Louis XIII and Napoleon Bonaparte must be turning in their graves. The
Académie Française, France’s oldest and grandest cultural institution, has
just elected to its midst a writer of pop lyrics.
Jean-Loup Dabadie, 69, who has penned hits for two generations of singers as
well as successful screenplays, is the first saltimbanque (popular
entertainer) to join the hallowed guardians of the French language and soul.
For four centuries only literary stars and distinguished elders of the
Establishment have been elevated to the status of “immortal”, as the 40
members are known.
Decades ago the Académie rejected Charles Trenet, the top crooner of the
Second World War era. Four years ago die-hards made a vain attempt to block
the election of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former President, on the
ground that he had produced only one second-rate novel.
In a sign of changing times, there has been little protest over the arrival of
the man who turned out hits for Michel Polnareff and Julien Clerc, 1960s
popsters who are still going, and the soulful balladeer Serge Reggiani.
Dabadie was responsible for Polnareff’s smash On ira tous au Paradis (We’ll
All Go to Heaven), and his L’Italien was the late Reggiani’s signature song.
The illustrious Académie, founded in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIII’s
regent, is living through rough times. Seven members have died in two years
and the surviving immortals, whose average age is 79, have rejected a string
of literary contenders as unworthy. Six of the numbered chairs remain empty
and there are not enough volunteers to attend the Thursday meetings to edit
the dictionary. Work on the latest one began in 1935 and they have reached
the letter R. The Second World War is blamed for the slow pace.
In February the immortals, who wear green and gold ceremonial uniforms with
swords, refused Michael Edwards, 69, a university professor and poet. He
would have become the first Briton and native English speaker to join.
Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, 79, an historian who is the Perpetual Secretary —
head — of the academy, welcomed Dabadie as worthy. He hailed from France’s
great tradition of boulevard culture, she said, adding: “His election shows
a desire to move with the times.”
However, Ms Carrère d’Encausse regrets that feuding among writers has thinned
the ranks of the Académie in recent years. More academics, politicians,
doctors and scientists than novelists now sit under the Académie’s
17th-century gold dome on the Left Bank. The writers keep rejecting
candidates from their trade, as they did in the past with some greats, such
as Emile Zola.
Sniffing at the Académie is fashionable among the writers who made their names
in the 1960s. Philippe Sollers, one of the biggest current names to decline
membership, said: “Membership is now reserved only for the mediocre; those
who will leave no trace behind.”
Ms Carrère d’Encausse, who is one of only five women to have been anointed,
wants to rejuvenate and feminise the august body. Academicians were not
always so old. Victor Hugo was elected at the age of 39, and young men were
appointed in the days when Napoleon relaunched the royal institution, adding
his much-loved bicorn hat to its uniform.
However, modern life expectancy is a problem. “If we elect someone in their
40s, they risk spending 60 to 70 years at the Académie. Is that healthy?” Ms
Carrère d’Encausse asked in L’Express magazine. The need to get along for
decades in such a small club means that much consideration is given to
candidates’ conviviality. “We look for people who are good company,” she
said.
Jean-Marie Rouart, another novelist immortal, recalled that the Académie had
always been a club of France’s greatest and best from all professions rather
than a literary body. Dabadie, a debonair former journalist, fits the bill
as excellent company. His wit is well known to the French from his
screenplay for Un éléphant ça trompe énormément (a pun meaning an elephant
is very deceiving or an elephant trumpets a lot) one of the most popular
comedies of the 1970s. Few remember, but he also published a novel — at the
age of 19.
CHANGING TIMES
On ira tous au paradis, mêm'moi
Ou'on soit béni ou qu'on soit maudit, on ira
Avec les saints et les assassins
Les femmes du monde et puis les putains
On ira tous au paradis
We're all going to heaven, even me
Whether cursed or blessed, we're going
With the saints and the assassins
Women of the world and then the whores
We're all going to heaven
Jean-Loup Dabadie, On ira tous au Paradis (1972)
Peut-être le récit d'un amour si sauvage
Vous fait, en m'écoutant, rougir de votre ouvrage.
D'un coeur qui s'offre à vous quel farouch entretien!
Quel étrange captif pour si beau lien!
Mais l'offrande à vos yeux en doit être plus chère.
Songez que je vous parle une langue étrangere;
Et ne rejetez pas des voeux mal exprimés,
Qu'Hippolyte sans vous n'aurait jamais formés.
Hearing this tale
Of passion so uncouth, you blush perchance
At your own handiwork. With what wild words
I offer you my heart, strange captive held
By silken jess! But dearer in your eyes
Should be the offering, that this language comes
Strange to my lips; reject not vows express'd
So ill, which but for you had ne'er been form'd
Racine, Phèdre (1677; trans. Robert Bruce Boswell)
