, seems to stick in its worms to complain about the fate and to deplore the alleged lapse of memory in which one leaves it. Nothing was more inuste than of similar complaints. As of the publication of its volume, the newspapers had entonné its praises, the subscriptions had abounded, and of high-ranking persons, inter alia the Duchesse of Berry, had forwarded to him of broad offerings. While it made applaud, one evening, its worms with the prefecture of Nantes, the robbers were introduced at it and dévalisèrent it. This flight caused him during some time a very real embarrassment, but from generous admirors came to his help and soon it accepted a gratification of the ministry for the interior and an annual pension of 300 francs, granted on the funds of the intendance of the Maison of the king. This pension was even increased almost immediately to 1,200 francs per Mr. De Martignac, to which it had addressed a part entitled: the Glory , when he learned that Élisa Mercœur had left Nantes to come to fix itself at Paris. In a visit which the young girl made to the minister at once after her arrival in the capital (1828), this one provides the money necessary for its installation and the first essential expenses. Élisa Mercœur went back to work and began its tragedy of Boabdil . On these entrefaites, the revolution of 1830 came to call in question its mother and means of existence of the young girl who had accompanied it in Paris. The helps that it received from the Civil list and its annual pension were removed, and it was obliged, to live, to give up the quadrant and to write in cheap prose for various collections, newspapers and almanacs of the time. However, thanks to the intervention of Casimir Delavigne, a new pension of 900 francs was granted to him, which did not prevent it from being exhaled in complaints, and to show the fate in a great number of pieces of poetry which she daily addressed to all the characters in situation of him to be useful.

Everyone tightened the hand to him, and the Mémoires which his/her mother left are there to attest that never they did not have to support true misery. That of which she complains bitterly in a passage about her poetries, it is to be obliged to make this horrible trade sell its prose and its worms to booksellers with so much the sheet , and be able to devote itself to its ease with the worship not involved in poetry. The majority of its biographers were made the echo of these complaints and announced this forced labor as the cause of died of Élisa Mercœur; it is a complete error. They were neither work nor misery which led Élisa Mercœur to the tomb. Itself acknowledged it to us, by the mouth of his/her mother, and we think that this testimony is irrefutable. Its tragedy of Boabdil completed, it obtained almost at once, and thanks to powerful guards, to give of them reading to the committee of the French Comedy, which it made on May 3rd, 1831, in front of Monrose, Joanny, Granville and the Baron Taylor. The following day, she learned that Boabdil was accepted by the actors, but rejected by Mr. Taylor, who found the part très-bien made, but could not, said it, to hope to attract the public of Paris and to interest him in the history of a king of Grenade. We allow ourselves, after reading of the tragedy, to believe that the baron Taylor had shown of taste and direction while thus acting. But Élisa had been pricked in the middle by the refusal of a work on which it had placed all its hopes of fortune and glory. This day it felt that it was wounded with death; its forces were decreasing, its voice died out; it ends up falling completely sick, languishes during nearly one year, then returned the last sigh in the arms of her mother, to which it had said a few days before: “If God calls me with him, one will make thousand tales on my death; the ones will say that I died of misery; others of love! Say to those which will speak to you about it that the refusal about Mr. Taylor to make play my tragedy only made die the poor child! ” As it is seen, the true name of the disease who carried the MUSE Breton, it is pride. Élisa Mercœur had the vocation what is called; it proved on several occasions, in some idylles, and especially in some elegies, that the MUSE had cherished it of its wing while passing; but can't one think that she was mistaken itself curiously, and that she put her desire of noise and famous above her love of art, when it is seen it, at twenty years, to imperiously claim of the public a celebrity that ultimately she had not deserved yet? Complete works of Élisa Mercœur were published by his/her mother under this general title: complete Works of M^lle Élisa Mercœur , preceded by Memories and notes on the life of the author, written by his mother (Paris, 1843,3 vol. in-8^o). In addition to its poetries, these volumes contain: Boabdil , tragedy in five acts; Louis XI and the Benedictine , chronicle of the 15th century; the Italians ; Four loves ; Louis XIII , and some other novels or news, and the Abencérages , tragedy.

(Pierre Larousse)

---- Source

Larousse, Pierre, Large universal Dictionary of the 19th century , Nimes (Gard), 1990, reprinting.

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