Pierre Desproges came to the public through television, then found his ground at France Inter, where he played the prosecutor of a mock tribunal and every day demanded sentence against the guest. His daily columns ran five minutes, in a language at once exact and furious, where the laughter comes from the way the sentence is built. His date of birth is engraved with a century's error.
The story
Pierre Desproges was born in Pantin on 9 May 1939. Television brought him to the public, as a reporter on Jacques Martin's Sunday satire “Le Petit Rapporteur”, alongside Daniel Prévost.
Radio gave him his ground. On France Inter's mock courtroom “Le Tribunal des flagrants délires”, with Claude Villers and Luis Rego, he played the prosecutor and delivered a closing speech against the day's guest — a form he invented and nobody has taken up since.
The “Chroniques de la haine ordinaire” followed: five minutes a day of exact, furious French, in which the build of the sentence does all the comedy. On television, “La Minute nécessaire de Monsieur Cyclopède” split the country in two, he said — “the idiots who like it and the idiots who don't”.
On Guy Bedos's advice he took to the stage in 1984 and again in 1986, and published “Vivons heureux en attendant la mort” and “Des femmes qui tombent”. His most quoted line carries a limit that is nearly always dropped from the quotation: you can laugh at anything, but not with anyone.
He died of cancer on 18 April 1988, aged forty-eight, having written the news agency dispatch himself: “Pierre Desproges has died of cancer — astonishing, isn't it?” His wife Hélène joined him in 2012, in Division 10.
The grave
The grave is surrounded by a low wall with a railing, with a plaque, and the inscription joins two names: “Pierre and Hélène Desproges, 1839-1988, 1947-2012”. The first year is wrong by exactly a century — the humorist was born in 1939, in Pantin. The engraving error was never corrected; on the grave of a man whose whole art lay in the placing of words, it ended up becoming part of the character. Hélène, née Moirain, joined him twenty-four years after him.
On site, do not miss
The first engraved date, “1839”: a century's error on the grave of a man who lived by the precision of words.
Visitors' questions
Where is Pierre Desproges's grave?
In Division 10, Chemin Denon, first row, in the lower part of the cemetery — the same alley as Claude Chabrol's grave and the statue of Vivant Denon. The tomb is enclosed by a low wall with a railing.
Claude ChabrolIs there a mistake on his grave?
Yes, and a big one: the inscription has him born in 1839 instead of 1939, an engraving error of exactly one century. It was never corrected, and the humorist would probably have made a sketch of it.
Jules BerryWhat was the “Tribunal des flagrants délires”?
A France Inter radio show with Claude Villers and Luis Rego, in which Desproges played the prosecutor and delivered a daily indictment of the guest. He invented there a form that nobody has taken up since.
Pierre BellemareDid he announce his own death?
He had written the press agency dispatch himself: “Pierre Desproges est mort d'un cancer, étonnant, non ?” — Pierre Desproges has died of cancer, surprising, isn't it? He died on 18 April 1988 at forty-eight; his wife Hélène joined him twenty-four years later, in 2012.
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