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Housing of Hippolyte Taine
“I am settled from last night in a very nice room, a little far from the college, it is true.”
Excerpt from Lettres de jeunesse by Hippolyte Taine
Just transferred to Poitiers where he worked as a teacher, Hippolyte Taine found a room to rent at 6 rue des Carmélites.
He dreamed of becoming an agrégé de philosophie, but his reputation as a strong head and his excessive freedom concerning the concepts of the discipline made him fail the competitive examination in 1851. He had no choice but to accept a position in Nevers and then another in the city of Pictou. In March 1852, he obtained the chair of rhetoric at the high school.
If he is happy with the state of the room, he is not tender with Poitiers: “I found the city so ugly, so unpleasant to live in, twelve years ago! But time has taken its toll on the philosopher and future member of the French Academy. It amuses him as he describes it in Combien de vies moisies et cloîtrées, a text of the corpus Lettres de jeunesse in 1864. He did not appreciate the bourgeoisie of Poitiers, but he liked to walk in the garden of Blossac: “a large plot of land planted with tall and thick bower trees, with terraces from which one can see the Clain river and the whole plain”.
Hippolyte Taine was elected to the French Academy by 20 votes out of 26 voters in 1878.
6 Rue des Carmélites
6 rue des carmélites is located in one of the old arteries of Poitiers
This modest dwelling in a Poitiers building housed the French academician Hippolyte Taine for some time while he was stationed in the city.
This very long street in Poitiers starts in Rue des Trois rois along the Clain river and ends in the city center in Rue de la Marne.
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Gargantua and Pantagruel
Parodying everyone from classic authors to his own contemporaries, the dazzling and exuberant stories of Rabelais expose human follies with mischievous and often obscene humor. Gargantua depicts a young giant who becomes a cultured Christian knight. Pantagruel portrays Gargantua’s bookish son who becomes a Renaissance Socrates, divinely guided by wisdom and by his idiotic, self-loving companion, Panurge.
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By Damien Canteau
Passionné par l'Histoire, les animés, les Arts et la bande dessinée en particulier, Damien est le rédacteur en chef du site spécialisé dans le 9e art, Comixtrip.