Charles Derennes

Charles Derennes (4 August 1882 – 27 April 1930) was a French novelist, essayist and poet, the winner of the Prix Femina in 1924.

The son of Gustave Derennes (1858–1889), professor agrégé d'histoire then inspector of an academy and writer from Brittany, born in Charente and originally from Mayenne), and Marthe Cassan, daughter of a baker and dealer in grains of the Villeneuvois, Charles Derennes spent his childhood in Villeneuve-sur-Lot. In 1892, he entered the lycee of Talence, in the suburbs of Bordeaux, where he did all his secondary education; There he met the poet Émile Despax (1881-1915) from Dax, and Marcel Gounouilhou (fr) (1882–1939), future director of the daily La Petite Gironde to which he will collaborate, and with whom he would remain linked.

A holder of the Baccalaureate in 1899, destined for a teaching career by family tradition, he went to Paris to prepare the entrance examination to the École Normale Supérieure at Lycée Henri-IV and Lycée Louis-le-Grand from which he was sent back. He attended classes at the Sorbonne, obtained a bachelor's degree in letters in 1903, frequented literary salons such as that of Anna de Noailles and the poetry evenings of the magazine La Plume at the Caveau du Soleil d'Or.

On May 11, 1909, he married in Paris Rosita Finaly, one of the daughters of the banker Hugo Finaly (fr), founder of the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, an unhappy union that ended in a divorce on January 19, 1911. During the Great War, he was a military nurse in the South-West (Marmande, Lévignac-de-Guyenne and Toulouse). He married a second time in Paris, March 23, 1916, with his companion Christiane (Jeanne Petit for the vital record). Reformed in 1917, Derennes settled temporarily in the Landes. Very attached to his native South-West which occupies a large place in his work, he was a regular of the Gascon land since childhood and, from 1905, was part of the group of writers including Rosny jeune, Paul Margueritte, Maxime Leroy which, at the beginning of the 20th century, made Hossegor known, and where he stayed regularly until the early 1920s.

On December 10, 1924, he obtained the Prix Femina for Émile et les autres, third volume of the series Le Bestiaire sentimental (fr). Appointed a knight of the Legion of Honour on January 4, 1925, he died on April 27, 1930 and was buried in Villeneuve-sur-Lot.

A poet, novelist, story-teller, essayist and critic, Charles Derennes started young in the world of letters, but notoriety and success came gradually. He published more than fifty books in some twenty-five years of his career, and collaborated at the same time in numerous newspapers and magazines (L’Auto, La Baïonnette, Bonsoir, Burdigala, Le Divan, Le Double Bouquet, Les Écrits nouveaux (fr), L’Ermitage, J’ai vu..., Le Journal, Les Maîtres de la Plume, Le Matin, Le Mercure de France, La Muse française, La Petite Gironde, La Plume, La Renaissance latine, La Revue bleue, La Revue de France, La Revue de Paris, La Revue hebdomadaire, La Vie française, La Vie parisienne...). He obtained a great public success, especially after the war, several prizes of which the Femina in 1924, and critic has always been favorable to him.

He is known for his collections of poems in which he showed a perfect mastery of prosody, a perfection of form, a wealth of inspiration and emotion: L'Enivrante Angoisse, La Tempête, La Chanson des Deux Jeunes Filles or Perséphone. He also is the author of a volume of Occitan poems, Romivatge, a language he had practiced both written and oral since his youth.

After L'Amour fessé and Le Peuple du pôle, he published before the war "Parisian" and gallant novels that originally appeared in the weekly La Vie Parisienne: Les Caprices de Nouche, Le Béguin des Muses, Le Miroir des pécheresses, Nique et ses cousines. Subsequently and until his death, he published other novels, of unequal interest, among which are La Nuit d'été, Cassinou va-t-en guerre, La Petite Faunesse, Le Renard bleu, Mon Gosse..., Ouily et Bibi, Amours basques, Le Pauvre et son chien. This list wouldn't be complete without mentioning his collections of tales and short stories: Le Pèlerin de Gascogne and Les Conquérants d'idoles.

It is undoubtedly his Le Bestiaire sentimental which popularized him with the general public after the war and which comprises three volumes: Vie de Grillon, La Chauve-Souris and Émile et les autres. In these stories, he gave an attentive, passionate, tender and amazed observation of animals that have populated his universe since childhood (crickets, bats, cats, frogs ...). In addition to this series, one can add a volume of memories of childhood, L'Enfant dans l'herbe, two novels, Mouti, chat de Paris, and Mouti, fils de Mouti, and new narratives gathered in the volume Dieu, les Bêtes et Nous. Les Porte-Bonheur.

Poems

• 1904: L'Énivrante angoisse, Librairie Paul Ollendorff
• 1906: La Tempête, Ollendorff
• 1918: La Chanson des deux Jeunes Filles, À la Belle Édition
• 1920: Perséphone, Garnier
• 1921: Le Livre d'Annie, François Bernouard
• 1923: La Fontaine Jouvence, Garnier
• 1924: La Princesse, "Les Amis d'Edouard"
• 1924: Romivatge, Samatan, Editorial Occitan, "Amics del Libre Occitan", (poems in Occitan language).
• 1925: Premières poésies, Albert Messein, (with L'Énivrante angoisse and La Tempête).

Essays and novels

• 1906: L'Amour fessé, Mercure de France, novel
• 1907: Le Peuple du Pôle, Mercure de France, novel
• 1907: La Vie et la Mort de M. de Tournèves, Éditions Grasset, novel
• 1908: La Guenille, Louis-Michaud, novel
• 1909: Les Caprices de Nouche, Éditions de la Vie Parisienne, novel
• 1912: Le Béguin des Muses, Éditions de la Vie Parisienne, novel
• 1912: Le Miroir des Pécheresses, Louis-Michaud, novel
• 1913: Les Enfants sages, Louis-Michaud, novel
• 1914: Nique et ses Cousines, Louis-Michaud, novel
• 1914: La Nuit d'été, L'Édition, novel
• 1917: Cassinou va-t-en guerre, L'Édition française illustrée, novel
• 1918: Leur tout petit cœur, La Renaissance du Livre, novel
• 1918: Le Pèlerin de Gascogne, L'Édition française illustrée, tales and narrations
• 1918: La Petite Faunesse, L'Édition, novel
• 1919: Les Conquérants d'idoles, L'Édition française illustrée (illustrations by Charles Genty), then Georges-Crès, novel
• 1919: Les Bains dans le Pactole, Albin Michel, novel
• 1920: L'Aventure de Roland Ombreval, poète – 1830, Société anonyme d'édition et de librairie, novel
• 1920: Vie de Grillon, Albin Michel, essay
• 1921: Le Renard bleu, Albin Michel, novel
• 1921: Le Beau Max, Ferenczi, novel
• 1922: La Chauve-Souris, Albin Michel, essay
• 1923: Le Pou et l'Agneau, Ferenczi, novel
• 1923: Mon Gosse..., Baudinière, novel
• 1924: Bellurot, Éditions du Monde moderne, novel
• 1924: Émile et les autres, Albin Michel, essay
• 1925: L'Enfant dans l'herbe, Ferenczi, novel
• 1925: Ouily et Bibi, Albert Messein, novel
• 1925: Le Mirage sentimental, Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue critique, (with La Vie et la Mort de M. de Tournèves and L'Aventure de Roland Ombreval, poète).
• 1925: Gaby, mon amour, Albin Michel, novel (reprint of La Nuit d'été)
• 1925: Les Petites alliances, Albin Michel, novel
• 1926: La Fortune et le Jeu. Le jeu, les jeux et l’activité humaine, Ed. Georges Anquetil (fr), essay
• 1926: Mouti, chat de Paris, Albin Michel, novel
• 1927: Amours et Crimes, Éditions de France, historical essay
• 1927: Mouti, fils de Mouti, Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue critique, novel
• 1927: Les Cocus célèbres, Éditions de France, historical essay
• 1928: Amours basques, Nouvelle Société d'Édition, novel
• 1928: La Mort du Prince impérial, Hachette, historical essay
• 1928: Les Noces sur la banquise, Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue critique, novel
• 1930: Le Pauvre et son chien, La Renaissance du Livre, novel
• 1930: Dieu, les Bêtes et Nous. Les Porte-Bonheur, Éditions des Portiques, essay

Works written in collaboration

• 1914: La Grande Anthologie, la seule qui ne publie que de l’inédit, Louis-Michaud, s. d., Collections of literary pastiches written in particular in collaboration with Pierre Benoit and Charles Perrot
• 1921: La Pléiade, Librairie de France, collection of poems by comtesse de Noailles, Pierre Camo, Charles Derennes, Joachim Gasquet, Xavier de Magallon, Fernand Mazade, Paul Valéry
• 1921: Journal des Goncours. Mémoires de la vie littéraire par un groupe d’indiscrets (partie inédite). Année 1896, La Renaissance du Livre, s. d., literary pastiche attributed to Pierre Benoit, to which he collaborated closely with other authors such as Léon Deffoux
• 1924: Un train entre en gare, Éditions du Siècle, novel signed Henri Seguin, a literary mystification to which Pierre Benoit, Tristan Derème and other authors also collaborated
• 1925: Le Jocond, Éditions du Siècle, another novel signed Henri Seguin, mystification by the same
• 1927: La Promenade Euskadienne. Notes et Souvenirs du Pays basque, 1892-1927, in Le Pays basque, by Charles Derennes, François de Vaux de Foletier, Hector Talvart, foreword by Thierry Sandre, La Rochelle, Éditions d'art Raymond Bergevin
• 1927: Le Limousin, le Quercy et le Périgord, in Le Visage de la France [collective], Éditions des Horizons de France, fasc. 14.
• 1928: Le Nouveau Livre de la Pléiade, Librairie de France, F. Sant'Andrea, collection of poems by Joachim Gasquet, Comtesse de Noailles, Pierre Camo, Charles Derennes, Xavier de Magallon, Fernand Mazade, Paul Valéry
• 1928: La dompteuse, in La Femme, selon [collective], Baudinière
• 1930: Gens et Bêtes de Gascogne, in Sud-Ouest. Béarn, Pays basque, Côte d'Argent, Gascogne, by Xavier de Cardaillac, Charles Derennes, François Duhourcau, Pierre Frondaie, Étienne Huyard, Francis Jammes, Hervé Lauwick, Maxime Leroy, François Mauriac, Joseph de Pesquidoux, J. H. Rosny Jeune, drawings by P.-G. Rigaud, Léon Fauret, Suzanne Labatut, Hossegor, Librairie D. Chabas