Marguerite Audoux

Marguerite Audoux is a French novelist (1863 - 1937).

Biography

Marguerite Donquichote is born with Sancoins, in the Cher, the July 7th 1863. At the three years age, it loses her mother, and his/her father gives up his two daughters. Marguerite and Madeleine (the elder one), initially entrusted to an aunt, spend nine years to the orphanage of the General hospital of Bourges. Marguerite is placed from 1877 to 1881, as a shepherdess of lambs and maidservant of farm, to the Sologne. The two last years of this period are remembered by the meeting of Henri Dejoulx, with whom the young girl saw a paid love of return, but at which the family of Henri, by fear of a misalliance, puts a term.

The orphan one goes up then on Paris, where she saw black years by exerting the trade of dressmaker, who unemployment the constrained one to make alternate with other heavy work (with the Cartridge factory of Vincennes, and in the wash-house of the Hôpital Laënnec). During these years of misery, in 1883, it has a child who does not survive, and who is worth to him, at the end of a painful pregnancy and a childbirth, a final sterility.

At the same time, his/her Madeleine sister leaves him her Yvonne daughter, that the future novelist raises, in spite of the financial problems with which she is confronted. It is precisely this niece who, without of course being aware from it, will support the literary career of her adoptive mother: the unsteady young girl, with sixteen years, male prostitute, without the knowledge of his aunt, in the district of the Markets of Paris; however, an young man, who is unaware of also the trade to which she devotes herself, éprend of her. It is Jules Iehl, alias Michel Yell in literature, a friend of André Gide. When it becomes aware of the situation, it will see the aunt, with whom he comforts herself so that their relation will end only in 1912. Yell makes meet with his/her friend a group of intellectuals, writers and artists among whom appear Charles-Louis Philippe, Leon-Paul Fargue, Leon Werth and Francis the Jordan. Michel Yell discovers that with which it shares its days (and which, since 1895, definitively adopted its matronyme of Audoux) wrote its memories, and of a fort pretty way. He betrays the secrecy near the fellow travellers, who set up the “Group of Carnetin” (of the name of the village of the east of Paris where they meet each Sunday of 1904 to 1907). Francis the Jordan, whose father, the architect Frantz the Jordan, is a friend of Octave Mirbeau, will find the author of '' the Newspaper of a chambermaid ''. That which reigns as a Master in the Republic of the Letters is then depressive, and makes include/understand with the young painter who it is not, for the time being, more ready to defend whoever. It takes the manuscript however, starts to read it, and only finishes it with enthusiasm to go to impose it to the editors.

It is thus in Octave Mirbeau that the dressmaker of the letters owes this true coup d'etat of December 2nd, 1910: the Price Femina - happy Life that one decrees with the former shepherdess, who will assist, of alive sound, with the going beyond of a hundred and thousand specimens of Marie-Claire , translated in many languages, in German and English of course, but also in Esperanto, Russian, a Catalan, Swedish, Spanish, Danish, Slovenien…

The second book will appear only ten years later, after the departure of Michel Yell (then the death of Alain-Baker, the spiritual son of the novelist, and that of Octave Mirbeau), and at the time of the adoption of three wire of Yvonne. the Workshop of Marie-Claire , in 1920, still meets a certain success, but that a pulling with twelve thousand specimens places however far behind the best-seller of which it constitutes the continuation. It is the beginning of a slow decrescendo punctuated by Of the city with the mill (1926), Promised in marriage the , a collection of tales worthy of interest that Flammarion publishes in 1932, and finally Douce Light , posthumous novel which leaves at the end of 1937. The novelist, deceased on January 31st of this same year, is buried in Saint-Raphaël, where in love one with the sea finished its existence.

Four novels

Red Marie-Claire (1910), Grasset, Books, 1987. This first work is most autobiographical. She evokes the childhood and the adolescence of the author. The first part reports the death of the mother, the departure of the father and the nine last years with the orphanage, the General hospital of Bourges, difficult period, enlightened however by the guardian presence of sister Marie-Aimee. The second part is at the farm of Villevieille, where the first owners of Marie-Claire, Maître Sylvain and Pauline, surround the small shepherdess of a benevolent affection. In the third part, the young girl éprend of Henri Deslois, the brother of farm who succeeded Pauline. The mother of the young man prohibited Marie-Claire from re-examining Henri. This one turns over then to the convent, where it re-examines sister Marie-Aimee before leaving for Paris.
the Workshop of Marie-Claire (1920), Grasset, Books Red, 1987. The workshop of seam where Marie-Claire found work us east depicts like an big family. Owners, Mr. and Mrs. Dalignac, and the workers, obliged to engage itself in factory during the layoffs, depend in the same way on the customers, demanding and often bad payeuses. Thus, this novel is at the same time the painting of an social environment and a succession of varied anecdotes which, while camping with precision the characters of the workers, make it possible the account to progress. After the death of the owners, one does not know if Marie-Claire will marry Clément, the nephew of Mrs. Dalignac, that moreover she does not like.
Of the city to the mill , Fasquelle, 1926. While wanting to interpose at the time of an argument which opposes his/her parents, Annette Beaubois is wounded with the hip and remains lame. It leaves for the mill her uncle, followed soon by his brothers and sisters that his/her parents, separating, entrust to him. Twenty years, she grants to live with a friend of her brother, Valère, who sinks in alcoholism, and misleads it. Enclosure of its works, it leaves it nevertheless to go to be confined, in Paris, of a child who does not survive. In the capital, it finds its family, then, the finished war, it recognizes Valère in a severely wounded person. It is ready to give again its chance to him.
Soft Light , Grasset, 1937 (posth.). Soft is the nickname of Wild rose Light. His/her mother died in layers, the father committed suicide of despair, and the maternal grandfather dedicates to the young girl an unjust resentment. Soft finds comfort near its young neighbor, Christmas, and, with the passing of years, the friendship is transformed into love. But Eglantine is victim of a calumny campaign on behalf of the family of the young man who, hostile with their union, succeeds in separating them. Heroin, marked forever by its experiment and faithful to the memory of Christmas, is found in Paris, where she sympathizes with Jacques, its neighbor, unhappy in love, then widowed. An attempt at love affair fails. Jacques leaves for the war. When it returns, it lost the reason.

Memory

In May 2007, after a vote of the inhabitants of the 3rd district of Paris, the name of Marguerite Audoux was selected for the news Bibliothèque of the district, which will open street Portefoin in November 2007 (three other names were proposed, Hannah Arendt, Robert Desnos and André Schwarz-Bart, to see the advertisement by the town hall of 3rd).

Studies

Georges Reyer, a pure heart: Marguerite Audoux , Grasset, 1942.
Bernard-Marie Garreau, Marguerite Audoux, the dressmaker of the letters , Tallandier, 1991.
Bernard-Marie Garreau, the Family of Marguerite Audoux , North, 2 vol., 1998.

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