Henry Bordeaux

Biography

Lawyer following his father, Henry Bordeaux was registered, after its studies of right to Paris, with the Barreau of Thonon (1889), but it was not long in turning to the writing. Its career of writer is spread out of 1887 (first poem published Rebecca , rewarded by the Académie for Savoy) at 1960, year of its last book ( the Torch Reversed ).

Henry Bordeaux is the author of more than two hundred works (Romance, new, biographies…, cf the bibliography in the bonds) which he wrote, for the majority, in its house of Maupas, in Cognin (73).

Henry Bordeaux is resulting from a catholic family and royalist whom it describes in particular in the House (1912) and in Country without shade (1935). Its childhood is in particular rocked by the hope which his/her aunt Dine on the accession to the throne of the count de Chambord has (“ I belong to a family who always walked to the avant-garde of the monarchical and preserving party ”).

Little by little, following the official rallying of the Church to the republic (1892) and of the construction of the social doctrines of the Church, Henry Bordeaux becomes republican. In 1893, at the request of the republican line Committee of Savoy, it takes the direction of the newspaper the Alarm clock of Savoy intended to defend the candidature of Me François Descotes for the station of deputy of Chambéry, without success.

The political ideas of Henry Bordeaux, which are refined in time and its writings, are close to the social Catholicism of Frederic Play or Albert de Mun, relay political of the rallying to the Republic.

Henry Bordeaux was pilot, and sometimes actor, of important periods so much at the historical level (1st world war, social movements of the Thirties, 2nd world war) that on the level of the evolution of manners (modification of the place occupied by the women in the couple and the company, improvement of the living conditions of the workmen…). This concern of concrete engagement in its time is found in all its work.

This work often has as a framework the Savoy: Chambéry ( Roquevillard ), the valley of the Maurienne ( the dead House , the New Crusade of the children ), Chartreuse of the Resting place , the Chablais ( the House , Country without shade )…

The novels of Henry Bordeaux are bathed traditional values, in the line of Rene Bazin or especially of Paul Le Bourget, which he recognized a long time for “Master” and from which he was different a little on late (to read Paul Le Bourget intimates , 1952).

“My literary vocation merges with my years of college”. At the 16 years age, after having obtained its baccalaureat in Chambéry, Henry Bordeaux leaves for Paris in order to follow there studies of right and literature. It meets there in particular Alphonse Daudet and his son Leon, François Coppée, Verlaine, Leon Bloy.

After some early works of spirit more broad (such the Love which passes , so known under the title the Fairy of Port-Cross-country race or the Way without return where one finds a perfume of Pierre Loti), and a short period dreyfusist, Henry Bordeaux is directed towards types of characters (men or women) whose positions traditional morals and Christian women find their expression in a concrete engagement in the daily life; engagement that itself summarizes in the long foreword (1905) which it will join to its novel the Fear Of living (1902).

Although the characters of its novels are agents and guards of the traditional values in France, they are also sometimes implied in the expansion of the French influence in the world (religious, industrial, military), with the image of the members of its own family.

At the end of the years 1930 (years of the Popular front), Henry Bordeaux makes a clear decision for the improvement of the living conditions of poorest (housing, hygiene, health, food) in his novels the Tug boat , Involuntary Crimes - living conditions which it puts in parallel with the luxury, them through and hypocrisies of the nobility and the upper middle class.

End of the Second world war mark however a rupture in the career of Henry Bordeaux who had given an opinion for the marshal Pétain, friend since the First World War ( the walls are good , 1940), and which it meets until 1943. Shortly after the end of the war, in September 1945, it is registered on the list of purification of the National committee of the writers; it is striped by it in October.

Faithful in friendship, Henry Bordeaux takes the defense of Charles Maurras at the time of the lawsuit of this last, in January 1945, then, the next month, at the time of the scéance of the French Academy at the time which is marked the vacancy of the armchair of Charles Maurras. He was also an active craftsman (in particular by his mails) of the presidential pardon granted to Charles Maurras by president Vincent Auriol.

After the war, the ideas and the traditional values defended in its novels will become increasingly anachronistic. Its “achieved work”, Henry Bordeaux begins the drafting of its Memories.

In parallel, in the light at the end of the road (1948), it reconsiders its past while making us meet, as in an initiatory course, “the real characters who (of 1900 to 1915) acted on the brains and the hearts or the walk of the events”: Bergson, Jean Jaurès, Déroulède, Mistral, Bars, Maurras, Péguy, Psichari. At the end of his life (with more than 90 years), Henry Bordeaux was astonished to note that the world was diverted ways which it had traced.

He was a burning admiror of Jules Barbey d' Aurevilly. In addition to many historical Tests such as Lovers of Geneva and many biographies (Bayard, Guynemer, holy François the Dirty ones…), Henry Bordeaux also wrote novels close to the detective novels ( Murder Party 1930) or inspired by his voyages ( Yamilé under the cedars ).

He had been elected member of the French Academy in 1919, at the 49 years age. In Forty years at the Forty , it tells its memories of academician.

Its work at the same time one of richest but certainly also one of is read 20th century; several of its novels were sold with more 500 000 specimens, and certain works were translated into several languages. During nearly 60 years, Henry Bordeaux, now forgotten, was one of the French novelists most popular.

Henry Bordeaux is buried with the cemetery of Cognin (73).

Works

News

native Land (1900)
Fear of living (1902)
the Small Miss (1905)
Roquevillard (1906)
the Eyes which open (1908)
the Crossroads (1909)
the Dress of wool (1910)
Snow on the steps (1911)
Amants of Geneva (1912)
the House (1913)
new Youth, Two twenty year old heroes (1915) one is the Décluy military cadet.
the Resurrection of the flesh (1920)
Yamilé under the cedars (1923)
Chartreuse of the resting place (1924)
Returning to It (1932)
the Intruder (1936)

Critical studies

Edouard Rod , Paris, Perrin, 1895

Memories

History of a life (13 volumes, 1951-1973)

Quotation

“the fear of living is not to deserve neither blames nor praise. It is constant worry, single, of its peace. It is the escape of the responsibilities, the fights, the risks, the effort. It is to avoid carefully the danger, tiredness, the exaltation, passion, enthusiasm, the sacrifice, all violent actions and which disturb and disturb. It is to refuse with the life which claims them its sorrow and its heart, its sweat and its blood. Lastly, it is to claim to live by limiting the life, by cutting down the destiny. ”

Foreword with fear of living (1905)

External bond

Biographical note of the French Academy
the most complete Bibliography on Henry Bordeaux (271 indexed titles, by counting the forewords)

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