His name was Léon-Émile Petitdidier and he took a pen name to sign his verse. A poet, he frequented the literary circles of late nineteenth-century Paris, at the moment when Impressionism was gaining ground. Dying in 1927, he lived through several aesthetic generations.
The story
Born Léon-Émile Petitdidier in 1839, he signed his verse Émile Blémont, as most men of letters did in his day.
In 1872 he founded “La Renaissance littéraire et artistique”, an avant-garde review of the years after the war, in which he introduced French readers to Walt Whitman. Rimbaud left him the manuscript of “Voyelles”: it is the one on show today at the Musée Rimbaud in Charleville-Mézières.
He is one of the two standing men in “Un coin de table”, the painting in which Fantin-Latour gathered Verlaine and Rimbaud around a table: Blémont bought the canvas and gave it to the Louvre in 1910 — it hangs today in the Musée d'Orsay. He died in 1927 and lies in Division 11.
On site, do not miss
A grave representative of the men of letters of the Belle Époque.
Visitors' questions
What was Émile Blémont's real name?
Léon-Émile Petitdidier. Like many men of letters of his day, he took a pen name for his literary and public career.
The writers and poetsWhich circles did Émile Blémont move in?
The literary and artistic circles of late nineteenth-century Paris, a period of great cultural ferment marked by the rise of Impressionism and of new currents in poetry.
Marcel ProustWhere is Émile Blémont's grave?
In Division 11 of Père-Lachaise, beside Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, author of “Paul et Virginie”, in a sector rich in literary figures from different periods.
The grave of Bernardin de Saint-PierreWhy did nineteenth-century writers take pen names?
To stand out, to shield their private identity, or simply to adopt a name more literary than the one they were born with — a very common practice in the world of letters at the time.
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