Jean-Henri Fabre in Avignon (84)

'RUE

JEAN-HENRI FABRE

"L'HOMÈRE DES INSECTES"

1823–1915

Carriero Jan-Enri Fabre'

'The Homer of insects'? Now there's an interesting expression.

'LE 23 DÉCEMBRE 1925

LA VILLE D'AVIGNON

A CÉLÉBRÉ

LE CENTENAIRE

DE J. H. FABRE

L'ILLUSTRE NATURALISTE

FÉLIBRE MAJORAL

(1825–1915)

-----------

DANS CET ÉDIFICE

IL FUT ÉLÈVE-MAÎTRE

À L'ÉCOLE NORMALE

D'INSTITUTEURS (1840–42).

PROFESSEUR AU LYCÉE

(1853–1872)

IL DONNA ICI

DES COURS PUBLICS DE SCIENCES

ORGANISA LE MUSEUM REQUIEN

FIT SES DÉCOUVERTES

DE CHIMIE INDUSTRIELLE

ET REÇUT LA VISITE

DE VICTOR DURUY

STUART-MILL PASTEUR

This strangely unpunctuated plaque translates as 'On 23 December 1925 the town of Avignon celebrated the centenary of J. H. Fabre, the illustrious naturalist and Félibre majoral (1825–1915). In this building he was student teacher in the École Normale d'Instituteurs (1840–42). A teacher at the lycée (1853–1872), he gave public lessons in science, organised the Museum Requien, made discoveries in industrial chemistry and received visits Victor Duruy, Stuart Mill, [and] Pasteur.'

Joseph d'Arbaud in Avignon (84)

Joseph d'Arbaud (Jóusè d'Arbaud in Mistral's Provençal terminology) was born in Meyrargues in 1874 and died in Aix-en-Provence in 1950, was a provençal poet and a félibre. He is perhaps best known for his novel La Bête du Vaccarès, and his mother Marie d'Arbaud (or Azalaïs d'Arbaud) was also a writer and a félibresse. His muse was Marguerite de Baroncelli-Javon, queen of the Félibrige from 1906 to 1913 under Frédéric Mistral, and who in 1914 married the post-impressionist painter Georges Dufrénoy.

Joseph d'Arbaud studied at Saint Joseph's college in Avignon from 1884 to 1892.

Bellaud de la Bellaudière in Avignon (84)

The name of this street in Avignon introduced me to a writer I'd never heard of: Louis Bellaud, or Bellaud de la Bellaudière, who was a Provençal poet born in Grasse in 1543, where he died in 1588. He joined the war against the Spanish in 1572, although conditions changed and on his return France was at civil war: he was imprisoned for nineteen months, during which he wrote his first collection of sonnets, 'Obros et Rimos'. His other works include 'Don-Don Infernal', inspired by Clément Marot, and a second collection of sonnets: 'Lous Passatens'.

Justine Favart in Avignon (84)

'RUE

FAVART

ACTRICE ET AUTEUR DRAMATIQUE

1727–1772

Carriero Favart'

Justine Favart was born Marie Justine Benoîte Duronceray (in Avignon) and began her professional  life as Mlle Chantilly. She was the wife of Charles-Simon Favart and the mother of Charles-Nicolas Favart. Works that have reputedly been exclusively written by her are: Les amours de Bastien et Bastienne, parodie du Devin de village (1753), La feste d’amour, ou Lucas et Colinette, petite pièce en vers et en un acte (1754), Les encorcelés, ou Jeannot et Jeannette, parodie des Surprises de l’amour (1757), La fille mal gardée, ou Le pédant amoureux, parodie de la Provençale (1758), La fortune au village, parodie d’Églée (1760) and Annette et Lubin, comédie en un acte et en vers (1762).

Agricol Perdiguier in Avignon (84)

The writer and politician Agricol Perdiguier (1805–75) has his own square in Avignon, and this monument to him is in that square, along with those of Théophile Aubanel and Joseph Roumanille already shown below. He grew up speaking Provençal as opposed to the national language, had little schooling and was essentially self-taught. His father was a carpenter, a trade which Agricol would later take up. There is another, much more modern and rather eccentric, monument to him in Morières-lès-Avignon (84), which I shall be posting in due course.

Perdiguier's father was a captain of the Republicain army who had to flee on the Restoration. Agricol, at the age of ten, was considered a Bonapartist and was hit violently and dragged through the streets and through streams: the experience would have a lasting impression on him.

In 1824 he made the Tour de France, which was a kind of apprenticeship in which the trainee made a tour of a number of different locations in the country, and which Agricol finished in 1828. He was made a compagnon (a kind of member of a workers' brotherhood) in 1827 in Chartres, and returned to Morières in August 1828. He wrote a number of books, chiefly songs, works on the Compagnonnage, and politics, but also poetry and a theatrical work.

'HOMMAGE À AGRICOL PERDIGUIER

1875 – 1975

FEDERATION COMPAGNONNIQUE

UNION COMAGNONNIQUE

RÉUNIES'

'30 juillet 2005

Cérémonie commémorative du bicentenaire de la naissance d'Agricol Perdiguier

dit Avignonnais-le-Vertu [...], menuisier du Devoir de Liberté et

homme politique, élu représantative du peuple en 1848.'

Links to my other Agricol Periguier posts:

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Agricol Perdiguier in Morières-lès-Avignon
Agricol Perdiguier in cimetière du Père-Lachaise

Joseph Roumanille in Avignon (84)

And another monument to the Provençal poet Joseph Roumanille, but this time in Avignon. Roumanille taught at the collège Dupuy there and Frédéric Mistral was one of his pupils. Under the bust is engraved 'LI SOUNJARELLO', a book he published in Avignon in 1852 and translates as 'The Women Dreamers'.

Théodore Aubanel in Avignon (84)

'THÉODORE AUBANEL

POÈTE PROVENÇAL

1829 – 1886'

We missed Théodore Aubanel's grave in the Cimetière de St-Véran (it didn't seem to be in the division where it should have been), missed his house in the Square St Pierre, but here is his bust in the Square Agricol Periquier (about whom more later).

Petrarch in Avignon (84)

'Histoire de la Cité

Couvent de Sainte-Claire

––––––––––––––––––––––––

"Laure,... longtemps, célébrée dans mes vers, est apparue

pour la première fois à mes yeux, au temps de mon

adolescence, en l'an de grâce 1327, le 6 avril, en l'église

Sainte-Claire d'Avignon". C'est ainsi que le célèbre poète

et humaniste François Pétrarque immortalise le couvent

créé en 1239 par les religieuses de Sainte-Claire, un

des plus anciens de la ville. Reconstruit au XIVe

siècle, il est saccagé à la Révolution, puis vendu com-

me bien national et morcelé in plusieurs propriétés.

En 1987, sensibilisée à la dégradation

de ce lieu de mémoire, la ville fait

procéder au dégagement des ves-

iges et à la réhabilitation du

site. De l'église, il ne reste que

quelques chapelles latérales

et l'abside. Un petit jardin

marque l'emplacemenet

du cloître. L'espace

est en partie affe-

té au Théâtre

des Halles.'

'History of the City: Sainte-Claire's Convent. "Laura ... a long time ago celebrated in my verses, appeared before my eyes for the first time, during my adolescence, in the year of grace 1327, on 6 April, in the church of Sainte-Claire in Avignon". Thus the famous poet and humanist Francesco Petrarch immortalised the convent created in 1239 by the nuns of  Sainte-Claire, one of the oldest [churches] in the town. Reconstructed in the 14th century, it was pillaged during the Revolution, then sold as national property and divided into several lots. In 1987, stirred into awareness of how this important place was being neglected, the town set about preserving the remains of this site. Of the church, there only remain a few side chapels and the apse. A small garden marks the site of the cloister. The space has in part been included in the Théâtre des Halles.'

The plaque near the church door of course more or less says the same as above, only in a much shorter version.

Frédéric Mistral in Avignon (84)

This is one bust I didn't know about: Frédéric Mistral's in the Place de l'Horloge in the centre of Avignon. While studying at the Collège royal in Avignon, Mistral first stayed at the pensionnat Millet and then the pensionnat Dupuy. It was in 1845 that he met Joseph Roumanille.

My Frédéric Mistral posts:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Frédéric Mistral at Le Mas du Juge, Maillane
Frédéric Mistral: Mireille
Frédéric Mistral in Maillane
Le Pavillon de la Reine Jeanne, Les Baux-de-Provence
Frédéric Mistral in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, Bouches-du-Rhône
Frédéric Mistral in Saint-Giniez, Marseille
Frédéric Mistral, Marseille
Frédéric Mistral in Avignon
Frédéric Mistral in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
Frédéric Mistral in Grambois

Frédéric Mistral in Saint-Michel-l'Obsevatoire
Frédéric Mistral in Pertuis

John Stuart Mill's Grave in Avignon (84)

The philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) died in Avignon of erysipelas, and was buried in St-Véran cemetery with his wife.

A number of other writers are buried here, such as Pierre Boulle (Bridge over the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes), and the prominent Provençal poet Théodore Aubanel. But a clear sign at the entrance says no photography. That's in a public cemetery, and out of the (literally) hundreds of cemeteries I've previously visited (throughout the States, France, the UK, etc) I have never come across such an interdiction. How can it be possible to impose this, and what possible reason can there be for it? Needless to say, the above images come from an anonymous private source whose location I wouldn't reveal even under threat of torture.