Raoul Dautry in Lourmarin (84)

The Dautry grave in Lourmarin includes Raoul Dautry (1880-1951), who began his career with La Compagnie du Chemins de fer du Nord. During the Occupation he retreated to his property to Lourmarin, where he became mayor between 1945 and 1951. Dautry masterminded the cite-jardin in Tergnier in the Nord, although from the little I've read about him his interests seem to tend towards a kind of Taylorism: maximum efficiency for the maximum profit. He wrote Métier d'Homme (1937), which is prefaced by Paul Valéry.

Robert Laurent-Vibert, Lourmarin, Vaucluse (84)

Rich heir, former industrialist and historian Robert Laurent-Vibert (1884–1925) settled in Lourmarin in 1920, where he acquired its delapidated castle and set about having it restored. Years before, after his studies at the ENS, he visited Rome and, impressed by the Villa Médicis, was inspired enough to think of the existence of a 'Petite Villa Médicis de Provence' which would welcome creative boarders in the summer. In 1923 he willed the Château de Lourmarin and his collections to the Académie des Sciences, Agriculture, Art et Belles Lettres d’Aix-en-Provence. He died in a car crash in 1925, and the Fondation de Lourmarin Robert Laurent-Vibert was created. Laurent-Vibert's publications include Les Affaires et la pensée (1921); Le sophisme de la compétence (1922); Voyages, routiers, pèlerins et corsaires aux Échelles du Levant (1923); L'Orient en mai 1923 (1923); Ce que j'ai vu en Orient : Mésopotamie, Palestine, Syrie, Égypte, Turquie, notes de voyage, 1923-1924 (1924).

Anne-Marie Chapouton in Lourmarin

A writer of short stories, poems and novels (notably L'Année du Mistouflon), Ann-Marie Chapouton (1934–2000) created a library in Lourmarin as well as numerous cultural activities for children.

Didier Brousse in Lourmarin

The watercolourist Didier Brousse's galerie. Outside is a printed comment by Monique Pujo Monfran, stating that Didier Brousse has written several biographies of artists, including three on Blanche Odin. Montfran concludes by revealing that she is writing a biography of Didier Brousse, whom she calls a 'watercolourist of genius'.

Albert Camus in Lourmarin, including Lourmarin Cemetery #3

A view of Lourmarin from near the cemetery where Albert Camus is buried.

The Rue Albert Camus is in the centre of  the village.

Camus's house, bought on the proceeds of his Nobel prize, although he died a mere one year and two months afterwards in a car crash in Villeblevin in Michel Gallimard's flash (and as it happened, dangerous) Facel-Vega: the creation of Jean Daninos, the writer Pierre's brother. Camus's daughter Catherine lives here and has apparently been plagued by enthusiasts.

The Café de l'Ormeau, where Camus used to drink.

Next door is the Ollier hôtel-restaurant, where Camus used to eat, and in fact where he ate with his wife Francine and Michel Gallimard on 2 January 1960, the day before Gallimard and Albert Camus died.

The plaque translates as 'The author of "The Plague" settled in Lourmarin in 1958. He has lain here since 1960.

The graves of Albert Camus and his wife Francine in the cemetery in Lourmarin.

'ALBERT CAMUS

1913 – 1960'

'MADAME

ALBERT CAMUS

NÉE

FRANCINE FAURE

1914 – 1979'

My Albert Camus posts:
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Michel Onfray: L'Ordre libertaire
Albert Camus in Lourmarin

Lourmarin Cemetery #2: Henri Bosco

Appropriately, the cemetery in which the writer Henri Bosco is buried is just off Avenue Henri Bosco. And interestingly, this road sign (complete with the author's dates) seems more like a memorial.

But this of course is Henri Bosco's real memorial, the cross now covered in shell and stone tributes, which I found interesting for an author who (dare I say it) is not the person who is the main attraction in  the cemetery.

'HENRI

BOSCO

1888 – 1976'

The Greek inscriptions above Bosco's tomb.

Lourmarin Cemetery #1: Christian Gabriel/le Guez Ricord

I hadn't heard of the poet Christian Gabriel/le Guez Ricord,, and would still be ignorant of his existence if it hadn't been for an inked in addition near the cemetery entrance indicating the existence of his grave here: to clarify, Ricord used 'Gabriel' in both the male and the female forms. Struck by voices and visions, he was hospitalised on several occasions, and wrote Du  Fou au Bateleur in collaboration with the psychiatrist Jean-Pierre Coudray. Guez Ricord, as the  French Wikipédia entry suggests, was something of a fin de siècle poète maudit, born in Marseille, where he died. The poet Bernar Mialet was his executor. Ricord's a kind of cross between Gérard de Nerval and Antonin Artaud. I have at present no way of verifying this, and although I treat anything from Wikipedia with great caution, the scholarly Le Matricule des anges revue does mention the strong influence of Nerval on him.