Alexis Bouvier


Alexis Bouvier was a 19th-century French novelist and playwright.

Biography

Born into a working-class family, Alexis Bouvier began his professional life as a sculptor in bronze until 1863, while taking care to educate himself in order to fill gaps in his poor formation. He quickly showed writing ambitions.
His early works are short stories depicting street scenes or workshops, folk songs and operettas for neighboring theaters and singing cafes. Some have been very successful such as Les Trois Lettres d'un marin or sung in particular by. Le Figaro, through Hippolyte de Villemessant, always looking for new products for his paper, gave him a chance from 1863. Literary realism was then in vogue and Alexis Bouvier wrote dramatic short stories that allowed him to tell about social misery and the lives of the unhappy and disinherited he knew. He liked to remind of his plebeian origin and used these stories to better evoke it.
To support himself and complete his meager profits, he sold lemonade on the boulevard de Strasbourg, and it is on a table corner between two operettas and dramatic short stories that he wrote his first serialized novel. When Villemessant, bored with his uniform and related to mourning stories suspended their publication in Le Figaro, Alexis Bouvier started publishing his serialized novels in five-cents newspapers. His success was immediate and his work was prolific in this area. Gifted with a large imagination, he could write three novels at the same time in his most productive years. Despite many expenses he made a good living. For several years, he received ten to twelve guests all summer in his estate at Veules-les-Roses.
In 1888, a hemiplegia accompanied by aphasia and memory loss forced him to give up all work. Because of the state of financial insecurity he was in, a sale of paintings was realized in his favor in 1892 by his painter friends but a new attack of paralysis struck him. He died at his home boulevard de Clichy in May 1892. He is buried at Père [Lachaise Cemetery]. His tomb is adorned with a bronze bust by Eutrope Bouret.

Works

;Operettas and vaudevilles
  • 1862: Versez, marquis
  • 1863: Mlle de Longchamp
  • 1863: Eurêka
  • 1864: Une paire d'Anglais
  • 1865: Une veuve d'un vivant
  • 1865: La Gamine du village
  • 1874: Suzanne au bain
  • 1875: Les Petites Dames du Temple
;Dramas
  • 1873: Auguste Manette
  • 1878: Le Mariage d'un forçat
  • 1882: La Dame au domino rose
  • 1882: Malheurs aux pauvres !
  • 1883: La Sang-Brûlé
;NovelsLa Duchesse Quinquenveult Les Pauvres Auguste Manette Les Soldats du désespoir Le Mariage d'un forçat Les Drames de la forêt Le Domino rose Amour, Misère et Cie M. Coquelet, le mouchard La Grande Iza M. Trumeau La Belle grêlée La Femme du mort Malheurs aux pauvres ! Iza, Lolotte et Cie Les Créanciers de l'échafaud Melle Beau Sourire Melle Olympe Le Fils d'Antony Le Club des coquins Caulot le garde-chasse La Princesse saltimbanque Bayonnette Le Bel Alphonse La Bouginotte La Rousse La Petite Duchesse La Sang-Brûlé Étienne Marcel, ou la Grande Commune Le Fils de l'amant Le Mari de sa fille La Petite Cayenne Veuve et Vierge Iza la ruine La Mort d'Iza La Belle Herboriste L'Armée du crime Lolo Colette Ninie La Petite Baronne Melle Beaubaiser Ninie Le Mariage d'un forçat Les Yeux de velours La Belle Olga Les Seins de marbre Les Petites Ouvrières Les Amours de sang Chuchote Les Assassins de femmes Les Petites Blanchisseuses
  • ''Les Chansons du Peuple''