Charles Cros

Cros died in Paris at the age of 45.

Cros was born to the philosopher Simon Charles Henry Cros and Josephine Thor. He was the grandson of grammarian Antoine Cros. Cros was the brother of the painter and sculptor Henry Cros and of Antoine-Hippolyte Cros, a surgeon who was also a pretender to the throne of the defunct Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia from 6 March 1902 until 1 November 1903, and the uncle of Laure-Therese Cros who was the Queen of Araucania and Patagonia from 1 November 1903 until 12 February 1916. In 1860 Cros began studies in medicine, but he soon abandoned them for a life of literary and scientific pursuits. In the early 1880s, Charles Cros was a member of the Hydropathic Society and part of the fumist group led by Alphonse Allais and Eugène Bataille.

Cros almost invented the phonograph. As far as is known, no one before him had thought of a practical way to reproduce sound from a recording of airborne sound waves. He gave the Greek name 'paleophone' ('voix du passé', tr. 'voice of the past') to his invention. On 30 April 1877, he submitted a sealed envelope containing a letter to the Academy of Sciences in Paris explaining his proposed method. The letter stated in French, "Un index léger est solidaire du centre de figure d'une membrane vibrante; il se termine par une pointe [...] qui repose sur une surface noircie à la flamme." The English translation is one close to this: "A lightweight armature is fixed to the center of the face of a vibrating membrane; it ends with a sharp point [...] which rests on a lamp-blacked surface." This surface is integral with a disc driven by a double movement of rotation and linear progression. The system is reversible: when the tip follows the furrow the membrane restores the original acoustic signal. The letter was read in public on December 3 following. In his letter, after having shown that his method consisted of detecting an oscillation of a membrane and using the tracing to reproduce the oscillation with respect to its duration and intensity, Cros added that a cylindrical form for the receiving apparatus seemed to him to be the most practical, as it allowed for the graphic inscription of the vibrations by means of a very fine-threaded screw. An article on the paleophone was published in "la semaine du Clergé" on 10 October 1877, written by l'Abbé Leblanc. Cros proposed metal for both the engraving tool attached to the diaphragm and the receiving material for durability. Before Cros had a chance to follow up on this idea or attempt to construct a working model, Thomas Alva Edison introduced his first working phonograph in the US. Edison used a cylinder covered in tinfoil for his first phonograph, patenting this method for reproducing sound on 15 January 1878.

Cros was convinced that pinpoints of light observed on Mars and Venus, probably high clouds illuminated by the sun, were the lights of large cities on those planets. He spent years petitioning the French government to build a giant mirror that could be used to communicate with the Martians and Venusians by burning giant lines on the deserts of those planets. He was never convinced that the Martians were not a proven fact, nor that the mirror he wanted was technically impossible to build.

In the early 1870s Cros was published in the short-lived weekly Renaissance littéraire et artistique, edited by Émile Blémont. Other contributors included Stéphane Mallarmé, Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, and Paul Verlaine. Cros integrated into the Symbolist and Decadent circles of Paris, frequenting the salon of Nina de Villard, a meeting place for poets such as Verlaine, Mallarmé, and Banville, and artists including Manet and Degas. His relationship with Nina, marked by infidelities and conflicts, inspired poems of love and pain, such as Croquis and Queja. His poetry collection Le Coffret de santal (1873), praised by Paul Verlaine, combined musicality, spontaneity, and sincerity, avoiding Parnassian formalism. Le Fleuve (1874), illustrated by Édouard Manet, received a prize from the French Academy, his only official recognition. In 1876, he contributed to Dizains réalistes, parodying François Coppée, and between 1877 and 1888, he composed humorous monologues, such as Le Bilboquet and L’Homme qui a voyagé, earning him the nickname "the Molière of the cobblestones". In September 1871, Cros met Arthur Rimbaud at Verlaine's home. The encounter, described by Mathilde Verlaine, was notable for the surprise at Rimbaud's dishevelled appearance. Cros, enthusiastic, asked him about his poetry, but Rimbaud responded with monosyllables and an ironic remark: "Dogs are liberals." When Rimbaud briefly stayed with Cros, he used a magazine containing Cros's poems as toilet paper, marking the end of his hospitality.

Cros had a love affair from 1867 to 1877 with Nina de Callias.

Solution générale du problème de la photographie des couleurs (1869)

Le Coffret de santal (1873 and 1879) Plainte (1873) Le Fleuve (1874) La Vision du Grand Canal des Deux Mers (1888) Le Collier de griffes (posthumous, 1908)