Berthe Jeanne Le Barillier (24 July 1858 – 24 January 1927), known by her pen nameJean Bertheroy, was a French 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), and Hyacinthe Édouard François Le Barillier (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.[3]
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.[4]
Jean Bertheroy died on January 24, 1927, in Le Cannet,[2] 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,[5] in the immediate vicinity of the Hermitage of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a writer she admired and wanted to get closer to.[5] This house is sometimes called Hôtel Bertheroy,[5] sometimes Maison Jean Bertheroy.
Femmes antiques : la légende, l'histoire, la Bible, poems (1890)
Cléopâtre, historical novel (1891)
Aristophane et Molière, 1 act in verse, Paris, Comédie-Française, 15 January 1897 (éd. Paris, Colin, 1891).
Ximénès, historical novel (1893)
Le Mime Bathylle, historical novel (1894)
Le Roman d'une âme, novel (1895)
Le Double Joug, novel (1897)
Sur la pente, novel (1897)
Les Trois Filles de Pieter Waldorp (Pierre Lafitte & Cie, 1897)
Un vrai ami, comedy in 1 act, co-written with Brandimbourg, Paris, performed at the Grand-Guignol, 25 November 1897
Cocu, ou la femme de M. Duveau, vaudeville in 1 act, co-written with Habrekon and De Pawlowsky, performed at Divan japonais, 16 September 1899
La Danseuse de Pompéi (1899) ; reissued in 1905 (Arthème Fayard)
Le Journal de Marguerite Plantin (1899)
Éloge de André Chénier, memoir (1900)
Lucie Guérin, marquise de Ponts, novel (published as a serial novel in Le Figaro, 4 November 1899 – 15 December 1899; published in one volume by Paul Ollendorf in 1900)
^ ab"Jean Bertheroy". Tales: A Magazine of the World's Best Fiction. 37 (3). New York City: 374–75. January 1908. Retrieved 15 September 2024.
^ abcde"Montmorency : un passé historique fabuleux" [Montmorency: a fabulous historical past]. montmorencytoujours.com (in French). 22 November 2016. Retrieved 14 September 2024 – via wikiwix.com.
