Judith Gautier
(1845 - 1917)
Daughter of Théophile Gautier and Ernesta Grisi (sister to the dancer Carlotta Grisi). She was raised in absolute liberty and spent her youth in the countryside where she lived the life of the free; but she also knew convent life, at Notre-Dame-de-la-Miséricorde where she boarded, which she wieghs heavily on her.
At a tender age, she is exposed to Banville, Flaubert, Goncourt, Baudelaire, Champfleury, Arsène Houssaye, Gustave Doré whom are frequent visitors of her father. Her first article, a critique of Eureka`s translation of Edgar Poe by Charles Baudelaire, is published in "Le Moniteur" where she is acclaimed as a poet. Familiarly nicknamed "The hurricane", Baudelaire predicts she will "sink" many. When she is but a young girl, her father assists a Chinese mandarin, political refugee, Ding Dunling.
Under his leadership, Gautier she translates, copies, recopies, and adapts books and manuscripts; she specializes in Chinese literature and civilizations. She extended her expertise to Japan and all of the Far East. She recreated the atmosphere of various countries through a rare poetical finesse, as her gracious Chinese tales show, where her art perfectly captures the subject. Her work comprises collections of poems ("Le Livre de jade", published under the pseudonym Judith Walter when she was 17, translated Chinese poems; "Poèmes de la libellule", translated from the Japanese), novels ("Lucienne", 1877; "Isoline", 1882), exotic novels, a genre in which she excelled; "Le Dragon impérial", 1869, signed Judith Mendès; "L’Usurpateur", 1875; "Iskender", a Persian story, 1894; "Le Vieux de la montagne", 1893; "Les Princesses d’amour", 1900), fairy tales; "Les Cruautés de l’amour", 1879, where she shows a fine sense for the comic; "La Femme de Putiphar", 1884; "Fleurs d’Orient" , 1893), studies on Oriental and Far East civilizations and travelogues ("Les Peuples étranges", 1879; "En Chine", 1911; "Dupleix" , 1912; "l’Inde éblouie", 1913), memoirs ("Le Collier des jours", 1904). Judith Gautier also wrote theatrical works ("Le Jeu de l’amour et de la mort", "La Marchande de sourires", 1888), in collaboration with Pierre Loti. A musicologist, she finally published "Les Musiques bizarres" for the 1900 world exhibition (Chinese music, Javanese, Indo-Chinese, Japanese, Egyptian, Malagasy) and "Richard Wagner and his poetical works" (1882).
In 1866, Judith married Catulle Mendès whom she soon divorced, concluding that he was neither a faithful husband nor a writer of talent. Blessed with a great beauty, as becoming as her quick mind, she did not suffer from a lack of admirers. Among these, two are worthy of note: Victor Hugo, whom she admired since childhood, who surely received her early advances and who dedicated his best love poems, "Ave, Dea: moriturus te salutat"; And Richard Wagner, whom she was one of the first in France to discover. She was to be one of his last great passions along while being one of his great supporters (see Letters to Judith Gautier by Richard and Cosima Wagner, 1964; the original letters are in French).
Source: © 1997 Encyclopædia Universalis France S.A.
Copyright © 1999 Association de généalogie des familles Gauthier
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