Edmond Biré

Jean Baptiste Edmond Biré (13 March 1829 – 15 March 1907) was a French journalist, critic and man of letters.

Biography

Biré was born at Luçon, in the department of the Vendée, the son of Augustin Biré, a notary in Luçon and owner of the Hôtel Chabot de Thénies, and Rose Vallade (daughter of a deputy mayor of Luçon). Edmond Biré was born into a family of lawyers and politicians. His brother, Alfred Biré, was a doctor of law and a monarchist senator for the Vendée from 1887 to 1897. After attending the Collège Royal in Poitiers, Biré studied law in Paris from 1847. During the Revolution of February 1848, he made his first contributions to the legitimist journal L'Assemblée nationale. After obtaining his doctorate in law, he was admitted to the Nantes bar in 1854.

In 1859, he became secretary to the Nantes Chamber of Commerce. In 1870, he took over the management of a soap factory in Nantes.

He retired from business in 1890 and devoted himself entirely to his literary and historical activities. He wrote four books analysing Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. He also wrote biographies of several monarchist writers, including Honoré de Balzac, Victor de Laprade and Armand de Pontmartin. He edited Chateaubriand's Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe (1899–1900).

During his literary career he published numerous articles for various periodicals such as Correspondant, the Univers, the Union de l’Ouest, the Revue de Bretagne et de Vendée and the Moniteur Universel. He succeeded Pontmartin as literary critic at the Gazette de France. Pontmartin praised him for his scholarship, the politeness of his tone, for the attention Biré gave to precise detail in his historical and literary studies. He was a careful researcher, known for the accuracy of his findings. Biré is probably best known for his critical works on Hugo.

He died in Nantes and was buried at the Cemetery Miséricorde.

Private life

Married to Anne Métois, sister-in-law of Senator Stéphane Halgan and niece by marriage of Auguste Lorieux, he was the father of :

• Joseph Biré, married to Armandine Émilie Aubry de Maraumont (daughter of Benjamin Marie François Aubry de Maraumont and Justine Pavret-Belair)
• Edmond Biré, married to Mlle Pineau (from a family of shipowners from Noirmoutier)

Works

• Les Poètes Lauréats de l’Académie Française (1864; with Émile Grimaud)
• Victor Hugo et la Restauration (1869)
• Dialogues des Vivants et des Morts (1872)
• La Légende des Girondins (1881)
• Victor Hugo avant 1830 (1883)
• Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris Pendant la Terreur (1884)
• Victor de Laprade: Sa Vie et Ses Œuvres (1886)
• Paris en 1793 (1888; awarded with the French Academy's Grand prix Gobert)
• Portraits Littéraires (1888)
• Histoire et Littérature (1890)
• Causeries Littéraires (1890)
• Paris Pendant la Terreur (1890)
• Victor Hugo après 1830 (1891)
• Portraits Historiques et Littéraires (1892)
• Légendes Révolutionnaires (1893)
• Victor Hugo après 1852 (1894)
• Études et Portraits (1894)
• L'année 1817 (1895)
• Mémoires et souvenirs 1789-1830 (1895-1998)
• Les Défenseurs de Louis XVI (1896)
• Honoré de Balzac (1897)
• Nouvelles Causeries Littéraires (1897)
• Causeries Historiques. Les historiens de la Révolution et de l'Empire (1897)
• Mémoires et Souvenirs (1898)
• Dernières Causeries Historiques et Littéraires (1898)
• Études d'Histoire et de Littérature (1900)
• La Presse Royaliste de 1830 à 1852 (1901)
• Alfred Nettement (1901)
• Le Clergé de France Pendant la Révolution (1789-1799) (1901)
• Les Dernières Années de Chateaubriand (1830-1848) (1902)
• De 1789 à 1815: Souvenirs et Portraits (1902)
• Armand de Pontmartin: Sa Vie et Ses Œuvres 1811-1890 (1904)
• Biographies Contemporaines (1905)
• Chateaubriand, Victor Hugo, H. de Balzac (1907)
• Écrivains et Soldats (1907)
• Mes Souvenirs (1908)
• Romans et Romanciers Contemporains (1908)
• Autour de la Révolution (1912)
• Autour de Napoléon (1914)

Works in English translation

• The Diary of a Citizen of Paris during "The Terror" (1896; translated by John de Villiers)
  • Volume I
  • Volume II

References

• Pontmartin, Armand de (1884). "Edmond Biré: Portraits littéraires." In: Souvenirs d'un vieux critique, Vol. 10. Paris: Calmann Lévy, pp. 337–74.

External links

• Works by Edmond Biré at Hathi Trust
• Works by Edmond Biré at Gallica