Joseph de Pesquidoux

Pierre Édouard Marie Joseph Dubosc, comte de Pesquidoux (13 December 1869 – 17 March 1946), was a French writer and member of the French Academy.

Biography

Joseph de Pesquidoux was born in Savigny-lès-Beaune, Côte-d'Or, at the Château de Savigny-lès-Beaune, home of his maternal ancestors. His parents, Léonce Dubosc de Pesquidoux (1829–1900), and Olga de Beuverand de la Loyère, Countess Olga (1845–1918), were both writers.

He studied at the school of the brothers of Houga. He was then sent to the college of the Dominican fathers in Arcachon and continued his studies at the University of Paris in Classics.

His military service brought him back to the 9th regiment of chasseurs "le Royal Gascogne" as a Maréchal des logis in Auch which was the garrison town from 1831 to 1919. Thereafter, he regularly performed military periods which brought him to the rank of reserve lieutenant.

After his marriage in 1896 to his cousin Marie Thérèse d'Acher de Montgascon (1875–1961), he lived in Paris for several years.

His book Premiers verses (1896) was prefaced by François Coppée. He then composed plays (two of his dramas were performed on Parisian stages, one of which, Ramses, was presented in the Egyptian pavilion at the 1900 Paris Exposition).

When his father died in 1900, as the only son with two married sisters, he had to take responsibility for the family inheritance at the Château de Pesquidoux in the commune of Perchède in Gascony, which he would never leave.

Father of six children, he enlisted at the age of 45 in the 1914–18 war, as a lieutenant, then was promoted to captain on the front. He was decorated for his courageous conduct and received two commendations. In the trenches, he contracted disabilities that made him suffer for the rest of his life.

In his acceptance speech at the Académie française, Maurice Genevoix recalls him at the Éparges: "Already, this war, harsh and muddy, had stripped him of his panache. For this horseman, this Gascon, it must have been hard...".

Marc Fumaroli, in his speech for the reception of Jean Clair in this same academy, on June 18, 2009, added "Mr. de Pesquidoux was also a hero, bruised but surviving, of the massacre of the war of 1914–18, where he had been thrown, cavalry officer, at the age of forty-five.

Back in Gers, Joseph set out to portray the life, customs, rituals and festivals of his province of Armagnac.

His friend, Jean de Pierrefeu, editor of the weekly newspaper L'Opinion encouraged him to gather his stories in a book: it was the publication of Chez nous in 1920 which made him an appreciated writer. Paul Souday, a respected critic of Le Temps, wrote: "France has discovered a great writer." A poet down to his most familiar prose, he succeeded, in his daily chronicle, in highlighting the nobility and durability of the humble tasks of peasant life.

Literary critics called him "the Gascon Virgil". More recently, Marc Fumaroli took up this comparison: "The Count of Pesquidoux was the author of Le Harde, of Le livre de raison, georgics all the more appreciated by the public of the inter-war period as they were based both on a personal experience of a country gentleman, at the head of the beautiful and ancient wine estate of his family in Armagnac, and on a strong Latin culture which assured him a second genealogy in Virgil, Horace and Columella."

The 1920s were particularly rich in publications and successes: André Gide in Travels in the Congo — Return from Chad writes "According to my habit of inviting a friend, sometimes a stranger, to share my joy, this morning I am hunting with Pesquidoux, who certainly has no idea that I was one of the first to fall in love with his writings...".

He received the Grand Prix of Literature of the French Academy in 1927 and was admitted to the same academy in 1936, succeeding Jacques Bainville, in the 34th chair to which André Maurois and Jacques Bardoux were also candidates. Maurice Genevoix who succeeded him underlined: "the admirable gifts of the artist, ... an overabundant sensory richness: forms, colors, lines of the horizons, breaths, murmurs, odors, flavors, touch of the wind, of the water which flows or sleeps...".

Pesquidoux was also elected, in 1938, to the 15th chair of the Academy of the Floral Games of Tolouse. This learned society is considered to be the oldest in Europe, and was recognized as a public utility in 1923.

During the German occupation of France, he was a member of the National Council in 1941 (Commission for the Reorganization of the Regions), but he stayed away from political life, concerned only with ensuring the material life of his compatriots in his region of Armagnac. Gisèle Sapiro mentions among the academicians who "took refuge in their properties in the provinces. Pesquidoux in his lands of Armagnac did not attend any session despite the exhortations of the collaborationist press". He was president of the departmental council under the Vichy government (correspondence, individual notice indicating his support for the policy of Marshal Pétain). In 1944, there was an episode recounted by Guy Labedan, historian of the World War II, in his book Lieux de mémoire de la 2e Guerre mondiale dans le Gers: "In the town of Le Houga, as a reprisal, the Germans looted the Hôtel Lafontan and then destroyed it with explosives. The mayor, an academician, Joseph de Pesquidoux, did his best to stop the exactions." An article in the Sud Ouest newspaper dated August 10, 1994, entitled "Le Houga — August 6, 1944 — The strength of remembrance", tells the story at greater length.

He was Honorary President of the Archaeological and Literary Society of the Gers.

Joseph de Pesquidoux died at the château de Pesquidoux on March 17, 1946 and was buried in the cemetery of the commune of Le Houga.

A commemorative plaque was affixed on September 11, 1971, on the façade of the Château de Pesquidoux, during a ceremony presided over by Maurice Genevoix, perpetual secretary of the Académie française, in the presence of numerous personalities, including Gabriel Delaunay, prefect of the Aquitaine region.

Private life

He married on October 30, 1896 in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, with Thérèse d'Acher de Montgascon. The couple had six children:

• Just de Pesquidoux (3rd Count of Pesquidoux)
• Pierre de Pesquidoux
• Bernadette de Pesquidoux
• Marie-Lys de Pesquidoux
• Aymard de Pesquidoux
• Arnaud de Pesquidoux (1907–1997)

Works

• Premiers vers (1896)
• Salomé (1898)
• Ramsès (1900)
• Le Sang fatal (1903)
• Chez nous - Travaux et jeux rustiques (1920)
• Sur la glèbe (1921)
• Le Livre de raison (3 volumes, 1925–1932)
• Caumont, duc de La Force (1931)
• L’Église et la Terre (1935)
• La Harde (1936)
• Gascogne (1939)
• Un Petit Univers (1940)
• Sol de France (1942)

External links

• Works by Joseph de Pesquidoux at JSTOR
• Works by Joseph de Pesquidoux at Gallica