1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Glatigny, Joseph Albert Alexandre

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 12
Glatigny, Joseph Albert Alexandre
16763861911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 12 — Glatigny, Joseph Albert Alexandre

GLATIGNY, JOSEPH ALBERT ALEXANDRE (1830–1873), French poet, was born at Lillebonne (Seine Inférieure) on the 21st of May 1839. His father, who was a carpenter and afterwards a gendarme, removed in 1844 to Bernay, where Albert received an elementary education. Soon after leaving school he was apprenticed to a printer at Pont Audemer, where he produced a three-act play at the local theatre. He then joined a travelling company of actors to whom he acted as prompter. Inspired primarily by the study of Théodore de Banville, he published his Vignes folles in 1857; his best collection of lyrics, Les Flèches d’or, appeared in 1864; and a third volume, Gilles et pasquins, in 1872. After Glatigny settled in Paris he improvised at café concerts and wrote several one-act plays. On an expedition to Corsica with a travelling company he was on one occasion arrested and put in irons for a week through being mistaken by the police for a notorious criminal. His marriage with Emma Dennie brought him great happiness, but the hardships of his life weakened his health and he died at Sèvres on the 16th of April 1873.

See Catulle Mendès, Légende du Parnasse contemporain (1884), and Glatigny, drame funambulesque (1906).