About in 1875.
Caricature of About by André Gill, 1867.
(14 February 1828 – 16 January 1885) was a
French novelist, publicist and
journalist.
Life
He was born at
Dieuze, in the
Moselle département in the
Lorraine region of France. In 1848 he entered the
École Normale, taking second place in the annual competition for admission in which
Hippolyte Taine came first. Among his college contemporaries, besides Taine, were
Francisque Sarcey,
Challemel-Lacour and
Prevost-Paradol. Of them all, About was considered the most highly vitalized, exuberant, brilliant and "undisciplined". It is said that one of his schoolmasters told him "You will never be more than a little
Voltaire," and About's career did tend toward Voltaire-style witty satire and commentaries on contemporary issues.
At the end of his college career, he joined the French school in
Athens, but claimed that he had never intended to follow the professorial career for which the École Normale was a preparation, and in 1853 he returned to France and devoted himself to literature and journalism.
Career
He made his name as an entertaining anti-clerical writer. The satirical
Le roi des montagnes (
The King of the Mountains) translated into English by
Mary Louise Booth is the best-known of his novels. In Greece, About had noticed that there was a curious understanding between the brigands and police: brigandage was becoming almost a safe and respectable industry. About pushed this idea to invent the story of a brigand chief who converts his business into a registered
joint stock company.
His book on Greece,
La Grèce contemporaine (1855) was an immediate success. In
Tolla (1855), About was charged with drawing too freely on an earlier Italian novel,
Vittoria Savelli (1841). This aroused prejudice against him, and he was the object of numerous attacks. The
Lettres d'un bon jeune homme, written to the
Figaro under the signature of "Valentin de Quevilly", provoked more animosities. During the next few years, he wrote novels, stories, a play (which failed), a book-pamphlet on the Roman question, many pamphlets on other subjects of the day, innumerable newspaper articles, some art criticisms, rejoinders to the attacks of his enemies, and popular manuals of political economy,
L'A B C du travailleur (1868),
Le progrès (1864). His more serious novels include
Madelon (1863),
L'Infâme (1867), the three that form the trilogy of the
Vieille Roche (1866), and
Le roman d'un brave homme (1880) — a kind of counterblast to the view of the French workman presented in
Zola's
Assommoir. He is best remembered as a farceur, for the books
Le nez d'un notaire (1862);
Le roi des montagnes (1856);
L'homme à l'oreille cassée (1862);
Trente et quarante (1858);
Le cas de M. Guérin (1862).
About's attitude towards the empire was friendly but critical. He greeted the liberal ministry of
Émile Ollivier at the beginning of 1870 with delight, and welcomed the
Franco-Prussian War. But as a result of the war he lost his beloved home in
Alsace, which he had purchased in 1858 out of the fruits of his earlier literary successes. With the fall of the empire, he became a
republican, and threw himself into battle against conservative reactionaries. From 1872 to about 1877, his paper, the
XIXe Siècle (
19th Century), became a power in the land. His political career, however, failed to advance further.
On 23 January 1884 he was elected a member of the
Académie française, but died before taking his seat.
