Jean Bertheroy Explained

Pseudonym:Jean Bertheroy
Birth Name:Berthe Jeanne Le Barillier
Birth Date:24 July 1858
Birth Place:Bordeaux, France
Death Date:24 January 1927
Death Place:Le Cannet, France
Awards:
Signature:Signaturejeanbertheroy.png

Jean Bertheroy was the pen name of Berthe Jeanne Le Barillier (1858–1927), a French intellectual, classicist, and writer. First noted for her poetry, she turned to the historical novel and then the modern novel. Her work, although largely forgotten, is served by a sober style and very solid documentation. The most substantial part of her work is probably that devoted to Roman antiquity. Bertheroy was a three-time laureate of the Académie Française.

Early life and education

Berthe Jeanne Le Barillier was born in Bordeaux, France, 24 July 1858.[1] [2] She was the daughter of Jeanne Laure Elisabeth Fabre (1830–1900)4, and Hyacinthe Édouard François Le Barillier1 (1823–1894),[3] naval health officer in 1842, doctor of medicine in 1848, the date on which he settled in Bordeaux, hospital doctor in 1854, chief doctor of the Lescure ambulance in 1871.

She was a student of the classics.[4]

Career

Bertheroy became known to the literary world by a book of verse, Les Vibrations, which she published in 1887 under the name of "Jean Bertheroy". Three years later, a second book of verse, Les Femmes antiques, received a prize by the Académie française.

A successful novelist in her time,[5] Bertheroy's novels fell into two categories: modern novels such as Le Roman d'une âme, Double Joug, Sur la Pente, Le Mirage, and Le Rachat; and novels of antiquity, notably Cléopatre, La Danseuse de Pompei, Les Vierges de Syracuse, and La Beauté d'Alcias. Novels of antiquity had been brought into vogue by the Thaïs of Anatole France and the Aphrodite – mœurs antiques of Pierre Louys, in imitation of which many poor ones were written. Bertheroy's, however, are excellent, and the best one of them is probably La Danseuse de Pompei. La Beauté d'Alcias contains admirable descriptions of the Eginian Sea, Megara and Athens. Jean Bertheroy wrote in a musical, harmonious language, mingling the ardor of passion with a strong impulse toward the ideal.

She worked for Le Figaro and the Revue des deux Mondes, was the first secretary of the Prix Femina jury in 1904, and was a member of the Société des gens de lettres. Bertheroy campaigned for the improvement of the status of women.

Death and legacy

Jean Bertheroy died on January 24, 1927, in Le Cannet, a town where she owned a villa.[6]

Her memory lives on in Montmorency, Val-d'Oise, where she had an Italian-style house built in 1891, at 5 Rue de l'Hermitage, in the immediate vicinity of the Hermitage of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a writer she admired and wanted to get closer to. This house is sometimes called Hôtel Bertheroy, sometimes Maison Jean Bertheroy.

Awards and honours

Selected works

Lyrics

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Ministre de la culture . Base Léonore . www2.culture.gouv.fr . 14 September 2024 . fr.
  2. Web site: Bertheroy . catalogue.bnf.fr . 14 September 2024 . fr.
  3. Web site: Généalogie de François Edouard Hyacinthe LE BARILLIER . Genealogy of François Edouard Hyacinthe LE BARILLIER . Geneanet . 14 September 2024 . fr.
  4. Jean Bertheroy . Tales: A Magazine of the World's Best Fiction . January 1908 . 37 . 3 . 374–75 . 15 September 2024 . New York City . en.
  5. Web site: Montmorency : un passé historique fabuleux . Montmorency: a fabulous historical past . montmorencytoujours.com . wikiwix.com . 14 September 2024 . fr-FR . 22 November 2016.
  6. Web site: Jean Bertheroy s'est éteinte dans sa villa du Cannet . Jean Bertheroy died in her villa in Le Cannet . Le Journal . gallica.bnf.fr . 14 September 2024 . Paris . 1 . 12518 . fr . 25 January 1927.
  7. Web site: Jean BERTHEROY . www.academie-francaise.fr . Académie française . 14 September 2024 . fr.
  8. Web site: Ministre de la culture . Base Léonore . www2.culture.gouv.fr . 14 September 2024 . fr.

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