François Coppée

Who he was

François Coppée (Paris, 1842–1908) was a poet and dramatist of the Parnassian generation, popular for his verse of humble Parisian life. His one-act verse play Le Passant (Odéon, 1869) made the young Sarah Bernhardt famous; his five-act verse drama Severo Torelli opened at the Odéon on 21 November 1883. He was archivist of the Comédie-Française from 1878 and was elected to the Académie française in 1884 (en.wikipedia «François Coppée»; Catholic Encyclopedia «François Coppée»; first edition of Severo Torelli, Lemerre 1884, as listed by booksellers). The t.16 index of Mon Journal gives «Coppée (François), écrivain : 210, 215-217, 221».

Coppée in the diary

• 25 February 1880. At the 50th-anniversary performance of Hernani, «Sarah dit des vers de Coppée» (087.0539).
• May 1884: the visit. Mme Zoé Zarondsky (also printed «Zarondny»), a senator's wife, reads Coppée to Marie when she is feverish (104.0343, 104.0434). She had seen Severo Torelli at the Odéon on an earlier stay in Paris and pursued the poet with letters and a copied Madonna (104.0442–0444); Marie is asked to draft her telegram, which invokes «quatre jeunes filles enthousiastes» (104.0444, 104.0446). Coppée, «de l'Académie Française» on his card, calls on Mme Zarondsky on Friday 30 May at two, with Maman, Dina, Marie and the Mlles Staritsky present: «Il ne s'est jamais trouvé à pareille fête et a dû se prendre pour Victor Hugo. Vous savez, moi, je suis très calme à l'égard des vers de Coppée» (104.0449). In a crosswise note she compares him with Tony Robert-Fleury, who arrives after him: «Coppée est plus jeune que Tony et paraît bien plus âgé» (104.0453). Coppée was born in 1842, Robert-Fleury in 1837 (en.wikipedia), so the note is right.
• 1 June 1884. «ce pauvre Coppée que je n'admire pas pour deux sous» (104.0489).
• Le Passant is footnoted at 093.0035 and 105.0303.