Alphonse Daudet in the aire de Montélimar

In the aire de Montélimar, I was surprised to see displays of Alphonse Daudet (1840-97), who was born in Nîmes and was maître d'etudes in Alès, an experience he semi-autobiographically wrote of in Le petit chose, one of his most famous works. Here, his most famous other works, Lettres de mon moulin and Tartarin de Tarascon, are highlighted:

Alphonse Daudet in the 8th arrondissement, Paris (75)

Alphonse Daudet (1840–97) by René de Saint-Marceaux (1845–1915) in Le Jardin des ambassadeurs. He needs no description here, as his name appears a number of times in this blog, particularly in relation to Provence.

Batisto Bonnet in Bellegarde, Gard (30)

Batisto Bonnet (1844–1925) was a Provençal writer born in Bellegarde in 1844 who died in Nîmes in 1925. Alphonse Daudet translated some of his work into French, such as Vie d'enfant.

10 rue du château, Bellegarde, where Batisto Bonnet was born.

Batisto Bonnet's grave in the cemetery outside Bellegarde village, which mentions his Félibrige name 'Brisquimi', and that of his dog Barbason. It also mentions that he is the co-founder of the félibrige de Paris.

Fittingly, there is also a street in Bellegarde named after Alphonse Daudet.

Yvan Audouard: Lettres de mon pigeonnier (1991)

The parents of Yvan Audouard (1914–2004) were born in Provence, although he was born in Saigon (his father being a lieutenant) but spent much of his childhood in Arles and Nîmes. After World War II Yvan worked in Paris for Le Canard enchaîné for about thirty years. He wrote over eighty books, dating from 1946 to 2007, many of which were simply for amusement. Provence was always in his heart, particularly in Alphonse Daudet's Fontvieille, and of course the title (lit. 'Letters from My Dovecote') is a play on Daudet's very well-known Lettres de mon moulin (1869) (Letters from My Windmill), which even receives a mention in D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers.

The writer narrator spends half of each year In Fontvieille, and this is a celebration of Provence and its secrets. It's also a celebration of mystery, of the supernatural, and here he lives with his family, including his female cat Madelon and his pet magpire Gina.

Very strange things happen here, such as the steeple cock on the dovecote speaking and  moving to greet other steeple cocks. Then there are the santons of Grambois (north of Pertuis), the statues speaking, the dove Magali turning into stone, and the narrator's cat Madelon and pet magpie Gina (very troublesome creatures) helping and talking to the narrator so much, as if they were human. 

Even stones speak in this book, although meals never seem to be vegetarian: surely something wrong with the logic here?

Ivan Audouard lies in Fontvieille cemetery:

Paul Arène in Sisteron, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (04)

An interpretation plaque in Sisteron, where Paul Arène was born, states among other things that he left Sisteron to study Philosophy in Marseilles. He wrote short stories and Pierrot héritier, a play successfully performed in 1865 in Paris. The plaque also mentions his role in writing Alphonse Daudet's Lettres de mon moulin, and his enthusiasm with Frédéric Mistral for the Félibige. He shared his time between Paris and Sisteron. He wrote numerous works that have a strong flavour of Provence, and his most famous novels are Domnine and Jean des Figues. His health failing, he spent his winters in Antibes with his sister Isabelle, where he died exhausted on 17 December 1896. His body was returned to Sisteron.

'Tombe de

Paul ARÈNE

Romancier, Conteur et Poète'

'ICI REPOSE

AUPRÈS DE SON PÈRE

ADOLPHE ET DE SA MÈRE

MARIE LOUISE REINE

NÉE LAGRANGE

LE POÈTE ET ÉCRIVAIN

PAUL ARÈNE

NÉ A SISTERON 1843

DÉCÉDÉ À ANTIBES 1896'

Friends and admirers of Paul Arène erected this bust in the town the year after his death.

And it's good to see that his name is not forgotten: this memorial was erected opposite the bust in 1993. But how many people visiting the Citadelle go and see his tomb across the road?

Alphonse Daudet, 7e arrondissement

41 rue de l'Université.

'ALPHONSE DAUDET,

NÉ À NÎIMES LE 13 MAI 1840,

EST MORT DANS CETTE MAISON

LE 16 DÉCEMBRE 1897'

Alphonse Daudet, 7e arrondissement, Paris

'ALPHONSE DAUDET,

NÉ À NÎMES LE 13 MAI 1840,

EST MORT DANS CETTE MAISON

LE 16 DÉCEMBRE 1897'

41 rue de l'Université, the place of Daudet's death. My blog post on Daudet in Provence is here. And Daudet's tomb in Père-Lachaise is below:

Alphonse Daudet in Fontvieille (13) again

'Le Mas de l'Arlésienne', with attached restaurant. Well...  Mas is a local word for a farm and house, and' L'Arlésienne' is a fictional character  in Daudet's Lettres de mon moulin (Lettres from my Windmill) based on a true story Frédéric Mistral told him about a nephew of his. A different theatrical version of the story exists.

Daudet is so big in little Fontvieille that even the church milks his work, and a plaque mentions the fact that the first version of his 'Le secret de Maître Cornille' (also in Lettres de mon moulin) speaks of the revolutionary and anti-clerical Jean Coste, but that in the 'definitive text' the church is the centre of social life.

My other Alphonse Daudet posts:

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Alphonse Daudet in Fontvieille (13)
Alphonse Daudet and Tartarin de Tarascon in Tarascon (13)
Alphonse Daudet: Tartarin de Tarascon (1872)

Alphonse Daudet and Tartarin de Tarascon in Tarascon (13)

The hilarious bumbling braggart who professes to be a bold hunter of lions, but who hasn't so much as walked over the town bridge to neighboring Beaucaire until forced into an uncomfortable spot and show how, er, great he is. A brilliant sculpture of him standing on a dead lion.

And under the statue, a representation of Alphonse Daudet smiling as he writes:

'Cet homme, c'était Tartarin de Tarascon, l'intrépide, le grand, l'incomparable Tartarin de Tarascon.
En France, tout le monde est un peu de Tarason.'

'This man was Tartarin de Tarascon, the bold, the great, the incomparable Tartarin de Tarascon.

In France, everyone has a little of Tarascon in them.'

My other Alphonse Daudet posts:

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Alphonse Daudet in Fontvieille (13)
Alphonse Daudet: Tartarin de Tarascon (1872)
Alphonse Daudet in Fontvieille (13) again

Alphonse Daudet in Fontvieille (13)

Alphonse Daudet (1840 –97) is undoubtedly noted in the popular imagination for his book Lettres de mon moulin, a collection of short stories still taught in French schools and translated into many languages: the English edition is simply Letters from My Windmill. D. H. Lawrence read it, I believe in the original French.

In his book, Daudet claims (inventively) that he bought one of the four windmills in Fontvieille. Well, he didn't, and in fact Daudet was more associated with one of the other mills. Needless to say, Daudet never (as is popularly believed) lived in any of them. But the myth that this windmill belonged to Daudet persists, so there it is. That Daudet is associated with a windmill in Fontvieille is apt because he used to visit the millers while staying at the Château de Montauban, which wasn't really a castle but a farmhouse with a highly elaborate façade.

The windmill that is now called Daudet's ceased to function in 1915 and became 'Le Moulin de Daudet' in 1935 on the initiative of Les Amis de Daudet, amongst whom was the local artist Léo Lelée, who made a number of drawings of the place, including the workings of the mill.

On the side of the mill:

'CE COIN DE ROCHE QUI M'ÉTAIT

UN PATRIE ET DONT ON

RETROUVE LA TRÂCE – ÊTRES

OU ENDROITS – DANS PRESQUE

TOUS MES LIVRES

               
ALPHONSE DAUDET'

'This rocky corner which was my a fatherland for me and of which can be found traces – people or places – in virtually all my books'.

The windmill has just one upper floor.

The millstones: originals or from elsewhere? I forgot to ask.

The winds are listed around the mill.

But I rather like this drawing of the 32 winds of Provence.

The stuffed owl is a good touch: in Lettres de mon moulin, Daudet mentions his feathered 'tenant'.

Moulin Tissot now has new cap and sails. This is the closest of the mills to Montauban, and Daudet spent far more time here than at any of the others, even having an idea of buying it. Tropime Avon, well known to Daudet, was the last miller here, and the mill closed in 1905.

Daudet's Ambroy cousins, particularly Timoléon, used to welcome Daudet when he'd had enough of Paris and wanted fresh inspiration.

'MONTAUBAN

---------

MAISON BÉNIE ! QUE DE FOIS

JE SUIS VENU LÀ, ME REPRENDRE

À LA NATURE, ME GUÉRIR

DE PARIS, ET DE SES FIÈVRES

                                   A. DAUDET'

'Montauban. Blessed house! So many times I have come there, to get back to nature, to cure myself of Paris and its fevers.'

A bust of Daudet occupies a central position in the village.

And this bust of Daudet is currently on display at the Fontvieille Office de Tourisme.

Alphonse Daudet: Tartarin de Tarascon (1872)

Tartarin de Tarascon is one of Alphonse Daudet's delightful mock-heroic novels – which even delighted Flaubert – about a small, fat man with a super-large ego: he portrays himself as an adventurer, a lion-killer, a first-rate hero. Problem: he lives in the small town of Tarascon in Provence, and has never dared to even venture across the small bridge that separates Tarascon from Beaucaire (although I did so some time ago and obviously lived to tell the tale). He wears exotic clothes, has fearsome exotic weapons on his walls, cultivates exotic plants, and yet doesn't fulfil exotic expectations.

Reading, certainly, is part of the problem, and just think of the unfortunate fate of Emma Bovary. But the kind of fiction Tartarin is reading is adventure material by the likes of Fenimore Cooper and Gustave Aimard. Don Quixote (ah, windmills!) was another one whose head was skewed by books, and interestingly enough the narrator of Tartarin de Tarascon sees Tartarin in a similar light to him, but also likens him to Quixote's servant Sancho Panza. So both the would-be (but ridiculous) knight gallant Quixote and the careful (even pragmatically cowardly) Panza figures in Cervantes's novel co-exist in the same person: one pushes forward, the other pulls back.

Evidently the Panza side has triumphed up to now, but the all-important matter of what the tarasconnais think of the apparent hero is vital and Tartarin's credibility as a hero is wearing laughably thin, so he is forced into action by setting off with many weapons and much ammunition to, er, Algeria. Where he is of course taken for a number of rides.

Inevitably, Tartarin learns that Algeria is far from lion territory, and although he falls in love with, indeed gets together with Baïa, he is still risking his reputation in Tarascon, so he determines to hunt these elusive lions. Unfortunately the only one he encounters is a prized blind one, which (financially) costs him dearly, although he sends the skin back to Tarascon and returns (accompanied by a devoted camel) to great acclaim. A tall story about a short man? Yes of course, but it's irresistible.

My other Alphonse Daudet posts:

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Alphonse Daudet in Fontvieille (13)
Alphonse Daudet in Fontvieille (13) again
Alphonse Daudet and Tartarin de Tarascon in Tarascon (13)