Victor Margueritte

Victor Margueritte
Portrait of Victor Margueritte in 1918
Born1 December 1866
Died23 March 1942(1942-03-23) (aged 75)
Monestier, France
Occupationwriter
ParentJean Auguste Margueritte
Relatives
Writing career
Genres
  • novels
  • poetry
  • histories
  • theatrical charades

Victor Margueritte (1 December 1866 – 23 March 1942) was a French novelist. He was the younger brother of Paul Margueritte (1860–1918).

Life

He and his brother were born in Algeria. They were the sons of General Jean Auguste Margueritte (1823–1870), who after a career in Algeria was mortally wounded in the great cavalry charge at Sedan and died in Belgium on 6 September 1870. An account of their father's life was published by Paul as Mon père (1884; enlarged ed., 1897). The names of the two brothers are generally associated, on account of their collaboration.

Victor entered his father's regiment, the Chasseurs d'Afrique, in 1888, and served in the army until 1896, when he resigned his commission. He was already known by some volumes of poetry, and by a translation from Calderon (La Double méprise, played at the Odéon, 1898) when he began to collaborate with his brother. Together they worked on several novels and historical works.

Victor Margueritte wrote several theatrical "charades" and collaborated with Paul on at least one pantomime: La Peur. His novel La Garçonne (1922), which depicted a sexually liberated young woman who wanted to "live like a man," was considered so shocking it caused the author to lose his Légion d'honneur.

During the Second World War, Victor Margueritte, a fervent pacifist, collaborated with Germany, like others, in the name of peace. He signed a letter to this effect published in 1941 in L'Œuvre, by Marcel Déat.

Historians have found in the archives of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs payment slips for money from the massive purchase of Victor Margueritte's works.Moreover, well before the war, large sums of money were invested by the Germans in all of Victor Margueritte's pacifist magazines, in order to make them viable and ensure the reach of their own propaganda.Patrick de Villepin, notice « Victor Margueritte [archive] », in Le Maitron.

Works

Novels

Essays

Various

With Paul Margueritte

  • Le désastre (Metz, 1870)
  • Les tronçons du glaive (La défense nationale, 1870-71)
  • Les braves gens (Épisodes, 1870-71)
  • La Commune (Paris, 1871)

References

  1. ↑ Wikisource One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Margueritte, Paul and Victor". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 706–707.
  2. ↑ Paul and Victor Margueritte, Nos Tréteaux: Charades de Victor Margueritte, pantomimes de Paul Margueritte (Paris: Les Bibliophiles Fantaisistes, 1910).
  3. ↑ Retaillaud, Emmanuelle (2022-02-22). "Il y a un siècle : le scandale de " La Garçonne "". RetroNews - Le site de presse de la BnF (in French). Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  4. ↑ "Livres Nouveaux". L'Illustration (in French). Vol. 129, no. 3334. 19 January 1907. p. 46. Retrieved 1 May 2022.

  1. ↑ L'Oeuvre No 9.248 14 February 1941