Octave Feuillet

Vocation

Notable

French novelist and dramatist. In 1840 Feuillet told his father that he planned to be a writer and the elder Feuillet disowned his son. Octave Feuillet moved to Paris and lived as best he could by becoming a journalist. His father forgave him three years later and granted him an allowance. Feuillet enjoyed a comfortable existence in Paris and published his first novels. The health of the elder M. Feuillet declined further, and he summoned his son to leave Paris and attend to him at Saint-Lô. This was a great sacrifice, but Octave Feuillet obeyed. In 1851, he married his cousin who was also a writer. During his "exile" in Saint-Lô Feuillet produced some of his best work. Feuillet himself fell into a nervous state at Saint-Lô, but his wife and mother-in-law's devotion helped sustain him. In 1857, he finally returned to Paris to oversee the rehearsal of a play he had adapted from his novel Dalila. After the death of his father Feuillet and his family immediately moved to Paris and became a favorite at the court of the Second Empire. His pieces were performed at Compiègne before they were given to the public. Feuillet did not abandon the novel, and in 1862 he achieved a great success with Sibylle. His health, however, had by this time begun to decline, affected by the death of his eldest son. He left Paris for the quieter Normandy and there he lived for fifteen years. He was elected to the French Academy in 1862, and in 1868 he was made librarian of Fontainebleau palace, where he had to reside for a month or two in each year. In 1867 he produced his masterpiece Monsieur de Camors, and in 1872 he wrote Julia de Trécœur. He spent his last years, after the sale of Les Paillers, in ceaseless wandering, due to his depression and ill health. He died in Paris on 29 December 1890. Link to Wikipedia biography