Jean-Pierre Brisset

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Jean-Pierre Brisset (La Sauvagère, Orne 1837 – La Ferté-Macé, Orne 1919) was a French writer born of peasant farmers.

He was an outsider writer, much like Henri Rousseau was an outsider artist. His writings are in publication as of 2004. He is a saint on the 'Pataphysics calendar.

Brisset was an autodidact: as a boy, he learned pastry baking. He served in the army, and became head of the railway station of Angers, and later of l'Aigle. After publishing a book on swimming, and one on French, he undertakes his major philosophical work: to spread his theory that Man's origins are in the water, and that Man descends from Frogs. He finds ample proofs in comparing French and frog language (like "logement"= dwelling, comes from "l'eau" = water). Very serious about his morosophy, he writes several books and pamphlets expounding his irrefutable proofs, and has them 'printed and distributed on his own expenses.

In 1912, the writer Jules Romains obtains a copy of "God's Mystery" and "The Human Origins". With some accomplices, he organises a rigged election of a « Prince of Thinkers», and Brisset gets elected. Brisset is called to Paris by the Election Committee in 1913, where he is pompously received and acclaimed. He participates in several ceremonies and a banquet and pronounces emotional words of thanks for this unexpected late recognition of his work. The next days the newpapers uncover the joke.

The Complete Works of Brisset has recently been reprinted by Marc Décimo, Dijon, Les presses du réel, 2001. In an Essay, Jean-Pierre Brisset, Prince des Penseurs, inventeur, grammairien et prophète, Dijon, Les presses du réel, 2001, Marc Décimo has given a biography, explanations about Brisset's delirium about frogs as ancestors of the mankind. We can also find into this book translations in several languages (european languages, wolof, armenian, arabic, houma, etc.).There are also the main texts written about Brisset by Jules Romains, Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, Raymond Queneau, Michel Foucault... On 2004 was also published the Art of Swimming (as a frog) in a pockett book.

Around 2001, Ernestine Chassebœuf wrote several letters to French politicians, universities, railway stations, directors of libraries, psychiatic hospitals, to ask whether they could not name a street, university, etc. after Brisset. Their answers are published on a Brisset website [1], but until now no "rue Jean-Pierre Brisset" exists.