PAUL ARMAND

See also:

• PAUL ARMAND SILVESTRE (1837-1901)

SILVESTRE (1837-1901)  , French poet and conteur, was born in Paris on the 18th of April 1837 . He studied at the Ecole polytechnique with the intention of entering the army, but in 187o he entered the department of finance . He had a successful official career, was decorated with the Legion of Honour in 1886, and in 1892 was made inspector of fine arts . Armand Silvestre made his entry into literature as a poet, and was reckoned among the Parnassians . His volumes of verse include: Rimes neuves et vieilles (1866), to which George Sand wrote a preface; Les Renaissances (1870); La Chanson des heures (1878); Le Chemin des etoiles (1885), &c . The poet was also a contributor to Gil Bias and other Parisian journals, distinguishing himself by the licence he permitted himself . To ' these " absences " from poetry, as Henri Chantavoine calls them, belong the seven volumes of La Vie pour Tire (1881-1883), Conies pantagrueliques et galants (1884), Le Livre des joyeusete's (1884), Gauloiseries nouvelles (1888), &c . For the stage he wrote in many different manners: Sapho (1881), a drama; Henry VIII (1883), with Leonce Detroyat, music by Saint-Saens; and the Drames sacres (1893), religious pictures after 14th- and 15th-century Italian painters, with music by Gounod . An account of his varied and somewhat incongruous production is hardly complete without mention of his art criticism . Le Nu au Salon (1888-1892), in five volumes, with numerous illustrations, was followed by other volumes of the same type . He died at;Toulouse on the 19th of February 1901 .