Pierre-Jean de Béranger

Pierre-Jean de Béranger born the August 19th 1780 with Paris, of Jean-François Béranger de Mersix and Champy Marijuana and died in this same city the July 16th 1857 is a Chansonnier French.

First years

Pâlot and weak, it is sent only tardily to the school where it does not feel at ease. Its truths teachers and teachers are the Champy grandparents. Sometimes one leads it in his mother who, liking the theater, the balls, the outings in the country, takes it along with it.

Beginning 1789, after having run the roads, Béranger de Mersix is fixed again at Paris and makes enter his/her son like boarder at the Chantereau abbot. His/her father was a business man, burning royalist, which compromised during the French revolution and which was obliged to hide. He meets then Charles-Simon Favart, founder of the Op3era Comique. In spite of its 79 years, this one still carries with pride the title of “ chansonnier of the army ” which had given him the marshal of Saxony. Later, Béranger will see in this attraction the mark of its vocation.

Mow to pay the price of the pension, his/her father decides to send it in his aunt who holds an inn with Péronne. The state of boy of inn does not agree to him and it passes in a notary become Justice of the Peace. Scientist, enthusiastic disciple of Rousseau and passionately teacher, Mr. de Ballue de Bellenglise recruits the kids of Fibula that it endoctrine in a free elementary school the patriotic Institut . He works to make this youth of the citizens useful for the fatherland. After rhetoric “ rousseauist ” and revolutionist, the recruits entonnent republican songs. Never Pierre-Jean felt also deeply the power of the song. He drew some instructions there, but without initiating itself with the old languages. To supplement its education, it enters at 14 years as apprentice at the Laisney printer where it manages to be initiated with poetry. The nostalgia of its stay with Péronne will inspire in Béranger " Memories of childhood "

Of return to Paris in 1795, Pierre-Jean, to be made in his/her father, who made bank then, immediately makes the training of pawnbroker. His/her father rests on him to make thrive his business whereas it prepares the return of the king, but the house goes bankrupt. With the remains of its fortune, it buys a reading room. Pierre-Jean finds an attic on the sixth floor. He spends the hours to the reading room and, ghost with his former vocation, aligns rhymes, glorifie of sound better the love, the women, the wine, tests himself with the Satire… He delivers himself to poetry, testing himself successively in the epopee, the idylle, the panegyric, the comedy, and only stuck rather late to the kind which owed the immortaliser. The evening, it goes up in its attic: The Attic.

After having read Léonard and Gessner, it tries to compose of the Idylle S and one succeeds about it, “Glycère”, which appears in “the Seasons of the Parnassus”. Afterwards, it is the great poem which attracts it and it outlines a “Clovis”, then it is the satirical comedy. Its taste is not very sure yet and it misses the models. In the apartments of Doctor Mellet to Montmartre, an academy of song is based where Pierre-Jean, according to the vein of the 18th century, develops his gifts and tests his MUSE. His/her friend Wilhem (1782-) adapts his airs (like " good-byes of Marie Stuart") on its lovesongs dolentes.

Running Paris in the search of a “guard”, he addresses in 1804 to Lucien Bonaparte. It joint with its letter some five hundred worms, of which the Flood. Bonaparte gives him procuration to touch its treatment of member of the Institut. In 1809, on the recommendations of Arnault, it was attached like expeditionary to the offices of the University. While discharging its work of copyist, it made the merry ones and prickly songs. With the beginning of the year 1810, it is already famous in Péronne. Is invited it to chair banquets and to brighten the dessert by his songs. It finds a strong, free vein insipidities of the mode, thus the song " Gueux" , inspired by a Bohemian refrain of the 17th century.

Vault with the people

End 1805, old the Vault ressuscite. the Key of the Vault is published each year. This collection of songs and airs allows Béranger (entered to the modern Caveau fine 1813, Désaugiers and their friends to make known their songs with the people, but copies circulate already, and Béranger is known for the Senator , the Small gray Man , and especially the King d' Yvetot . In November 1815, Béranger ventures the publication of some airs: the Songs morals and others . Success gives him insurance and it gives an opinion in the Libéralisme.

After the return of the king Louis XVIII in 1815, Béranger will exploit the topics of the respect of freedom, of the hatred of the Ancien Mode, clerical supremacy , the memory of last glories and the hope of a revenge. Whereas the press is not free, it renews the song of which it makes a political weapon, an instrument of propaganda: it attacks the Restauration and celebrates glories of the Republic and the Empire. It is the time of the white Rosette and the Marquis de Carabas . Béranger brings the poetry which those need which deserted the royal cause. The circle of its friendships widens and one sees it in many living rooms. It agrees to collaborate in “Minerve” with Etienne de Jouy, Charles-Guillaume Etienne and Benjamin Constant.

In 1820, the Old Flag is clandestinely widespread in the barracks. Béranger becomes really the voice of the people or “the man-nation” as Lamartine will say it. Its work of poet lampoonist is already considerable: it attacked the magistrates in the Judge of Charenton , the deputies in Corpulent the , the priests and the Jesuits everywhere. Its songs appear in two volumes the October 25th 1821. In eight days, the ten thousand specimens are sold and the printer Firmin Didot prepares a new edition.

It was in 1821 private of its modest employment, continued and condemned to 3 months of prison and 500 francs of fine; in 1828, it is lived to condemn again, but this time in 9 months of prison and 10.000 francs of fine. These judgments did nothing but make its name more popular; the fine was discharged by subscription. After the revolution of 1830, it covered especially philosophical and humane subjects. Jealous of its independence, he did not want to accept any use of the Monarchie of July and, in 1848, elected representing of the people, he refused to sit. As beneficial as satisfied, it the USA of its credit only to render service. He died poor: the imperial government made the expenses of its funeral.

After begin with songs bacchic S and licentious which would have left it confused in crowd, it could create a kind with share: it raised the song with the height of the ode. In the parts where it covers patriotic or philosophical subjects, it can generally link with the nobility of the feelings, the harmony of the rate/rhythm, the boldness of the figures, the promptness and the interest of the drama.

One can find:

the Holy Alliance of the people ;
the Old flag ;
the old sergeant ;
Children of France ;
the Storm ;
on May Five ;
Memories of the People ;
the Field of Asylum ;
Good-byes with glory ;
God of the good people;
the Good Old man ;
the Swallows ;
the Four ages ;
the Flood .

Béranger had published its first collection in 1815 under the malicious title of Chansons morals and others ; it published three new in 1821, 1825 and 1833. This last which appeared under the title of new Chansons and last , is dedicated to Lucien Bonaparte, for whom it had preserved a sharp recognition.

It left a hundred new songs, which form a kind of romancero Napoleonean, its clean Biographie and a Correspondance .

A recognized man

The very many ones and great figures of the XIXe century paid homage to Béranger of alive sound.

Chateaubriant: “One of the largest poets than France ever produced”
Goethe: “Béranger is the beneficial genius of the century”
Holy-Beuve: “It is a poet of pure race, splendid and unhoped-for”
Béranger is very appreciated also great number of doctors and scientists. He writes about his friend the doctor Pierre Bretonneau: It is a scientist of a perfect modesty and a not very common satisfying in the capital. He is moreover man of spirit and extreme kindness. You see that if I die here, it will not be in the hands of a barber of village…
Eugene Sue quotes a whole stanza of its song " God of good the gens" in its serialized story " The Jew errant" (XIIe left, chapter 3). Without quoting it Sue evokes " this verse of immortal the chansonnier".

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