Octave Pradels

• Name — Octave Pradels • Born — 15 February 1842 • Birthplace — Arques, Pas-de-Calais, France • Died — 30 April 1930 • Place of death — Parmain, Seine-et-Oise, France • Occupation — Poet, novelist, vaudevilliste, lyricist • Illustration — Lyrics by Pradels, music by Lucien Colin. • Illustration — Monologue Rupture de banc.

Octave Frederick Pradels published his first monologues, tales in verse and songs in 1883. Among his greatest successes were Ça commençait si gentiment, La Chula, Dans l'oasis, Marche lorraine (written in collaboration with Jules Jouy). His songs were created in particular by Kam-Hill, Anna Judic, Amiati (at the Eldorado) and Thérésa. A director of the Théâtre des Capucines, Octave Pradels was also president of the SACEM from 1895 to 1898. After a first marriage in 1865 in Villefranche-sur-Mer, with Angélique Thérèse De Villa-Rey, daughter of a commander of the Monaco Marine, who gave him a first son, Édouard Joseph, Pradels supposedly married the divette Maria Theresa Mirbeau in 1873. They had a son, unrecognized by the mother, Edmond André, born 26 July 1878 in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, who collaborated with his father as lyricist and composer under the pseudonym Edmond Aramis. He died for France in Fort Vaux at Vaux-devant-Damloup (Meuse), 9 April 1916. In 1917 Octave Pradels remarried with Marie Louise Fransurot. Octave Pradels took great pride of having given his two sons to France. Imbued with the chauvinist and revanchist mentality that arose after the capitulation in 1871, he contributed throughout his career to the dissemination of this feeling. Evidence is given by this excerpt from the words of this Marche Lorraine written in 1892: Tes fils n'ont pas dégénéré, Sol sacré! Adoré! Dans leurs veines encore ruisselle Du sang de la Pucelle!

In 1906, he started helping the singer Paulus to write his memories which would be published from 1907. Paulus's memoirs were not published as a volume, but via the equivalent of booklets or black and white magazines sold each week. Rich in a sumptuous iconography, these notebooks contain reproductions of the cited figures, scores, but also small contextual ads.

• 1887: L'Agent de la sûreté de Marseille, Marpon et Flammarion Read online • 1905: Agence matrimoniale, coll. Auteurs célèbres, Flammarion • 1886: Chansons, monologues, chansons à dire, fantaisies, préface d'Armand Silvestre, éd. Paul Ollendorff, Paris, Read online • 1887: Rupture de banc, Librairie théâtrale, Paris, Read online • 1888: Les Amours de Bidoche, Marpon et Flammarion, Paris, Read online • 1889: Pour dire entre hommes, Marpon et Flammarion, Paris, Read online • 1890: Robert Daniel, Flammarion, Paris, Read online • 1891: Les Desserts gaulois, Marpon et Flammarion, Paris • 1907: L'Héritier des Monlardon, Publications littéraires illustrées, Paris, Read online • 1910: Fleurs de Gaule, poésies gaillardes..., Louis-Michaud, Paris, Read online • 1913: Le Vin et la Chanson, Flammarion, Paris, Read online