Petite
Fée, ill. R. de
la Nézière, 1920 (Bibliothèque
de Suzette 2nde série), 1939
Pauvre Charlotte,
ill. (Paul Adolphe) Kauffmann, 1921,
1932
Marie
Alexandrine d'Agon de la Contrie was the daughter of François
Guillaume, and Pierre Louise Marie Fanélie Couppé
du Portblanc.
Her mother was born in 1810 at Petit Canal de la Grande
Terre (Guadeloupe) into an old Breton family who had settled
between Martinique and Guadeloupe at the end of the XVII
Century.
Her father "un excellent homme" [cfr. L.
Chauvet (1) born in 1804 at Spire in the kingdom of
Bavaria joined the Army as a volunteer in 1822 and ended
his military career as Chef de Bataillon. He met his
wife during his posting in Guadeloupe (1837-1842). They
married in Petit Canal the 1st October 1839. Chevalier
de la Legion d'Honneur in 1845. In 1842 D'Agon returned
to France settling with his family in Brest. His own father
Louis Bernard Antoine was a lawyer and jurist, author of
the classic Ancien statuaire d'Alsace ou Recueil des
actes de notoriété fournis en 1738 et 1739
à M. de Corberon... sur les statuts, us et coutumes
locales de cette province, suivi d'une notice sur les emphytéoses,
les colonges, les locatairies perpétuelles Colmar:
impr. de J. H. Decker, 1825.
Marie,
had an older brother, Edmond Joseph (b.
Basse Terre, Guadeloupe 27 gen 1842-d.Toulouse 27 July 1901).
He joined the Navy aged 19 and became a Navy administrative
officer. In 1877-1879 he was in Sénégal as
aide-commissaire de la Marine at the same time as the explorer
Louis-Parfait Monteil and (as he was then) lieutenant Joseph
Gallieni with whom he became close friend. In 1881 he was
posted, like his father, to Guadeloupe where he met and
married Aline Paul Dubois de la Saussais d'Estreban (b.
ca 1849 - d. Toulouse 20 novembre 1903) descendant
from a French Creole family. They had a daughter Jehanne.
Subsequently he served in Cochincine and Réunion
(1886-ca.1890).
Around 1852 Marie's father was posted to India with his
family in what proved to be his last mission overseas. He
died suddenly in 1853 just a few days before he was due
to return to France. Pierre-Louis-Honoré Chauvet
in his L'Inde Française, Deux années sur
la côte de Coromandel 1877 mentions his untimely
death (1).
Marie
Alexandrine was sent to La Maison d'Education de la
Legion d'Honneur de Saint-Denis, a boarding institution
founded by Napoleon to educate the female relatives of Légionnaires.
The pupils entered the school between the age of six and
twelve and left at eighteen; they were taught arithmetic,
reading, writing, grammar, history, geography, cosmography,
botany, dance (as a form of physical activity), some
domestic skills and according to their talent, received
design and music lessons. Intensive religious education,
prayers and daily masses were de rigueur.
After
completing her education, in 1868, without any relatives
in France to whom she could return, (her mother had also
died) she remained at La Maison to become part of the staff,
which was organized in dames postulantes au noviciat,
dames novices, dames de 2me classe, dames de 1ère
classe, dignitaires, under the direction
of the Superintendante. The dames performed
the task of teachers, supervisors, pharmacists, proctors,
concierges, nurses. By 1871 Marie had reached the grade
of dame novice with a stipend of 400fr/year.
By all accounts she would have remained all her life
at St Denis, where no man was allowed to enter (with a few
grand exceptions) but in 1872 she was asked in marriage
by Commandant Brunot. The Ministry of War deemed her
credentials impeccable (daughter of a Légionnaire,
grandaughter of an eminent jurist) and though her dowry
was too modest for the future wife of a Navy officer it
was considered sufficient to grant permission to marry.
It was a marriage arranged in the close-knit milieu of the
creole families, maybe with the input of her brother Edmond,
but it proved to be a happy one.
Thanks
to l'Abbé Bethleem, who so described her in the first
edition of Romans à lire et à proscrire,
Marie D'Agon has been known to this day as "M.me
Brunot, femme du Commandant Brunot de l'Infanterie de Marine".
The
elusive "commandant Brunot de l'infanterie de Marine"
is Colonel-Lieutenant Napoléon François Ernest,
born Fort-de-France, Martinique, in 1839. son of Jacques,
Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur, Military Commander-Governor
of Martinique in 1853 and Marie Colombe Aglaé Goy.
After un-promising beginnings in the Army owing to his strong-willed
character, which earned him various disciplinary actions,
Brunot performed a distinguished military service with the
2e Régiment d'Infanterie de Marine (RIMa). He took
part to: two campaigns in Sénégal (1858-1862)
with the Bataillon de Tiralleurs Sénégalais,
two in Cochinchine (1863-1865) the Prussian War 1870
with l'Armée du Rhin (he fought valiantly at the
battle of Bazeilles). He was made prisoner in September
1870 at Sedan returning from captivity in 1871. Promoted
Lieutenant-Colonel in 1876. Chevalier Légion d'Honneur
in 1874.
The Brunots married in Saint-Denis on the 12th of Nov. 1872.
They had four children Georges Léon Jacques
(b. 1874) who became a colonial
civil servant, Jacques Edmond Paul Henri (b
Brest, June 1876) who died aged two months, Marie
Madeleine Juliette Fanélie, (b.
Brest 1878 - d. Saint-Germain-en-Laye 1976) who in
1901 married Auguste Cornet, Paul (b.1881),
Richard Edmond Maurice Edouard (b.
9 April 1883 Saint Ciers du Taillon - d.Aix les Bains 1958).
After their marriage they settled in Brest, 20. rue Dalgesiras.
In 1879 Brunot was again in Indochina in Saigon returning
to Brest in January 1880.
Commandant
Brunot retired in 1881. After a spell in Marseille (July
1881), the family moved to 8, Place du Commerce Paris-Grenelle
(1882) then to Saint Ciers du Taillon Charente Inferieure
(1882-1886) then to Le Bouscat nr. Bordeaux (1886-1891)
returning to Brest in 1891, rue du Chateau. They moved to
Versailles in 1894, rue de la Bonne Aventure 24bis. Their
next-door neighbours were the Petitjeans de la Rosière, whose
daughter Marie Jeanne Henriette became known in literature
as Delly. It is quite possible that d'Agon knew of Marie
Petitjean's literary ambitions and may have introduced her
to Henri Gautier, the publisher of Delly's Dans les
ruines in 1903.
D'Agon
divided her time between the social obligations of a military
wife and the care of her family (which during their time
in Marseille included her father-in-law who died aged 84
in 1883) with the help of just one maid who in 1901 was
one Reine Le Sergeant. Though she had been for many
years a very popular writer, one of Blériot flagships,
she appears as "sans profession" in the 1901
census, a clear indication of how in her time female writers,
receiving little recognition, did not consider their activity
to be a profession.
Owing
to her family commitments d'Agon started writing late in
life, after her chidren began their secondary education.
She immediately established herself as a successful writer:
she won the prize of the Société d'Encouragement
au Bien for Les Colères du bouillant Achille.
Her first books Reconnaissance ed. Société
française d'éditions d'art. and Marjolaine,
ed. May & Mantoux, were published in 1890.
She
dedicated some of her books to grandaugthers, nieces and
children of family friends.
•Miss
Bengali: "A ma petite-fille, Jeanne Cornet. Ce
livre a été terminé le jour même
de ta naissance ! Quand tu seras assez grande pour le lire,
tu ne seras pas plus chérie que tu ne l'es à
cette première heure de ta vie par ta grand'mère,
M. D'Agon de la Contrie à Versailles, le 22 Novembre
1901".
•
Le fils du cordier: 9 Éd. Imp. 37, rue Gandon,
Paris, 1902 "A Marie la Prairie, Je t'offre ce livre,
ma chère petite fille, parce qu'on y parle de ton
pays natal; parce que tu y verras que les enfants de marsouins
sont bons et généreux; et puis, surtout, parce
que je t'aime très maternellement, Versailles, le
6 Janvier 1902" (Gabrielle Sophie Marie la Prairie,
born in Brest 1888, was the daughter of Brunot fellow officer
Paul La Prairie, Lt Colonel 2e RIMa. She died in 1976).
•
Fraternité, Société française
d'éditions d'Art, 1900 : "A Marie-Louise Accary -
je t'offre ce livre ma chère enfant parceque je sais
que l'on t'apprend à aimer les malheureux" (Born
in Versailles in 1885, Marie Louise Charlotte was the daughter
of Léon Accary Controleur Générale
de l'Armée).
Contributions:
Mon Journal, Les Veillées des Chaumieres
(es. La Dette de Noëlle, 1907), L'Ouvrier,
Semaine de Suzette, Le Journal de la Jeunesse.
She
wrote also under the name Mme Brunot: La Revanche de
François Talence, 1905 and Les Victoires
de mademoiselle Laurence, 1904 both published by Librairie
nationale d'éducation et de récréation.
D'Agon
shared with Roger Dombre the honour of launching La
Semaine. The first episode of her novel Pauvre
Charlotte — which takes place in Guadeloupe
— opened La Semaine de Suzette n. 1,
February 1905.
The author was thus introduced by the publisher: "...
cet écrivain qui depuis des longues années,
exploite au profit de la jeunesse les trésors d'une
imagination féconde et colorée et qui mieux
que personne, sait glisser le bon précepte sous les
attraits de l'action captivante."
The
Brunot moved once more, this time to 5
rue La Boëtie Périgueux in Dordogne where
the Commandant died on 29 July 1908. Between 1904
and 1906 she was a member of the École
felibréenne du Périgord the literary society
for the diffusion and knowledge of occitan and published
three short articles in its monthly bulletin Lou Bournat.
The
family connection with the colonies continued with the next
generations: Richard Brunot, a Law graduate, entered the
colonial administration and became Gouverneur général
des Colonies, Senator for Mauritania at the Assemblée
Nationale, Conseiller de la République de Mauritanie
1946-1948.
As late as the Fifties the Cornets were still in West Africa;
in 1976 two male descendants Jean-Luc, Marie, Léon
Cornet, b. 15 Aug. 1954 at Kaya (Haute-Volta ), and Jean-
Michel, Georges, Marie Cornet, b. 12 sept. 1956 at Versailles
applied to have the surname d'Agon de la Contrie added to
Cornet.
(1)
"Le
commandant d'Agon de la Contrie attendait le passage du
prochain paquebot anglais pour rentrer en France avec sa
famille. Il s'entendit avec son ami F., auquel il céda
la maison qu'il avait encore plusieurs mois à occuper.
Mais, l'avant-veille du jour fixé pour le départ,
le pauvre commandant mourut subitement: le départ
de la famille fut retardé par cet événement,
et F., pressé de mettre sa lune de miel dans ses
meubles, pria la veuve d'aller s'installer ailleurs, ce
qu'elle fît en se lamentant de l'impatience de son
ami. Mais l'ami, pour l'empire du Grand Mogol, n'aurait
pas voulu condamner sa jeune fiancée à passer
la première nuit de ses noces à la belle étoile,
ni retarder d'une heure son réengagement dans l'armée
des maris". (from L'Inde Française,
Deux années sur la côte de Coromandel
by Pierre-Louis-Honoré Chauvet, Challamel, 1877).
*****
(sources:
Abbé Bethléem, 1928 & Mnémosyne,
& SedeSu & La guerre de 1870-71, L'armée
de Chalons and Philippe Castel ENTRAIDE FDA78, with thanks
to Jean Luc Buard for kindly supplying Brunot's military
dossier).