Charles Bénézit (; 1816 – after 1871) was a French musician, writer, and music teacher.

Biography

Bénézit was a friend and publishing collaborator in

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...

of the young

Leconte de Lisle Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle (; 22 October 1818 – 17 July 1894) was a French poet of the Parnassian movement. He is traditionally known by his surname only, Leconte de Lisle''. Biography Leconte de Lisle was born on the French overseas ...

, two years his junior, and the humourist M. Mille in Brittany. He later wrote the musical ''Jacquerie''. Leconte's correspondence contains twelve letters to Charles, mainly from 1845–47. With Leconte de Lisle's encouragement, M. Mille wrote the comic text and Charles Bénézit the music for two vaudevilles, ''Les Mémoires d'une puce de qualité (une puce de Napoléon Ier!)'' and ''L'Orphelin, roman musical''. Later he became a close friend of

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

. When

Napoléon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

seized power in 1851, many French exiled in

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label=Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependencies, Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west F ...

; Charles and his family, marked as being "from France" were recorded in the Jersey census in 1851, and still in the 1861 and 1871 censuses. Victor Hugo had gone first to Brussels, but in 1855 joined other exiles on Jersey. Bénézit became close and permanent friends with Hugo and maintained the friendship after Hugo returned to France in 1870.Caroline de Mulder, ''Contemporary French and Francophone Art (2005), p. 33: "... Leconte de Lisle y croyaient. En 1852, il se rappelle sans doute avec quelque douleur que quelques années plus tôt, il écrivait à Charles Bénézit, futur auteur d'une Jacquerie, que Semer, prophétiser, agir: voilà la raison de l'optimisme ...". He was father of the art historian

Emmanuel Bénézit Charles Emmanuel Bénézit (; Jersey, 1854 – Paris, 1920) was a French gallery owner, collector, art historian and editor of the Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Biography Bénézit was born on Jersey, where his father, musician Charles Bénézi ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Benezit, Charles 1816 births Year of death missing French Romantic composers