Ferdinand Dugué (18 February 1816 – 5 December 1913) was a 19th-century

French poet List of poets who have written in the French language: A * Louise-Victorine Ackermann (1813–1890) * Adam de la Halle (v.1250 – v.1285) * Pierre Albert-Birot (1876–1967) * Anne-Marie Albiach (1937–2012) * Pierre Alféri (1963) * Marc Aly ...

and playwright. He wrote poetry and both comic and dramatic plays, some of them in collaboration. He also authored studies about historic personalities such as

Mathurin Régnier Mathurin Régnier (December 21, 1573 – October 22, 1613) was a French satirist. Life Régnier was born in Chartres, capital city of the current department of Eure-et-Loir, in Centre-Val de Loire region . His father, Jacques Régnier, was a b ...

and

Salvator Rosa Salvator Rosa (1615 –1673) is best known today as an Italian Baroque painter, whose romanticized landscapes and history paintings, often set in dark and untamed nature, exerted considerable influence from the 17th century into the early 19th ...

Biography

Family

Dugué was born in

Chartres Chartres () is the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 170,763 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Chartres (as d ...

, the son of Pierre-Joseph Dugué de La Fauconnerie, a lawyer, and Barbe Victoire Thérèse Feron. On 20 November 1840, he married Henriette Joséphine Béguin, daughter of a naval officer, with whom he would celebrate their 70th anniversary of marriage in 1910. The bridal blessing took place in the chapel of the Paris Foreign Missions Society,

rue du Bac Rue du Bac is a street in Paris situated in the 7th arrondissement. The street, which is 1150 m long, begins at the junction of the quais Voltaire and Anatole-France and ends at the rue de Sèvres. Rue du Bac is also the name of a station on ...

. The politician Henri-Joseph Dugué de La Fauconnerie was his nephew.

Youth

He grew up in a house in the cloister Notre-Dame à Chartres. After attending college in that city, he continued his studies in Paris, hosted by the Pension Landry, where he earned a mention at the Concours général in 1830. The City of Chartres held a ceremony in his honor at the Hotel de Ville on 12 September 1830 in the presence of mayor Adelphe Chasles, who crowned him with golden crown of oak, and the College of Chartres principal, abbot Calluet.

Career

One of Dugué's best known works was his romantic drama about the Italian painter

; this was well-received when performed at the Théâtre de Porte-Saint-Martin in 1851 and was revived several times. Another work was his 1857 play about

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

; drawing on the rather meagre historical facts available, this play brought the playwright to life, creating an easily believable portrait of what he might have been like. Dugué was vice-president of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques. In 1870, he was appointed chief patriot of the National Defence for the north canton of Chartres. Born the year after the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...

and died the year before the beginning of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Duguée's life spanned a major part of the history of France since he also witnessed the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. When he died aged 97, the French theater era of

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

s and conventional comedies was getting very near its end. He lived long enough to see the emergence of modern genres of theater, starting with '' Ubu Roi'' in 1896, which would eventually lead to the post

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Theatre of the Absurd The Theatre of the Absurd (french: théâtre de l'absurde ) is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style of ...

Events

In 1870, Dugué confronted the Prussian army and told with humour this episode:

On October 21, 1870, the Prussians reached Mainvilliers and soon a rain of shells and shrapnel fell on the village. The shells searched my small park with mathematical precision and they spared my house, it was probably because a high forest of oak masked the enemies pointers. I had with me forty national Mainvilliers guards. We heard several times over our heads quick whistles and violent cracking of whips. Never mind, can't I help but say, laughing at one of my neighbors, they ''obusent'' the situation. Suddenly the earth flew near me, and I felt a strong shock, "Sir", quietly shouted our bugle, "it's just sank into the carrot field". We had to leave Mainvilliers, the Germans, when they entered my house, riddled my portrait with bayonets; it is always in my living room, decorated with these moles. A few days later, I read in a Prussian paper: "Our glorious army entered Chartres after taking the ''Mainvilliers fort''". My house, a fort! It is a fort almost like it's a castle!

On 20 September 1900, at the request of local authorities, he hosted a country breakfast held in the park of his castle of

Mainvilliers, Eure-et-Loir Mainvilliers () is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. Population See also *Communes of the Eure-et-Loir department The following is a list of the 365 communes of the Eure-et-Loir department of France. The commu ...

, for the president Émile Loubet, who had come to attend a military review.

Quote

Asked in 1910 by the newspaper ''

Le Gaulois ''Le Gaulois'' () was a French daily newspaper, founded in 1868 by Edmond Tarbé and Henry de Pène. After a printing stoppage, it was revived by Arthur Meyer in 1882 with notable collaborators Paul Bourget, Alfred Grévin, Abel Hermant, and E ...

'' on what he thought of contemporary theater movement, Dugué replied: "Only one thing surprises me it is that theater has not succumbed already under the onslaught of its three mortal enemies, pornography, music hall and cinema."

Works

Ambigu-Comique-Le Monstre et le Magicien-1861

*1836: ''Les horizons de la poésie'', (his first published work) *1836: ''Geoffroy Rudel, roman en deux volumes'' (novel in two volumes). *1839: ''Le Vol des heures'', poetry,

Eugène Renduel Eugène Renduel (18 November 1798 – 19 October 1874) was a 19th-century French publisher. Career After he started working as a clerk by an "avoué" in Clamecy, he moved to Paris in 1819. First an employee by a bookseller, he established his ...

, printer in Paris. *1840: ''Les gouttes de rosée'' (poetry) *1845: ''Les Pharaons'' *1850: ''L'Oasis'' (poetry) *1850: ''La Misère'' *1851: ''Mathurin Regnier'', study on

*1851: ''Monsieur Pinchard'', drama in 5 acts *1852: ''Rauquelaure''*1850 ''La Misère'' *1854: ''Le Juif de Venise'', drama in 5

acts The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...

and 7

tableaux The International Conference on Automated Reasoning with Analytic Tableaux and Related Methods (TABLEAUX) is an annual international academic conference that deals with all aspects of automated reasoning with analytic tableaux. Periodically, it joi ...

*1854: ''Les Amours maudits'', drama in 5 acts *1855: ''André le mineur'', drama in 5 acts *1856: ''Le Paradis perdu'', drama in 5 acts and 12 tableaux, (with Adolphe d'Ennery) *1859: ''Cartouche, drame nouveau'' in five acts (eight tableaux) *1859: ''La Fille du Tintoret'', drama in five acts and six tableaux *1859: ''Les Pirates de la Savane'', drama

extravaganza An extravaganza is a literary or musical work (often musical theatre) usually containing elements of burlesque, pantomime, music hall and parody in a spectacular production and characterized by freedom of style and structure. It sometimes also ha ...

in five acts and six tableaux, (with Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois) *1861: ''The Monster and the Magician'', drama in 5 acts and 11 tableaux *1861: ''La Fille des chiffonniers'', drama in 5 acts and 8 tableaux, (with Anicet-Bourgeois) *1862: ''La Bouquetière des Innocents'', drama in 5 acts and 11 tableaux, (with Anicet-Bourgeois) *1863: ''France de Simiers'', drama in 5 acts, in verse *1864: ''Le Château de Pontalec'', (with Adolphe d'Ennery and Emile Abraham) *1865: ''Marie de Mancini'', drama in 5 acts and 8 tableaux, (with Adolphe d'Ennery) *1866: ''Salvator Rosa'', study on

*1867: ''Maximilien, poésie'' *1871: ''Les Éclats d'obus'', E. Dentu, éditeur à Paris, 1871. *1873: ''Ismène'', comedy in three acts and in verse *1874: ''Cocagne'', drama in 5 acts and 8 tableaux, (with Anicet-Bourgeois) *1875: ''Les Fugitifs'', (with Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois) *1881: ''Les Épaves'', E. Dentu, éditeur à Paris.''Les Épaves'', read online
/ref> *1891: ''Théâtre complet'', 5 volumes, Calmann-Lévy, éditeur à Paris, 1891. *Published in 1853, la ''Prière des Naufragés'' :« J'ai besoin par instant de rugir comme les bêtes féroces et de bondir comme les flots de l'Océan.– J'étouffe ici ! »
("I sometimes need to roar like wild beasts and leap like the waves of the Océan.- I suffocate here!") (adapted into English under names including '' The Sea of Ice'')

References

Sources

* Dugué (Ferdinand), in Pierre Larousse, ''Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle'', 15 vol., 1863–1890.

External links

Ferdinand Dugué
on with a caricature of the author.
Books by Ferdinand Dugué
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dugue, Ferdinand 19th-century French poets 19th-century French dramatists and playwrights Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Writers from Chartres 1816 births 1913 deaths