Paul Tuffrau

Paul Tuffrau (* May 1st 1887, Bordeaux - † May 16th 1973, Paris) is a man of letters, writer and professor.

Biography

Youth in Bordeaux

Paul Tuffrau lived the first part of his youth with Bordeaux, where it carried out brilliant secondary studies. Particularly attracted by the Basque Country near, it made there, young man, of long walks, during which it wrote accounts which will be published in 2002, after his death, under the name of Anatcho . It is, actually, a succession of personal memories of an area which he deeply liked, interfered daydreams the evening in the mountain, of legends glanées with the wire of its walks. One feels there a certain nostalgia with the evocation of this mysterious country of which the traditions, it feels it well, have to disappear, and also the attraction of the Spain, still unknown factor of him. These accounts, of an alive and coloured style, express already a true talent of writing and a deep humanity.

The higher learning in Paris

Paul Tuffrau comes to prepare with Paris, in the Khâgne of the Louis-the-Large Lycée, the contest of the National university, where it will enter in 1908, in the very first. He, in 1911, and in a way quite as brilliant, will be received with the contest of aggregation of letters. The three last years street of Ulm at the Teacher training school mark a turning in its life. They are a kind of " respiration" , putting it in contact with a world new, broader than that of Bordeaux. He discovers Paris and spends the hours to the Musée of Louvre. He follows the exposures of André Lhote. He will hear sometimes at Colonne Beethoven… There is, in this medium of young intellectuals of which it forms part, a kind of appetite, of effervescence, to which its notebooks testify. All interests them. Discussions on the literature, philosophy, arts, the music. Fascination for the Russian writers, and in particular for Tolstoï. They speak political, painting, literature, discuss as well Plato, Virgile as of Kipling, Farrère “or the great visions of Wells” . Their talks are inexhaustible and all are tried by the writing; very often they show their tests. Paul Tuffrau admires in particular the astonishing poetic gifts, sometimes tinted odd imagination, of Bernard Marcotte, one of his comrades, whom he knew in khâgne, and which will die of the continuations of the war. It will preface also the works, published in 1923, of Georges Pancol, his school-fellow with the college of Bordeaux, poet, killed on the face in Champagne in 1915. He often discusses with Rene Bichet (normalien, promotion 1907), “small B”, friend of Alain-Baker and Jacques Rivière, Rene Bichet with whom he will correspond regularly until the death of this last in 1912. He is very also dependant with Jean Wahl, normalien like him (promotion 1907), raises Bergson, and which will be also philosophical, and he maintains with Romain Roland the very friendly relations and a very followed correspondence.

The First World War

But the war bursts, and Paul Tuffrau leaves in August 1914 as second lieutenant reserve. Wounded several times during these four years of war, he will refuse to be evacuated, except during one month in 1917. He will receive, the face bandaged, the Légion of honor on the face of the troops. He finishes the war Military Cross, major in the army of the general Mangin and completes the year 1918 as commander of place to Sarrelouis. Throughout all war, it shared, with the daily newspaper, in the trenches, with its men and his comrades, their life, their sufferings… Later it will re-examine the fields of Bataille of the Marne, where, in the tragedies engagements of 1914, it failed to be killed - very close to elsewhere to the place where, the same day, fell Péguy which he had met little time before at Romain Roland. It noted that, too often, of the unsuited orders were transmitted by Staffs which did not know the ground, and which, for lack of true competence, exposed lives well unnecessarily. It was impossible for him to say it in full war, in the articles where it described the life in the trenches, engagements, articles which he regularly sent to the daily newspaper " Journal" under the pseudonym of Lieutenant E.R. and which will be published in 1917 by Payot under the name of Carnet of a Combatant . But it holds of the notebooks where it notes all from day to day and these notebooks will be published, after its death, in 1998, under the title 1914-1918 - Four Years on the Face. Notebooks of a Combatant . What makes the very particular side of it, it is not only that they were written by a man who took part fully in the engagements throughout the four years of war - and, for this reason, it is about a seizing testimony - but also which they are the fact of a writer and true humanistic. Paul Tuffrau passes from distinct in trench, exposed like all to the balls, the grenades, the shells which burst around them, but, when the engagements are calmed, there remains sensitive to the beauty of the landscapes, with the softness of spring, the charm of the villages which he crosses. It cannot one moment forget the war, of which it is recipient, but contrast between its engagement and its availability to be seen what surrounds it, makes these notes a singular work.

The Inter-war period and the Second world war

At the end of the war, it joined with Vendôme, where he was professor until 1914, his wife, Andrée Lavieille, painter, that he married in August 1912, and of which the sensitivity, the love of nature, as well as human qualities of simplicity, reserve and also of imagination, correspond to his. It is then named with the college of Chartres, then with the Louis-the-Large Lycée in Paris as professor of Khâgne, finally with the Polytechnic school where it will be titular pulpit of history and literature until 1958. Its teaching will thus mark all those which have had it as professor, Georges Pompidou in khâgne. Re-enlisted in 1939, it takes share with the terrible combat of the bridges of Orleans in May 1940, and its life is, during the occupation, shared between Lyon where then the Polytechnic school was, and Paris where is the family home. Its notes were published in 2002 pennies the title Of the " funny of guerre" with the Release of Paris (1939-1944) .

Literary works and Médiéval be

Always attracted by poetry, Paul Tuffrau present in 1926 at the Craftsman of the Book most beautiful poetries of Paul Verlaine . At the same time historian and critical literary, it publishes with Gustave Lanson the Manuel illustrated history of the French literature (1929), which will be a reference book for several generations, and, after the death of Lanson, it will supplement and alter, in 1953, the History of the French literature with the assistance, for the bibliography, of his son-in-law, Gilbert Cambon. He is the author of gold the Livre of the Polytechnic school (Collection " Visitors' books of the universities françaises" , published under the patronage of the minister of education main road and the ministry for the Armies, 1962).

Highly interested by the the Middle Ages, Paul Tuffrau renewed several medieval texts: the legend of William of Orange was the first of them, published in 1920 and crowned by the French Academy. About it, the medievist Emile Mâle writes to him: “To present the cycle of William of Orange (…) was certainly a beautiful company. You carried it out with a perfect taste. Your adaptation of a so pure language allured and will continue to allure the readers (…). By renovating for us these old masterpieces, you made a really noble work…” the legend of William of Orange succeeded in 1923 Alluviums of Marie de France , in 1924 Raoul de Cambrai , crowned by the French Academy, in 1925 the Marvellous Voyage of saint Brandan , in 1942 the Romance of Renart . And finally, this Garin Lorraine the of which it will not have never ceased thinking since 1916, will have attracted by its truth, its authenticity, its vitality and also its undeniable poetry, all things which it wanted to emphasize but that, too taken by its various activities, it will not have been able to realize at the time when it wished it, it will adapt it, but in the second part of its life, and he will not have time to publish it… All the art of Paul Tuffrau will have been to underline, in this last work as in the others, the beauty of the old text and to return the truth and the charm of it. Its publication will take place only after its death, in 1999.

The man

Writer, criticizes literary, historian, knowing to transmit his knowledge by his teaching which it continued all his life, with a great rigor and a great humanism, Paul Tuffrau will have been not only one man of letters to the direction full with the term, but also a man of a modesty not very common, allied to an extreme intelligence, a very field crop. He was surrounded by an affectionate respect on behalf of all those which knew it. Thus one of his/her colleagues with Polytechnique could it speak " light spread by its teaching on so many generations of élèves" , and chairs it Georges Pompidou wrote it on June 13rd, 1973: “I learned with much sadness death of my former Master Paul Tuffrau. I had on the occasion to be in connection with him well after my exit of khâgne, (…) I had had an excellent memory of his teaching on the professional level and the human plan” . Henriette Arasse, who belonged to the same promotion that Georges Pompidou, concluded the homage thus that it returned to him in 1974 in the directory of the former students of the National university: “We are still numerous, of its old khâgneux - that the life made us a professor, an academician, a poet, an ambassador or a president of the Republic - to have the memory of its youthful spontaneousness, its kindness, its intransigent clearness; to think of him with the nostalgia of our youth, certainly, but also with the respect which its essential refusal of any moral cowardice deserved, of any intellectual resignation, its refusal of all that is not authentic” .

Paul Tuffrau died on May 16th, 1973. He was commander of the Legion of honor.

Works

Notebook of a Combatant (Payot - published in 1917, under the pseudonym of lieutenant E.R.)
Our Days of glory (Books of the Fortnight, 1928)
the Great War (with the Alvine general) (Gauthier-Villars and Co, 1929)
Book of gold of the Polytechnic school (Collection " Visitors' books of the universities françaises" , Raymond Lacour editor, 1962)
1914-1918 - Four Years on the Face. Notebooks of a Combatant (Imago, 1998)
Of the " funny of guerre" with the Release of Paris (1939-1944) (Imago, 2002)
the legend of William of Orange (Piazza, 1920; Séguier, 1999)
Alluviums of Marie de France (Piazza, 1923)
Raoul de Cambrai (the Craftsman of the Book, 1924; Séguier, 1999)
the Marvellous Voyage of saint Brandan (the Craftsman of the Book, 1925)
the Romance of Renart (the Craftsman of the Book, 1942)
Garin Lorraine the (Séguier, 1999)
Anatcho (Atlantica, 1999)
most beautiful poetries of Paul Verlaine (the Craftsman of the Book, 1926)
Manual illustrated history of the French literature (with Gustave Lanson) (Hatchet, 1929)
Rehandling and complement over the period 1850-1950 of the History of the French literature of Gustave Lanson (Hatchet, 1953)

References

J. Schott. Paul Tuffrau (1887-1973) . Yellow and the Red, n° 285, p. 18 October 22nd, th and th 1973.
H. Arasse. Paul Tuffrau . Directory of the friendly Association of the former students of the National university, 1974, p. 48-53.

External bond

Andree Lavieille

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