Adrien and Pierre DECOURCELLE
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Writers, father and son.
Adrien Decourcelle, born at Montdidier in Picardy in 1821, wrote some seventy vaudevilles and comedies for the stage in ten years. His son Pierre, born in 1856, had the whole of France in tears with “Les Deux Gosses”, then understood before anyone else what the cinema could become: in 1908 he pressed Pathé into founding a company that would make films written by writers.
The story
Adrien Decourcelle was born at Montdidier, in Picardy, in 1821, and wrote for the stage: some seventy vaudevilles and comedies in ten years, often with Théodore Barrière, sometimes with Labiche.
His son Pierre, born in 1856, did the same work on a larger scale: “Les Deux Gosses”, a melodrama the whole of France read and played, and then, in 1908, the founding with Pathé of a company that had films made by men of letters.
The father died in 1892, the son in 1926; they lie together today in Division 7, a few steps from the tomb of Heloise and Abelard.
On site, do not miss
A family grave that brings together two generations of writers.
Visitors' questions
Why are Adrien and Pierre Decourcelle buried together?
Because they were father and son, and both were writers: a single family grave in Division 7 thus brings together two generations of men of letters, from the nineteenth century into the early twentieth.
The writers and poetsWhat era did this family of writers live through?
Adrien Decourcelle, born in 1821, belonged to the generation of the Second Empire, while his son Pierre, born in 1856 and dead in 1926, carried the literary vocation on into the years just after the First World War.
Marcel ProustDo other families of writers rest at Père-Lachaise?
Yes. The cemetery holds several family graves that gather successive generations of artists or men of letters — the Brongniarts, for instance, in science and architecture.
The grave of Alexandre BrongniartWhere exactly is the Decourcelle grave?
In Division 7 of the cemetery, the same sector as the tomb of Héloïse and Abelard, one of the most visited monuments at Père-Lachaise.
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