Claretie, JULES

Claretie, JULES (properly ARSENE ARNAUD), a versatile French writer and popular novelist, born at Limoges, 3d December 1840. While still a schoolboy at the Lycée Bonaparte in Paris, he published a novel, and ere long his facile and clever pen made him one of the most important art and dramatic critics and political writers on the Paris press. His short story Pierrille (1863) had the honour to be praised by George Sand; and his novels, Mademoiselle Cachemire (1865) and Un Assassin, renamed later Robert Burat (1866), gained general applause. Meantime he continued his career as a journalist, although he suffered sometimes from the imperial censorship. During the Franco-German war he sent a series of remarkable letters to the Rappel and Opinion Nationale, and acquired the materials for a later series of bright and vigorous anti-German books of an historical character: Histoire de la Révolution de 1870-71 (new ed. 5 vols. 1875-76); Les Prussiens chez Eux (1872); and Cinq ans Après, l'Alsace et la Lorraine depuis l'Annexion (1876), and La Vie à Paris (1896). He distinguished himself during the siege of Paris, and showed he had high talent for affairs. His more important later novels are Madeleine Bertin (1868); Le Train 17 (1877); Monsieur le Ministre, an enormous success (1881); Le Million (1882); Michel Berthier (1883); and Le Prince Zilah (1884). He first found a firm footing on the stage with his pictures of the great Revolution, Les Muscadins (1874), Le Régiment de Champagne (1877), and Les Mirabeau (1878); and in 1885 he became Director of the Théâtre Français. In 1888 he was admitted to the Academy. His Life of Camille Desmoulins was Englished in 1876.