René Bazin

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René Bazin
René Bazin's Picture.jpg
René Bazin
Born René François Nicolas Marie Bazin
(1853-12-26)26 December 1853
Angers, France
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Paris, France
Pen name Bernard Seigny
Nationality French
Alma mater Catholic University of the West
Notable works
  • Une Tache d'Encre (1888)
  • Sicile (1892)
  • La Terre qui Meurt (1899)
  • Les Nouveaux Oberlé (1919)
Notable awards Prix Vitet
Spouse Aline Bricard
Signature

René François Nicolas Marie Bazin (26 December 1853 – 20 July 1932)[1] was a French writer, jurist and law professor, novelist, journalist, historian, essayist and travel writer.

Biography

Born on a farm near Angers, in the province of Anjou. He attended the Mongazon College in Angers. Bazin initially took up seminary studies leading to priesthood. He then studied law in Paris, and on his return to Angers became Professor of Law in the Catholic University of the West.[2] In 1876, Bazin married Aline Bricard. The couple had two sons and six daughters.

From 1883, Bazin published his first novels. His literary career, very rich and varied, includes more than sixty works: novels, biographies, tales and stories of youth, essays and short stories, travel chronicles and accounts of the First World War.

He contributed to Parisian journals a series of sketches of provincial life and descriptions of travel, and wrote Stephanette (1884), but he made his reputation with Une Tache d'Encre ("A Blot of Ink") (1888), which received a prize from the Academy.[3]

In 1895, Bazin received another academic prize with the publication of his travelogue Land of Spain. His two novels, The Dying Land and The Oberlé Family, published in 1899 and 1901, were a huge success and were also awarded prestigious prizes.

A social Christian and a fervent Catholic, Bazin was carried throughout his life by his religious convictions. From 1915 to 1923, he was in charge of the Professional Corporation of Christian Publicists,[4] which was also called the French Journalists Union. He became its president in 1916. In 1917, he founded the Catholic Bureau of the Press. It is in this logic that he will become a member of the steering committee of the Scouts of France.

He was admitted to the Académie française on 28 April 1904,[2] to replace Ernest Legouvé.

René Bazin was a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, member of the Académie de Stanislas and the Academy of Sciences, Belles-lettres and Arts of Angers.

He died at the 8th arrondissement of Paris.

Writings

René Bazin began his career as the second editor of the newspaper L'Étoile and wrote Stéphanette, his first novel. It was published in 1883 as a serial by L'Union, a local newspaper. This novel, as well as the following one (Ma Tante Giron, 1885), was published in 1884, in a single volume, by Retaux-Bray, in Paris.

In 1885, the success of his novel Ma Tante Giron opened the doors of the Parisian literary world to him. He met Léon Lavedan, director of the Correspondant (and father of Henri Lavedan), as well as Georges Patinot, director of the Journal des débats, who agreed to publish, in serial form, the novel Une tache d'encre.

As early as 1885, public readings of his novels took place at the Saint-Louis Conference, a student circle of the Catholic faculty of Angers.

In November 1887, he met Ludovic Halévy, a member of the French Academy, who directed him to Calmann-Lévy, a famous publisher whose distribution allowed Bazin to widen his audience. Calmann bought the rights to the novel Ma Tante Giron, then published in May 1888, in a single volume, Une tache d'encre which, which was crowned by the Academy.

Hee published travel books and contributed to the Revue des Deux Mondes as well as to various other periodicals. After 1870, he was one of the writers of the "Revanche" with Les Oberlé and Le Guide de l'Empereur.

In 1909, a stay at Hostel in the commune of Belmont-Luthézieu, at the home of Paul Claudel's father-in-law, inspired him to write the novel The Marriage of Mademoiselle Gimel, which takes place in Linod in the neighboring commune of Vieu and is loosely based on real events.

Bazin

Bazin wrote Les Nouveaux Oberlé in 1919, a novel in which he portrayed the discovery of France by a young Alsatian who chose to fight in the French army during the Great War.

With the notable exception of Les Oberlé and Les Nouveaux Oberlé, René Bazin's novels are most often set in the rural and peasant environment of western France, which he evokes with a great wealth of vocabulary. His novel La Terre qui meurt (The Dying Land) deals with the desertification of the countryside, the drama of uprooting and the problems of urbanization. Today, certain aspects of ecology are not far from René Bazin's vision. Thus The Dying Land, evokes the drama of a farm estate that is doubly abandoned: on the one hand by the great owner who goes to Paris and, ruined, has to sell even his furniture, and on the other hand by the sons of the tenant farmer in charge of the farm. One emigrates to America, the other becomes a railway worker. However, the land finally does not "die", since the servant Jean Nesmy, accepted as son-in-law by the tenant farmer after some reluctance, finally takes over the farm. In his novels, he described with great accuracy the social condition of workers.

This book, which was a huge success, like the novel Les Oberlé, opened the doors of the French Academy to Bazin. La Terre qui meurt was made into a film by Jean Choux in 1927. In 1936, the novel was adapted again into one of the first color films, The Dying Land.

A precursor of Catholic intellectuals and social Christians, René Bazin strives to promote humane working conditions and respect for the individual in his writings. He emphasized nobility of heart and humility.

Bazin was also influential in French literature: Louis Hémon owed him the "success of Maria Chapdelaine, Alphonse de Chateaubriant that of La Brière; Charles Silvestre, Henri Pourrat, Henry Bordeaux, Jean Yole, Jean Nesmy — a pseudonym borrowed from one of the characters in The Perishing Land, — Joseph de Pesquidoux, who acknowledged his debt to the author of Donatienne, Pierre Gourdon, Maxence Van der Meersch, Louis Mercier, Maurice Genevoix, Gilbert Cesbron are, in the words of M. Louis Chaigne, all "satellites" of Bazin."[5]

René Bazin wrote most of his books in his property Rangeardières, near Angers, in Saint-Barthélemy-d'Anjou. In 1904, he was elected to the municipal council.

Private life

The Bazin family, which legally became René-Bazin in 1921, originated from Anjou. They were descended from Claude Bazin (1645–1721), controller of the king's farms in Vihiers (Maine-et-Loire).

  • Simon Bazin (1675–1720), was a royal bailiff in Maulévrier.
  • Simon-Pierre Bazin (1675–1720), was controller of the king's farms in Vihiers.
  • Louis Bazin (1729–1787), was a bailiff at the salt storehouse of Vihiers.
  • Nicolas Bazin (1754–1830), steward of the Colbert's property in the Château de Maulevrier, one of Stofflet's lieutenants during the War in the Vendée and then clerk in Segré, is the great-grandfather of René Bazin.
  • Nicolas Bazin (1791–1872) was a clerk at the court of Segré, then at that of Angers.
  • Alfred Bazin (1821–1872), René Bazin's father, was a lawyer and later an industrialist in Angers. His mother, Élisabeth Meauzé (1831–1891), also belonged to an Anjou family. His grandfather, Barthélemy-François Meauzé, was president of the commercial court, member of the chamber of commerce of Angers, administrator of the Bank of France and first deputy mayor of Angers by imperial decree in 1859.
  • Marie Bazin (1850–1919), sister of René Bazin, wrote novels under the pseudonym of "Jacques Bret"; married to Ferdinand Hervé. She was the grandmother of the writer Hervé Bazin whom she raised with her two brothers until he was 11 years old.

René Bazin married Aline Bricard (1855–1936) in 1876. The couple had eight children: two sons, Nicolas-René (1877–1940), an engineer, and Louis (1892–1973), a novelist, lecturer and translator, and six daughters: Élisabeth (1879–1926), wife of Antoine Sainte-Marie Perrin (1871–1927), son of Louis Sainte-Marie Perrin, father-in-law of Paul Claudel; Jeanne (1881–1944), canoness; Marie-Amélie (1883–1970), nun; Geneviève (1886–1962), wife of Count Tony Catta (1884–1974); Germaine (1888–1944) and Françoise (1895–1968), wife of Henri Viot and mother of Abbé Michel Viot).

Publications

Thelma Cudlipp Grosvenor's illustration of Pierre & Joseph
René Bazin
  • Stéphanette (1884)
    • Stephanette (1936)
  • Ma tante Giron (1885)
  • Une tache d’encre (1888)
  • Les Noellet (1890)
    • This, My Son (1908; translated by Angelo S. Rappoport)
  • Le guide de l'Empereur (1890)
  • À l’aventure (croquis italiens) (1891)
  • Contes en vers (1891)
  • La Sarcelle bleue (1892)
  • La Légende de sainte Béga (1892)
  • Madame Corentine (1893)
    • Those of His Own household (1914; translated by L.M. Leggatt)
  • Sicile: croquis italiens (1893)
  • Les Italiens d'Aujourd'hui (1894)
    • The Italians of Today (1896; translated by Josiah Crooklands — 1897; trans. by William Marchant)
  • Humble Amour (1894)
  • Terre d'Espagne (1895)
  • En province (1896)
  • Contes de bonne Perrette (1897)
  • De toute son âme (1897)
    • Redemption (1908; translated by Angelo S. Rappoport)[6]
  • Histoire de vingt-quatre sonnettes (1898)
  • La Terre qui meurt (1898) — a picture of the decay of peasant farming set in La Vendée; it was an indirect plea for the development of provincial France
    • Autumn Glory (1901; translated by Ellen Waugh)[7]
  • Les Personnages de roman (1899)
  • Croquis de France et de l'Orient (1899)
  • Le Guide de l'Empereur: histoire de pauvres gens (1901)
  • Les Oberlé (1901)[8] — a study of life in Alsace-Lorraine under German occupation[9]
    • The Children of Alsace (1912; translated by Angelo S. Rappoport)
  • L'Enseigne de vaisseau Paul Henry, défenseur de la mission de Pékin (1902)
  • Donatienne (1903)
    • The Penitent (1912; translated by M. Harriet M. Capes)
  • Récits de la plaine et de la montagne (1904)
  • Le Duc de Nemours (1905)
  • L'Isolée (1905)
    • The Nun (1908; translated anonymously)
  • Questions littéraires et sociales (1906)
  • Le Blé qui lève (1907)
    • The Coming Harvest (1908; translated by Edna K. Hoyt)
  • Mémoires d'une vieille fille (1908)
  • Le Mariage de Mademoiselle Gimel, dactylographe (1909)
    • The Marriage of Mademoiselle Gimel, and Other Stories (1913; translated by Edna K. Hoyt)
  • La Barrière (1910)
    • The Barrier (1910; translated by Mary D. Frost)
  • La Douce France (1911)
    • Gentle France (1913; translated by Mary Dougherty)
  • Davidée Birot (1912)
    • Davidée Birot (1912; translated by Mary D. Frost)
  • Nord-Sud, Amérique, Angleterre, Corse, Spitzberg, notes de voyage (1913)
  • Gingolph l'abandonné (1914)
  • Pages religieuses, temps de paix, temps de guerre (1915)
  • Aujourd'hui et demain, pensées du temps de la guerre (1916)
  • La Campagne française et la guerre (1917)
  • Notes d'un amateur de couleur (1917)
  • La Closerie de Champdolent (1917)
  • Les Nouveaux Oberlé (1919)
    • Pierre & Joseph (1920; translated by Frank Hunter Potter)
  • Charles de Foucauld, explorateur du Maroc, ermite au Sahara (1921)
    • Charles de Foucauld: Hermit and Explorer (1923; translated by Peter Keelan)
  • Il était quatre petits enfants: histoire d'une famille française (1922)
    • Juniper Farm (1928; translated by Margery Williams Bianco)
  • Contes et Paysages (en province) (1923)
  • Le Conte du triolet (1924)
  • Baltus le Lorrain (1926)
  • Paysages et pays d'Anjou (1926)[10]
  • Fils de l'Église (1927)
    • Sons of the Church (1928; translated anonymously)
  • Les Trois Peines d'un rossignol (1927)
  • Pie X (1928)
    • Pius X (1928; Translated by the Benedictines of Talacre)
  • Le Roi des archers (1929)
    • The King of the Archers (1934; translated by Mary Russell)
  • Magnificat (1931)
    • Magnificat (1932)
  • Champdolent (1931)
  • Un monastere de Saint-Pierre Fourier "les Oiseaux" (1932)
    • Take This Child (1948; translated by Mary Aline Gelson)
  • Etapes de ma vie (1936)
  • La Faneuse endormie et autres nouvelles (1949)

Works in English translation

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  • A Blot of Ink. London: Cassell & Company (1892)
    • The Ink-stain. Paris: Maison Mazarin (1905)
  • The Italians of Today. London: Digby, Long & Co. (1896)
  • "The Return: A Christmas Story," The Living Age, Vol. CCXIX (1898)
  • "The Grey Pippin," The Living Age, Vol. CCXXIX (1901)
  • "The Mountain-pine," The Living Age, Vol. CCXXVIII (1901)
  • "The Two Mayors," The Living Age, Vol. CCXXX (1901)
  • Autumn Glory, or, Toilers in the Field. London: Jarrold & Sons (1901)
  • The Coming Harvest. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1908)
    • By Faith Alone. London: Eveleigh Nash (1908)
    • The Rising Corn. London: Hodder and Stoughton (1909)
  • "The Birds in the Letter-Box," International Short Stories, Vol. III (1910)
  • The Children of Alsace. New York: John Lane Company (1912)
  • Davidée Birot. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1912)
    • The Redeemer. London: Stanley Paul & Co.
  • The Penitent. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company (1912)
  • Gentle France. Dublin: M.H. Gill & Son (1913)
  • Those of His Own Household. New York: Devin-Adair Company (1914)
  • "Mathurine's Eyes," The Stratford Journal, Vol. I (1917)
  • Charles de Foucauld: Hermit and Explorer. New York: Benziger Brothers (1923)
  • Sons of the Church. New York: Benziger Brothers (1928)
  • Juniper Farm. New York: The Macmillan Company (1928)
  • Pius X. London and Edinburgh: Sands & Co. (1928)
  • Magnificat. London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne (1932)
  • The King of the Archers. New York: The Macmillan Company (1934)
  • Stephanette. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston (1936)
  • Take This Child. Boston: Bruce Humphries (1948)

Notes

  1. ↑ Ryan, Mary (1932). "René Bazin 1853-1932," Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 21, No. 84, p. 627.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chisholm 1911.
  3. ↑ Lavisse, Ernest (1905). Preface to The Ink-stain. Paris: Maison Mazarin, p. v.
  4. ↑ Hoehn, Matthew (1948). "René Bazin, 1853–1934." In: Catholic Authors: Contemporary Biographical Sketches. Newark, N.J.: St. Mary's Abbey, p. 34.
  5. ↑ Galarneau (1966), p. 261.
  6. ↑ The first English translation of De toute son âme was originally issued serially, under the title "With All Her Heart", in The Living Age, from November 1897 to March 1898.
  7. ↑ The first English translation of La Terre qui meurt was originally published in serial form, under the title "The Perishing Land", in The Living Age, from November 1899 to February 1900.
  8. ↑ "How Réne Bazin Came to Write 'The Oberlé'," The Living Age, Vol. CCXCVIII, 1918, pp. 662–664.
  9. ↑ "The Novels of M. René Bazin," The Living Age, Vol. CCLXI, 1909, p. 422.
  10. ↑ O'Brien, William (1931). "Rene Bazin in Anjou," The Irish Monthly, Vol. LIX, No. 692, pp. 81–85.

References

  • Coll, Jessie Pauline (1936). The Novels of René Bazin. Thesis (M.A.). University of Oklahoma.
  • Gelson, Mary Aline (1942). An Analysis of the Realistic Elements in the Novels of René Bazin. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press.
  • Waite, Alice Webber (1928). René Bazin: An Idealistic Realist. University of Nebraska (Lincoln Campus).
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  • Trompeo, Pietro Paolo (1930). "Bazin, René." In: Enciclopedia Italiana. Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.

Further reading

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