Marie Claire

Marie Claire, by Marguerite
Audoux

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marie Claire, by Marguerite Audoux
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Marie Claire
Author: Marguerite Audoux
Translator: John N. Raphael
Release Date: February 12, 2007 [EBook #20572]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE
CLAIRE ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: Marguerite Audoux]

MARIE CLAIRE
BY
MARGUERITE AUDOUX

TRANSLATED BY
JOHN N. RAPHAEL

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
ARNOLD BENNETT

AND AN AFTERWORD BY THE TRANSLATOR

LONDON
G. BELL & SONS, LTD.
1911

This Edition is intended for circulation only in India, and the British
Colonies

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.

INTRODUCTION

The origins of this extraordinary book are sufficiently curious and
sufficiently interesting to be stated in detail. They go back to some ten
years ago, when the author, after the rustic adventures which she
describes in the following pages, had definitely settled in Paris as a
working sempstress. The existence of a working sempstress in Paris, as
elsewhere, is very hard; it usually means eleven hours' close application
a day, six full days a week, at half a crown a day. But already
Marguerite Audoux's defective eyesight was causing anxiety, and
upsetting the regularity of her work, so that in the evenings she was
often less fatigued than a sempstress generally is. She wanted
distraction, and she found it in the realization of an old desire to write.
She wrote, not because she could find nothing else to do, but because at
last the chance of writing had come. That she had always loved reading
is plain from certain incidents in this present book; her opportunities
for reading, however, had been limited. She now began, in a tentative
and perhaps desultory fashion, to set down her youthful reminiscences.
About this time she became acquainted, through one of its members,
and by one of those hazards of destiny which too rarely diversify the
dull industrial life of a city, with a circle of young literary men, of
whom possibly the most important was the regretted Charles Louis
Philippe, author of "Bubu de Montparnasse," and other novels which
have a genuine reputation among the chosen people who know the
difference between literature and its counterfeit. This circle of friends
used to meet at Philippe's flat. It included a number of talented writers,
among whom I should mention MM. Iehl (the author of "Cauët"),
Francis Jourdain, Paul Fargue, Larbaud, Chanvin, Marcel Ray, and
Régis Gignoux (the literary and dramatic critic). Marguerite Audoux
was not introduced as a literary prodigy. Nobody, indeed, was aware
that she wrote. She came on her merits as an individuality, and she took
her place beside several other women who, like herself, had no literary
pretensions. I am told by one of the intimates of the fellowship that the
impression she made was profound. And the fact is indubitable that her
friends are at least as enthusiastic about her individuality as about this
book which she has written. She was a little over thirty, and very pretty,
with an agreeable voice. The sobriety of her charm, the clear depth of
her emotional faculty, and the breadth of her gentle interest in human
nature handsomely conquered the entire fellowship. The working

sempstress was sincerely esteemed by some of the brightest masculine
intellects in Paris.
This admiring appreciation naturally encouraged her to speak a little of
herself. And one evening she confessed that she, too, had been trying to
write. On another evening she brought some sheets of manuscript--the
draft of the early chapters of "Marie Claire"--and read them aloud. She
read, I am told, very well. The reception was enthusiastic. One can
imagine the ecstatic fervour of these young men, startled by the
apparition of such a shining talent. She must continue the writing of her
book, but in the mean time she must produce some short stories and
sketches for the daily papers! Her gift must be presented to the public
instantly! She followed the advice thus urgently offered, and several
members of the circle (in particular, Régis Gignoux and Marcel Ray)
gave themselves up to the business of placing the stories and sketches;
Marcel Ray devoted whole days to the effort, obtaining special leave
from his own duties in order to do so. In the result several stories and
sketches appeared in the Matin, Paris Journal (respectively the least
and the most literary of Paris morning papers), and other organs. These
stories and sketches, by the way, were republished