Abel Hermant

Abel Hermant (3 February 1862 – 29 September 1950) was a French novelist, playwright, essayist and writer, and member of the Académie française.

Life and career

Hermant was born in Paris, the son of architect Achille Hermant (1823-1903). His half-brother was the architect Jacques Hermant. He entered the highly selective École Normale Supérieure in 1880, where he was a friend and classmate of René Doumic and Jean Jaurès. He published his first volume of verse in 1883, The Contempt. After several youthful novels, he moved to ironic analysis of the popular mores of the Belle Époque and achieved popular success. His first semi-autobiographical novel, Monsieur Rabosson of 1884, established his reputation as a satirical social observer. Its follow-up Le Cavalier Miserey of 1887, scandalised France for its depiction of the military at a time the French Republic, surrounded by monarchies, was preparing to take revenge (la Revanche) on the German Reich. One of key characters is a royal prince who is accused of anti-republican behaviour by the Radical-Socialist government of the day, and demoted as colonel of the light cavalry regiment wherefrom the main character, a weak young man, goes AWOL with his captain's wife. The colonel de Vermandois is possibly based loosely on the life of Prince de Joinville.

Between 1901 and 1937 Hermant embarked on a series of 20 linked novels with the general title Memoirs to Serve for a History of Society, but his contributions to literature included many popular plays, drama criticism for Le Figaro and Gil Blas, and a series of grammarian articles for Le Temps under the name "Lancelot" defending the purity of the French language.