Jump to content

Louis-Gabriel-Charles Vicaire

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marble bust of Vicaire in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, by Jean Antoine Injalbert

Louis Gabriel Charles Vicaire (January 25, 1848 – September 23, 1900) was a French poet.

Life

[edit]

Vicaire was born at Belfort. He served in the campaign of 1870, and then settled in Paris to practise at the bar, which, however, he soon abandoned for literature.[1]

His work was twice "crowned" by the Académie française, and in 1892 he received the cross of the Legion of Honour. Born in the Vosges, and a Parisian by adoption, Vicaire remained all his life an enthusiastic lover of the country to which his family belonged (in Bresse), spending much of his time at Ambérieu-en-Bugey. His freshest and best work is his Emaux bressans (1884), a volume of poems full of the gaiety and spirit of the old French chansons. Other volumes followed: Le Livre de la patrie, L'Heure enchantée (1890), A la bonne franquette (1892), Au bois joli (1894) and Le Clos des fées (1897).[1]

Vicaire wrote in collaboration with Jules Truffier two short pieces for the stage, Fleurs d'avril (1890) and La Farce du marl refondu (1895); also the Miracle de Saint Nicolas (1888). With his friend Henri Beauclair he produced a parody of the Decadents entitled Les Deliquescences and signed Adoré Floupette. His fame rests on his Emaux bressans and on his Rabelaisian drinking songs; the religious and fairy poems, charming as they often are, carry simplicity to the verge of affectation. Vicaire died in Paris, after a long and painful illness, on 23 September 1900.[1]

References

[edit]
Attriburion
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainChisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vicaire, Louis Gabriel Charles". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
[edit]