Lucien Daudet

Lucien Daudet

Lucien Daudet in 1943
Born

(1878-06-11)11 June 1878
Paris, France

1 January 1946(1946-01-01) (aged 67)
Occupation Novelist and painter
Nationality French
Spouse Marie-Thérèse Daudet
(m. 1943–1946, his death)
Signature

Lucien Daudet (June 11, 1878[1] – 1946) was a French writer, the son of Alphonse Daudet and Julia Daudet. Although a prolific novelist and painter, he was never really able to trump his father's greater reputation and is now primarily remembered for his ties to fellow novelist Marcel Proust (Remembrance of Things Past). Daudet was also friends with Jean Cocteau.

Marcel Proust (seated), Robert de Flers (left), and Lucien Daudet (right), ca. 1894

The Daudet family was composed of the father, Alphonse, the mother Julia (née Allard), Léon, the older brother, Edmée, and Lucien. Every member of the family wrote books: father, mother, brother, sister, sister-in-law (Marthe Allard under the pseudonym of “Pampille”) and uncle (Ernest Daudet). Lucien himself published about fifteen books.

Cultivated, “very beautiful, very elegant, a thin and frail young man, with a tender and a somewhat effeminate face”, according to Jean-Yves Tadié, Daudet lived a fashionable life which made him meet Marcel Proust. They shared at least a friendship (if not a sexual relationship), which was revealed by Jean Lorrain in his chronicle in the Journal. It is for this indiscretion that Proust and Lorrain fought a duel in 1897.

Lucien Daudet was also a painter. After having taken lessons at the Académie Julian, he was a pupil of Whistler and had an exposition together with Bernheim-Jeune in 1906. His tableaux are not known anymore except by literary allusions to them (correspondence of Proust; catalogue by Anna de Noailles).[2]

All his life, Daudet was overshadowed by his father in literature ("I am the son of a man whose celebrity and talent count for several generations, I remain under his shade"), and by Whistler in painting ("He gave me a certain taste in painting, but also very great contempt for that which is not of first rank... and I apply this contempt to what I make.")

Towards the end of his life, in 1943, he married Marie-Thérèse, the younger sister of Pierre Benoit.

Works

Sources

  1. ↑ Kennedy, S.B. (2003). Paul Henry. Yale University Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-300-09945-4.
  2. ↑ (fr)appl Lachaise, Lucien Daudet
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