Émile Pignot: Père Lachaise Columbarium #13

'LE POÈTE
ÉMILE-PIGNOT
REPOSE ICI
1887 – 1926

 

LES TOMBES DES POÈTES
ONT DES CLARTÉS...E-P
DEVANT L'ÉTERNITÉ LE POÈTE RESTE
                                                           JOSELIA'

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but at the moment I can find out virtually nothing about Émile Pignot, other than that he was also a novelist and a playwright. Joselia (mentioned above) illustrated at least one of the books he wrote (Humanité), and he must at the beginning of the century have been relatively popular judging by the number of his books for sale, but he's now pretty much forgotten. He gave talks as well, and at least one of those was published. The pacifist Victor Margueritte prefaced one of his (poetry?) books (Les Chants d'airain), and Paul Brulat prefaced another (Sommes-nous une race maudite? ('Are We a Damned Race?')). I love this title: Le Lendemain du grand soir: effroyable et prophétique descente aux enfers (The Day After the Big Day: Horrifying and Prophetic Descent into Hell). I'll have to poke around some more: this looks weird stuff.