Émile Vanderburch

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Émile-Louis Vander-Burch , known as Émile Vanderburch , (born October 31, 1794 in Paris , † March 28, 1862 in Rueil-Malmaison ), was a French man of letters, vaudevillist and playwright.

biography

Vanderburch's family was of aristocracy and came from Flanders. Therefore the spelling of the family name was originally Vander-Burch .

His father Edouard was a painter at the court of Louis XVI. and married to the daughter of the musician Jean Bisch . Edouard Vanderburch was employed at the Louvre when the French Revolution broke out , where he and his wife also lived. Since they were not expelled from there, Émile and his siblings Hypolite and Flore were born there.

The children received private lessons from their mother at an early age. Among other things, they were also taught to paint and make music. When Émile Vanderburch was six years old, his father fell ill with a heart condition. So his mother was forced to make a living. Since she had written a small grammar book, she was allowed to teach the children in a nearby school, which earned her a little money. Meanwhile, the father, unable to work, played the harp for his children. But when money ran out, it had to be sold.

The intelligence of Émil was immediately noticed and that moved the parents, although the father's illness persisted, to want to provide Émil a good education. Through relationships, they were able to accommodate Émile at the Collegium Justicianum, the predecessor of the Collège Stanislas .

When Vanderburch's father died, he had to leave school. Since the lodging in the Louvre was linked to his father's position, the whole family had to move. This then found shelter in an attic room on Rue de la Harpe .

Through a scholarship, Vanderburch came to the Lycée d'Orléans, which was very militaristic at the time. He was a mediocre student, but his love for literature was already awakened. At the age of twelve he began to write fables and chansons and at the age of 18, in 1812, he wrote his first book. At the same time, he left the Lycée to help his family in their need. He moved to the rue de la Harpe near his family and moved into a small room on the seventh floor. There he wrote Brelant de Gascon , which premiered in 1813 at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique .

His career was interrupted right from the start when he was drafted into the Army of the Hundred Days , a unit in the Vendée department . He was extremely servile, which was also noticed, and so he had the rank of sergeant major just three months after taking up the service . Another quarter of a year later he was promoted to Capitaine , which ended his career when the army unit was disbanded.

Vanderburch had seen Elie Decazes positively and so he protected him by first making him administrator of his tobacco warehouses in the Vendée. But he did not stay there long, because he was given the task of organizing state schools in Bourges and Nevers . Although Vanderburch had embarked on this adventure without prior knowledge, he succeeded convincingly. His client, Élie Decazes, was extremely satisfied and Vanderburch was rewarded with a not inconsiderable financial bonus.

It was time for Vanderburch to return to Paris with his family. There, at the age of 23, he met Mademoiselle Gervais, whom he married in 1817. After the wedding, the newlyweds had little left of the bonus Vanderburch had received. But since he did not want to return to Bourges, he hired himself as a tutor for French and history. But that couldn't fill it up and he wrote his first vaudeville , La jeunesse de Maria Stuard , which was also performed at the Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell .

As a result, Vanderburch was very successful and his plays were performed in all theaters in Paris. He was a highly regarded person and he enjoyed the friendship of personalities such as Pierre-Jean de Béranger and Victor Hugo . So it was inevitable that Louis-Philippe I made him a Knight of the Legion of Honor .

Vanderburch traveled often and with pleasure to Orléans, where he had spent his youth. There he met his old schoolmates. These trips then inspired many of his pieces.

In 1861 Vanderburch began to be ailing and he gradually came to terms with the fact that he would probably no longer go to Orléons, but had to stay in Paris. He had always been a good storyteller and so he had a lot of visitors who made him forget his pain a little. He increasingly suffered from dropsy and from December onwards it became increasingly difficult to breathe. On March 28, 1862, around nine o'clock in the morning, his second wife found him dead, sitting in his chair where he had read the newspaper.

Vanderburch was very family friendly with Virginie Déjazet , whom he had already helped financially. After his death, she wrote a letter of condolence to his daughter, Emma, ​​which also indicated that there was another son, Charles.

Trivia

Even though money was tight, Émile Vanderburch's mother still had him baptized at the age of six. The ceremony that took place in the Saint-Eustache church was modest. At the end of the christening, little Émile climbed onto a chair and recited the fable The Lamb and the Wolf, and that was not enough an excerpt from Sophocles ' tragedy Oedipe.

At the age of 9, Vanderburch applied for a place in a new secondary school. But he was physically strong and very thin. Jean-Antoine Chaptal , who was on the application committee, exclaimed in astonishment why a six-year-old boy was applying. Then Vanderburch said, Pardon me, gentlemen, I will be ten next October 30th. He was then awarded an extraordinary scholarship at the Lycée d'Orléans, to the applause of the college.

Others

The play Le gamin de Paris was filmed three times between 1916 and 1932.

Stage plays (excerpt)

  • Brelant de Gascon , Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique, 1813
  • La jeunesse de Maria Stuard , Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell, 1817
  • Henry IV en famille , Vaudeville, Théâtre des Nouveautés , 1828
  • L'as de trèfle , Vaudeville, Théâtre des Nouveautés, 1831
  • Les charmettes , Vaudeville, Théâtre du Palais-Royal , 1834
  • Babochard ou samedi, dimanche ou lundi , Vaudeville, Théâtre du Palais-Royal, 1839
  • Clermont ou une femme d'artiste , Vaudeville, Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell, 1841
  • Les trois gamins , Vaudeville, Théâtre des Variétés , 1853

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Vanderburch, Émile
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vander-Burch, Émile-Louis (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Writer, vaudevillist and playwright
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1794
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 1862
Place of death Rueil-Malmaison