Casimir Delavigne

Jean-François-Casimir Delavigne , born with the Harbor the April 5th 1793 and died in Lyon 1843), is a Poète French.

Delavigne knew the celebrity when, after the demolished of Waterloo, it published, her First Messéniennes . “The tears which it spread on the generous victims of Waterloo, the anathema which it pronounced against the despoilers of our museums, and the wise councils that it gave to its compatriots on the need to link itself against the foreigner, all these feelings expressed in energetic worms, found in France of the thousands of echoes and returned the name of the author as popular as if it had been announced for a long time”.

Its origins

His/her father, Louis Augustin Anselme Delavigne, was land-surveyor geographer of the forests of the King and the fall of Louis XVI involved also that of Anselme, civil servant royal. In 1793, the family takes the road of the Havre where Anselme Delavigne becomes ship-owner with his two brothers, Jean-Fortunate and César-Casimir. At that time creates for itself an important sea link, the England receiving its batch of emigrants. When the Révolution wavers on its backs, some of those pass by again the Manche to go to join Bonchamps and Rochejacquelein in the Vendée. With this extremely advantageous little game (it costs fortunes of them to the passengers), Anselme risked large. It thus happened that it was stopped and on April 5th, 1793, day of the birth of Casimir Delavigne, his father was at the bottom of a dungeon.

In this world of middle-class havraise, his wife found a Devienne young lady, poetess, stage actor and confidante of Delavigne entremettre and to intervene with Robespierre. Anselme was left this bad step discreetly and became this estimated trader of its fellow-citizens as the chronicle of time brings it back, “ the Mercury of London ”, appeared in 1834. After this company, in 1808, Anselme launches out in the faience manufacture, it manufactures in its company of the plates and of the decorative dishes but, in 1816, the businesses are so disastrous that it closes the factory.

Years of childhood of Casimir Delavigne

Its biographer and brother wrote: “It was born in Le Havre on April 5th, 1793, with number 27 of the Sollier quay in the Saint-François old working. It was wire of a trader precisely considered, his childhood did not present anything remarkable. In spite of its sharp spirit, he triumphed only with sorrow over his first studies”. He learned how to read and count in his city of Le Havre near the Trupel abbot then in 1801 Casimir joined his brother with the college Henri-Iv, he was only 8 years old.

In these years, it was pointed out - note his/her brother - by the kindness of its character and its application to the study. It is at fourteen years that its faculties develop. Good schoolboy, his taste for poetry appears.

On the benches of the college it binds of a rare friendship with Eugene Scribe (1791-1861). Together they formed plans with a future. Casimir wanted to be poet. Scribe was intended for the Barreau. He became a famous dramatic author and type-setter of Opérette S now forgotten.

In the absence of his havraise family, young man, it was received the days of freedom by his uncle, Andrieux, solicitor with Paris, friend of Crébillon, which liked and cultivated the beautiful letters. Casimir having subjected to him his first towards, it predicted the bitterest disappointments to him and especially encouraged it “to prepare itself to make its right”.

Poem for the Birth of King de Rome

Whereas it was still raises, the birth of the King de Rome offered the occasion to him to be pointed out. It composed a “dithyrambic poem, containing poetic beauties of the highest order” writes his brother. His/her uncle Andrieux, judged the thing so well that he then promised a career and real successes to him. This encensor of Napoleon I {{er}}, was however not the lightning of war. He was exempted of military service, reformed, because of a light deafness which thereafter disappeared completely. This famous poem, noticed at the court, by the count French Antoine of Nantes, then director of the joined together Rights (kind of customs), enabled him to find in its services an asylum, under cover of a small employment. It entered its office in 1813. Its only obligation was to arise to it to each end of the month. He endeavoured to deserve this benevolence by his successes. Author of a poem epic “Charles XII with Narva”, the Academy notices to him a wise spirit, brilliant qualities, and grants to him a honourable mention.

Rue des Rosiers, with the corner of the Paved street, the Delavigne colony is joined together. Germain, his brother and Casimir became bread-winners. Their Anselme father is ruined, his wife (Meyotte), his daughter Louise and the small Fortunate one, studying with the Napoleon college, accompanies it. Moreover, aunt Aupoix, sister of Anselme accompanied by her two black servants, Rose and César, who accompanied it since Saint-Domingue, found, it also, refuge among her nephews. Even the nurse of the poet, the Babet old woman, followed the family since Le Havre.

The discovery of the Vaccinates

The following year, in 1814, the imposed academic subject was “the discovery of Vaccine”. It tried once again fortune. It met in the French count Doctor Parisot, secretary perpetual of the royal Académie of medicine. Parisot, which made him even the good ones towards, gave him the most precise explanations and they even went company to vaccinate in the campaigns close to Paris. Some conscientious technical worms give with a rare happiness the effects of these vaccines. These worms then were extremely appreciated and in the schoolbooks of literature chosen, these worms were still present until 1950. Here 14 of the 218 worms which the poem contains:

“By the delicate iron with which the doctor arms his fingers,

the arm of an young child is effleuré three times.

Of the useful poisons of an impure udder,

It infects with art this triple puncture.

Around it ignites a fugitive circle,

the new remedy sleeps a long time inactive.

the fourth day started to hatch,

And the flesh per degrees inflates and is coloured.

the tumor while growing of crimson revêt,

swells at the base, and grows hollow at the top.

a circle, more vermilion of its fires surrounds it;

Of a money scale the thickness the crown;

riper, it is gilded; it opens, and sudden

Délivre the captive liquor in its center”.

The tone, considered as too didactic, prevents it from having the price, but of a unanimous vote, the Academy decrees a certificate of merit to him.

The first three Messéniennes

However the disasters of the Empire had started and it is with a deep pain that it attends with the fall of the emperor and the invasion of France. After the disastrous battle of Waterloo, in July 1815, it publishes its first Messéniennes, Waterloo , misfortunes of the war then Jeanne d' Arc and the death of Jeanne d' Arc .

The foreign armies occupied France, the good citizens deplored that their country was thus put out of combat after 25 years of victories. The poet took his Lyre and sang overcome. He was made courtier of the brave men of the Old guard. Consequently, it deserved to be called the national poet, the poet of the fatherland. It expressed, with liveliness and enthusiasm, the regrets which were at the bottom of the hearts. It had made act of courage while being declared against the winners.

When he saw the Musée of Louvre devastated by the foreign invaders, our statues carried like spoils of war, he protested with eloquence against these abuses the victory and addressed touching good-byes to these wonders of arts. Like citizen, he proudly recalled the abroads that if they could carry statues, they would not carry our claims to fame.

Soon the foreign armies left the country but the competitions of parties, the greed of the false servants threatened our reappearing freedoms, then that which had paid homage to died of Waterloo called upon the union, that which left the university benches gourmanda the parties with an early wisdom. Its last good-bye with the armies which evacuated our ground was an anthem with the harmony which makes the people invincible.

The books second and third of Messéniennes consolidate the popularity of the writer, they approach the history of ancient Greece, Christophe Colomb, and of the events which report the life of this beginning of the 19th century.

The fall of the emperor that Casimir Delavigne had summarized as follows: “ Napoleon forgot his origins. Wire of Freedom (1789) you détrônas your mother ”. The French count was naturally far away from the businesses and Casimir had lost his “employment”. The baron Pasquier, then Minister of Justice, and Chancellor of France, lute with emotion the poem on the exile of Napoleon i, and made it read with the king who found it very beautiful. He made call the author, and created for him the place of librarian of the chancellery.

The sicilian Vespers

Free of its time, and made safe by its employment, always in the heroic kind, in 1818 Casimir writes the “ sicilian Vêpres ” of which he requests the reading with the French Théâtre. After two years of waiting, the work is finally listened with the distrust and the discredit which accommodates, usually the first attempt of an young man. Only one actor, Thénard, found the work interesting and declared “ I find the proof there that the author one day will write the Comedy very well”. The part was accepted but with correction. One year later this prediction was carried out, although Casimir claimed then and obtained one second reading whose result was the final refusal. The learned assembly called to come to a conclusion about the merit of the tragedy did not admit it that provided that the author would never require that she was played. One of the ladies which sat at the number of the judges showed more severe than the others, it gave for reason of its refusal which he would be scandalous to put the word vespers on a poster of spectacle. It is at that time that Victor Hugo writes in the Gazette of the Theater : “Casimir Delavigne - As tragic author, it has movement and misses sensitivity. As comic author has spirit and not cheerfulness”. Severe judgment.

Three months later, the Actors were written. Sharpest and merriest of the comedies of the time. She was played until in 1861.

In 1818, the Odéon having burned, the duke of Orleans, the future king of the French (Louis-Philippe) which reigned of 1830 to 1848, made rebuild the room and the privilege of Second French Theater granted to him. A reading panel of men of letters then accepted with greatest enthusiasm the sicilian Vêpres and one decided, that among all the received works, this one would be the first played Theater of Odéon. The first representation took place on October 23rd, 1819, it was a triumph, the part attracted a considerable multitude during three hundred successive representations, thus confirming the quality of the poet and the choice of the reading panel. The theater boxed more 400 000 francs of the first 100 representations, considerable nap at that time!

The duke of Orleans does it librarian of the Palais Royal

In 1821, while it continued its hard career with Bet It the political events went very quickly. The minister was not any more the same one, and like the character independent and the love of the fatherland of the poet could not be appropriate for the new agents of the capacity, the place of librarian was removed.

The duke of Orleans learning this blow, offered to him the place of librarian of the Palais Royal while writing to him: “ the thunder fell on your house, I offer an apartment in mine to you ”. Casimir accepted with recognition. December 15th, 1824, it acquires a large white masonry, built ten years before, admirably located on a soft slope leading to the the Seine: “The Madeleine”, pertaining to the general of Empire of Brémond.

This good was in charge of history, because to the 12th century it had belonged to the small son of Richard of Vernon, Adjutor which became Saint Adjutor, owner of the marines. It founded there a place of prayer on which the monks Benedictines built a priory. This priory remained until the French revolution. It is on the ruins of this priory that the general of Brémond builds his superb residence. It often came there, either that it wanted to find calm and loneliness to work, or that it there sought a place of rest. Scribe and its Germain brother, which wrote together, settled there to complete a Vaudeville or a booklet of opera. Only, Fortunate, the extremely discrete junior never came there, retained by his load of Avoué in Paris.

Although its love for France, a great firmness of character united with a natural eloquence and a straightness of judgment had enabled him to play a part useful and shining in the businesses of the country, it refused there constantly, convinced that the letters, like the policy, required a whole man. He thus declined the honor to enter to the House of Commons, which was offered to him initially by the city of Le Havre and then by the town of Évreux.

The school of the old men

In its eyes the surest means of gaining the votes it missed who was to write and publish a new title. It was the school of the old men . This part attests a real progress of its author, and a critic in 1825 can write in the Mercure of London : “Seen moral side, it offers a lesson useful for old age, without the immoler with rized public, buying applause at the expense of an age which one could not respect too much”. A review of the men of letters of 1834 it found less original than works of Béranger or Lamartine, but “a talent so pure and so wide granted to him that it can lend itself with great success to the literary innovation”. A reconciliation took place with the persons in charge of the Th3e4atre Fran1cais where the school of the old men attracted a faithful public. The shortly after the school of the old men , Casimir Delavigne is a famous man that the young poets are proud to consult.

In 1825 the French Academy decided to open its doors with the poet that the public of the theater of Odéon seemed to have adopted. It compensated it for its long delay after the two unfruitful attempts. The first time, it had as a rival celebrates it Mgr of Frayssinous, bishop of Hermopolis. Its second competitor was the archbishop of Paris, Mgr of Quélen. When friends still advised in Casimir Delavigne to go back on the rows, it pushed back their offer, saying with spirit: “Not, this time one would oppose the pope to me”. However, it ends up agreeing to try its chance with the armchair of the count Ferrand. Its election was imposing, obtaining 27 votes out of 28. It took part only seldom in these meetings of the company of the men of letters. It supported there the candidature of Lamartine against that of Victor Hugo.

Charles X granted a pension of 1 to him; 200 francs. But this one refused it as the Légion of honor that Mister of Rochefoucault offered to him in the name of the king, not having does not seem it confidence in the political orientation of the government set up, because of a severe restriction of thin granted freedoms. There preferred to remain independent of a capacity that he could have to fight.

Travel in Italy

An assiduous work compromised an already weakened health. The doctors ordered a voyage in Italy. During this tour in the cradle of arts, it obtained a true triumph so much it accepted testimonys of admirors. During these three months spent with Naples, it remade a health. He visited Rome and Venice. It in this is quoted that it conceived the tragedy Marino Faliero . During this pleasant stay in Italy, it wrote seven Messéniennes news.

The first of Marino Faliero was given to the Théâtre of the Door Saint Martin's day on May 30th, 1829.

It is in Rome, in 1826 qu' it met his future Élise wife of Courtin. Raised with the Boarding school of Écouen at Madam Campan, she had been noticed by the emperor. Given up by her parents she wanted to poison herself. The queen Hortense, mother of the future Napoleon III, it also former student of Écouen, moved by the situation by this orphan made some its protected. With the passing of years, the young girl became her reader and her preferred partner. Casimir maintained an assiduous correspondence with the Élise young person one year older than him. He had to await three years the assent of his pretty conquest.

As of its return to Paris, it offered to Parisian new work, the Princess Aurélie , spiritual comedy which was only one short success.

A young poet that Casimir had encouraged, awkwardly wrote, in a weekly magazine, a satirical article directed against Charles X. named Fonta, stopped and judged, was thrown in prison. Casimir who had blamed the violence of the article was deeply afflicted by the rigor with the sorrow: Five years of prison, locked up, with swindlers and robbers. The release of this boy, was the occasion of a campaign and a request of Casimir near the Minister of Interior Department then of the prefect “Mariguin”. It accepted a severe reception. The prefect who had listened to it says him, “We are strong Sir, we do not fear anything, it is necessary that justice is done”. In spite of its efforts it could nothing obtain.

Anthem with the glory of the people of Paris

A few months afterwards, the Revolution of July, in 1830, it proved how much the force was factitious on which the mode of Charles X was based. This news surprised Casimir in the countryside, in “the Madeleine” of Pressagny-l' Orgueilleux.

Returned in Paris it was asked to him to compose an anthem with glory of the people. He composed Parisian the to sing his fellow-citizens died for the fatherland during the Revolution of July. This popular song had a universal vogue. This national walk favorable to the family of Orleans comprised seven verses with this refrain:

“Ahead, let us go

Against their guns!

Through iron, the fire of the battalions,

Let us run

To the victory! ”

It went to Neuilly at the duke of Orleans (the lord of the manor of Bizy) which had been its guard, and who had become general lieutenant of the Kingdom. Casimir Delavigne precipitated thus with the front of the success. He into excellent terms with his neighbors of other bank of the Seine, and was often accepted besides, always also with the castle of Saint-Just which, after having known successive owners (the Suchet knight, then its brother the marshal duke of Albuféra) in 1831, became the field of a Mr Lopez with whom he sympathized.

The achieved Revolution of 1830, Casimir took again his tragedy Louis XI stopped since the death of the actor Talma. According to some critical, it was the masterpiece of Casimir Delavigne so much the portraits of the characters are moderate and faithful to manners of time. The first representation took place on February 11th, 1832. But the public was not receptive any more with this kind of theatrical work. Victor Hugo had triumphed with Hernani . He had supplanted Casimir in the heart of the French. However its tragedy, Louis XI , after the epidemic of Cholera which Paris knew, is a new success.

Its marriage

November 1st, 1830, Casimir Delavigne contracted marriage with Élise of Courtin, it was soon to give him a son, which made its happiness complete. His/her Germain brother married the same day Miss Letourneur. They married at midnight with the church Saint-Vincent-of-Paul.

“We marry both Thursday evening said to the king”

“Ah! ”

“Per same hour. ”

“Ah! ”

“In the same church. ”

“Ah! And with the same woman? ”

It was a joy for the Hortense queen whom this union of her daughter of adoption with the poet for which it had such an amount of sympathy. Germain obtained in 1832 the post of conservative of the Furniture of the crown and director of the amusements of the king. This promotion enabled him to install all its family in N° 2 of the street Bergère.

Casimir of return to the Madeleine in company of Elects which had given him a son whose existence is often evoked in its tender concern, it worked there abundantly. He had made plant a chestnut tree which reflected for him the concerns of his wife through her foliage more or less provided during the seasons. Would it be still identifiable in the current park?

He wrote then, on a screen due to Shakespeare the children of Edouard . The part, the morning of the first, on May 18th, 1833 was the subject of a prohibition. Near the Minister of Interior Department, Mister Thiers, it accepted an unfavourable reception. But after a short discussion in front of the king, prohibition was raised. Louis-Philippe who could not be present at the representation congratulated it by a short ticket which thus began “ I learn with great pleasure, my dear Casimir, the success of your part and I do not want to lie down without you to have made my compliment… ”. One includes/understands best the attachment of the poet to the success of Louis-Philippe.

Last years of its life

The painful disease of the liver, neat during its voyage in Italy started again to deteriorate the days of Casimir. It tested violent pains. The doctors did not consider this evil like being able to tackle the sources of the life. It was in the middle of almost continual pains that he wrote Don Juan of Austria , comedy full with liveliness, which did not make him less honor that its great tragedies. The first was given on October 17th, 1835 and six months later, the April 19th 1836, an act in worms: a family at the time of Luther which did not have much success.

It was made, rather desperate, with its charming retirement of Normandy, “the Madeleine”, where since 1830 it spent all its summers. He liked much this vast residence, and his unspoilable view on the islands of the Seine. There, he hoped to find a little relief.

He undertook a work which he preferred with all his works: popularity , comedy of manners in five acts and worms. After several delays, the part was represented on February 1st 1838. It made only thin receipts, the public was tired of Casimir Delavigne.

January 20th of the following year appears a new tragedy, the girl of the Cid , it did not have a happier fate, success was without duration. It is at the end of this painful period of the autumn 1839, qu' it had to sell its dear Madeleine with so many regrets. “ I do not have fortune ”, writes it in 1833, and it is true. To its troubles of health, those of money were added, and on August 9th, 1839 it is constrained to give up “the Madeleine”. The property was sold: 90750 francs. Which sadness for the poet, sadness which these worms translate:

“Madeleine Good-bye cherished,

Which you considered in water,

Good-bye my fresh Madeleine!

Madeleine, good-bye forever!

I leave, one needs it, I yield;

But the heart bleeds me while leaving”.

The complete poem comprises 11 stanzas of 8 worms. It was probably written with the castle of Saint-Just, in his friend Mr Lopez. The two frontages of these residences are in opposite: The Madeleine on Right Bank of the Seine and Saint-Just on left bank. It returned to Paris to follow there the education of the son which had been born to him 9 years before, and especially because of his ruin.

At that time downward from large the Pierre Corneille that the defect of fortune placed in great difficulties, came to request a loan of 500 francs. Casimir did not have them. He could only at once reassure it and address it to the duke of Orleans. “ This prince universally loved and whose disappearance was a public calamity ” wrote his Germain brother. The very same day, the required sum was granted. But it was to be its last intervention and good deed. The last tragedy to which he worked seems well to have a presentiment of its death, he wrote: “ My days are full, and goods to be harvested. God who counted them to me less being able to give some to me: to begin again is its right… ”.

As from this moment, its health already so faded continued to decline, in spite of the hastened care of Doctor Horteloup.

When Casimir was surprised by death, four acts of the tragedy Mélusine were written, in a completely new kind, and whose subject admitted all the richnesses of poetry. Since it had sold “the Madeleine”, it spent every year the beautiful season to Paris. Scribe, its close friend which knew its taste for the countryside, and which hoped that it could find some relieves there offered him its charming house of Montalais, with Saint-Jean-Lespinasse in the Lot, there Casimir is established and found some softnesses there for 3 months.

When it returned to Paris, it felt that it could not resist the season, and it turned over to seek a softer climate in midday. It decided to leave in spite of its weakness, accompanied by his wife and her son. It left Paris on December 2nd, 1843. It supported tiredness with more courage than of force until Lyon where it was obliged to stop. It is in vain that he fought against the evil, it was necessary for him to yield and remain in Lyon. In its last moments, on December 11th at nine o'clock in the evening, it was made make the reading by his wife. Like that too moved Ci, jumped of the lines, it gently requested it to agree to start again. However a few minutes after it appeared to cease listening to the reading, and posing its head on its hand, murmured some words, then falling down on its pillow, seemed to fall asleep. Thus it died out in the force of the age and the talent.

The loss of Casimir caused universal regrets. One saw pressing with his funeral all that Paris contained moreover distinguished, in all the kinds and of all the rows. One noticed there inter alia, Victor Hugo who pronounced in the name of the French Academy the funeral praise of that which was the youngest academician (35 years), the last of traditional, and undoubtedly one of first romantic. The king ordered that its portrait and its bust were placed in the Gallery of Versailles.

Le Havre, its birthplace, decided that one of its quays would bear its name and that a statue would be high on a place of the city. It was set up there, which occurred of the general Archinard. Saved by the plagues of the last war it is currently drawn up in company of another famous child of Le Havre: Bernardin of Saint-Pierre (1737-1814) to the foot of the beautiful stone staircase of the Law courts, instead of two lions débonnaires. The city of Le Havre thus saved these two celebrities of the lapse of memory. In this same year of 1843, Sirs the Members of the Comédie-Française (which had succeeded the French Théâtre), stopped as a general meeting, which the bust of Casimir Delavigne would be placed in their hearth in the middle of the portraits of all the great men who illustrated this théâtre.

The official work of Casimir Delavigne represents about fifteen plays, about thirty poetries of which Messéniennes, epistles, studies on antiquity, four popular songs but also of many news and other parts in prose.

Such was the momentary glory of a poet, considered in his own time as insurpassé and unsurpassable, forgotten today literary publications and whose only remains Vaccinates It and the short magnificence of a middle-class masonry, very beautiful, but admirably not established in this old field of the duke of Tourny with Pressagny-l' Orgueilleux.

Its work

; Theater

sicilian Vespers , tragedy in five acts - 1820 will be used as booklet in Eugene Scribe for the opera of Gaetano Donizetti " It Duca d' Alba" French creation on July 16th, 2007
the Actors , comedy
Bet It - 1821
the School of the old men - 1823
Marino Faliero - 1829 will be used as booklet in Giovanni Bidera for the opera éponyme of Gaetano Donizetti

; Messéniennes - 1818

the Battle of Waterloo
the Devastation of the Museum and the Monuments
Of the Need to link after the departure from abroad
the Life of Jeanne d' Arc

; Various

complete Works (1836)
Popular songs, Speech, Epistles, Studies on antiquity, Poetries of youth.

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