Robert Delcourt

Robert Delcourt alias Franc-Borégne , is a writer and dramatic author Belgian, Walloon, born with Quaregnon on January 19th 1902 and dead on July 29th 1967 with Frameries.

Biography

“Robert Delcourt? Do not know! ” will say to you nowadays many Borains, many Quaregnonnais even. But speak to them about Franc-Borégne, and their attention will immediately be poked, if they are not the first youth.

Robert Delcourt was born from the union from Marie-Louise Bury and Jean-Baptiste Delcourt. Resulting from a modest family, her father is Bouveleur. It is named so much sometimes Jean-Baptiste “Fly” it is skilful with the shooting with the arc. In the mine, Jean-Baptiste will be victim of a collapse. Wounded to the head by wood of supporting of gallery, it will be transported at his place, but the wound is too serious. His/her Robert son will be marked by the death of a father still too young and will pass part of his life near his mother and his Jeanne-Marie-Louise sister.

Its teacher, Mr. Thierry, who inculcated in his pupils great values - tact, courtesy, the self-respect - impressed much. Besides he will write Escole of adults , in 1955, homage to his schoolmaster.

While becoming technician, Robert wanted to honor the memory with his father who wished that his/her son be able one day to see the sun throughout the day rather than to work hard in the stone-drifts of the mines of coal. As Robert will write it in his work Mestiers of pits : “Li (his/her father), which my moustré owes it that mégne eyé makes intrevî that through courâche and of volinté, pourrôs to vir el' sun you with the length of of joû. ” ( him, which showed the right way to me and makes foresee that through courage and of will, I will be able to see the sun throughout the day)

The man

Union on December 26th 1925 with his first wife Ester, will be born, on June 29th 1926 their son whom they will call of the same first name as his/her father: Robert. They will live happy in their house located Grand' road, 980 with Jemappes. This happiness will not last however. Ester was carried very young person by a disease too often fatal at the time: the turbeculose. Robert Delcourt will do all to save it, but the disease will be stronger.

It will meet later Germaine with which it fell in love. He will live in the house of Germaine located street Daneau, 232 with Quaregnon (currently Rue François André, 28).

November 15th 1934 was born their Christine daughter.

Franc-Borégne is technician and works in the offices of drawing to the Ateliers of Electrical engineering of Charleroi (A.C.E.C.). It is the weekend or after its day's works that he writes his parts. Its good mood, its spirit and its comic borain many time made laugh his/her fellow workers.

The war

During the secondary world war, whereas its repertory was prohibited by the German occupant, its parts will be played of multiple times. A receipt being equivalent to more than 19.900 € current was thus collected with the profit of the prisoners of war.

Franc-Borégne does not remain inactive and fact part of a group of resistant of Quévy-the-Small (grouping G). Its mission is to make forward American aviators. He is member of the sector B of the secret Armée.

The mom of Robert dies on May 9th 1947 with Mons.

In 1952, its health defective obliges it to take its retirement.

The writer

It is difficult to locate the beginning of its passion for the parts and the writings. It seems however that its first poems were written in 1921. Franc-Borégne became collaborator of the newspaper the Joker and of 1922, moment when it entered there, until in 1956, one could read his chronicles always full with humor.

Robert Delcourt wrote the first work which held the attention whereas it was 21 years old Contes with the foot of the spoil heap . And it chose the pseudonym of Franc-Borégne as soon as it had written this collection in prose where it evoked the old corners of Quaregnon of the time. This native soil, Robert Delcourt wanted to emphasize some its size, its sufferings very as much as its moments of joy. Franc-Borégne knew to analyze in its multiple writings the Coron S of Coal-mining, its workmen of Charbonnage. And it made it with all the more love that in its family, it was surrounded people having well-known Coal-mining and its Dialecte. From there to carry out Robert Delcourt to write in Picardy, there was only one step.

Very cultivated writer, Robert Delcourt was a been obstinated researcher, being interested with enthusiasm in the local dialects and in passed of Coal-mining. He brings a documentation of the old Picardy words to us, the exactitude of the folklore and his representation.

He writes poetries, prose, sometimes in French, sometimes into Picardy. Those which read it then require him to write a part. It is the birth of Victor el' coulonneux created in Quaregnon on October 3rd 1930. But another aspect of the life of Robert Delcourt was his devotion to works and in particular to the blind men. It is on a music of a blind type-setter, Pierre-Joseph Rousseau, that Franc-Borégne created the work Victor el' Coulonneux which obtained more the big hit and where the human spirit of the borain appeared.

Encouraged by the public, he writes a new part haunted Maison , in 1932. Other parts follow: El Régiment of Passage (1933), Sylvégne and Toria (1935), Torteyon with UNO and Gné of chance (1938), Es' onque" midday (1941), El Famye Firgenle (1948), El Mariage of Marinette (1950). The majority of the musical comedies will be played on the scenes of the area of Coal-mining by troops of the Tournées Franc-Borégne which it had founded in 1928.

Several of its parts are published in the Joker of which it was one of the collaborators. Throughout the distributions one finds: Lea Leg, Florian Wattiez, Emilia Daneau, Rosa David, Capiaux Octave, Raoul Urbain, Paul Hiolle, Alfred Piérard, Charles Gérin, German Ghislain, Géo Nazé at its beginnings of young actor…

In its writings, it was a species of dictionary of the past which it revived, recalling to its elder what they could not forget of the life of Coal-mining and its folklore, while informing young people of what they neither had lived nor known.

Its parts of dramatic author were also essential things to perpetuate, with others, its so rich native tongue of images and critical spirit. He wanted that the Picardy one survives greedily and that he is not regarded as a coarse language or debased French. He thought that the Picardy speech, language of our so valorous fathers, to which French is connected, did not have anything of reducing.

Whatever its writings, they are concise and percussion, one finds there the humorist, the critic and the critic good child.

Franc-Borégne created in 1961 the review Walloon Ground with Roland Delattre, brother of the founder of the Farceur (Leon Delattre). This review is currently recognized in the Walloon literary circles, like a pure source of the dialectal spirit of the west of Hainaut.

Of a very fertile nature, it knew as no one other to crunch the life of its fellow-citizens quaregnonais the Thirties at the Sixties. In Borain truth, hard, honest and generous, it knew to draw the topics of its works in its native soil. He wrote more than sixty works of which collections of tales, poetries, operettas as well as many precis and articles. Its writings are crunched on the sharp one, they are sometimes sour, but always true.

Death

Suffering from diabetes, it dies out with the private clinic of Frameries on October 4th 1967. At the time of its funeral celebrated in the parish church of Saint-Quentin with Quaregnon, homage was paid to him for its preoccupation of literary perfection and a morality.

Works

Victor coulonneux el. Musical comedy wallone in three acts (with P. - J. Rousseau), L. Delattre-Moreau, Boussu, 1932

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