MAURICE BOUCHOR

BOUCHOR, MAURICE (1855-1929), French poet and dramatist, was born on the 15th of December, 1855, in Paris. He published in succession Chansons joyeuses (1874), Poèmes de l'amour (1875), Le Faust moderne (1878) in prose and verse, and Les Contes parisiens (1880) in verse. His Aurore (1883) showed a tendency to religious mysticism, which reached its fullest expression in Les Symboles (1888), the most interesting of his works. Bouchor (whose brother, Joseph Félix Bouchor, b. 1853, became well known as an artist) was a sculptor as well as a poet, and he designed and worked the figures using his charming pieces as marionettes, the words being recited or chanted by himself or his friends behind the scenes. These miniature dramas on religious subjects, Tobie (1889), Noël (1890) and Sainte Cécile (1892), were produced in Paris at the Théâtre des Marionettes. A one-act verse drama by Bouchor, Conte de Noël, was played at the Théâtre Française in 1895, but Dieu le veut (1888) was not produced. In conjunction with the musician Julien Tiersot (b. 1857), he made efforts for the preservation of the French folk-songs, and published Chants populaires pour les écoles (1897).