Antoine Gustave Droz

Antoine Gustave Droz

Antoine Gustave Droz (June 9, 1832 – October 22, 1895), author, French man of letters and son of the sculptor Jules-Antoine Droz (1807–1872), was born in Paris.

He was educated as an artist, and began to exhibit in Paris at the Salon of 1857. A series of sketches dealing gaily and lightly with the intimacies of family life, published in the La Vie Parisienne and issued in book form as Monsieur, Madame et Bébé (1866), won for the author an immediate and great success. Entre Nous (1867) was built on a similar plan, and was followed by some psychological novels: Le Cahier Bleu de Mlle Cibot (1868); Autour d'une Source (1869); Un Paquet de Lettres (1870); Babolain (1872); Les Étangs (1875); Une Femme Gênante (1875); and L'Enfant (1885). His Tristesses et Sourires (1884) is a delicate analysis of the niceties of family intercourse and its difficulties. Droz's first book was translated into English under the title of Papa, Mamma and Baby (1887).

"Gustave Droz saw love within marriage as the key to human happiness and condemned any man who made marriage sound dull and practical." "He urged women to follow their hearts and marry a man nearly their own age."

A husband who is stately and a little bald is all right, but a young husband who loves you and drinks out of your glass without ceremony is better. Let him, if he ruffles your dress a little and places a kiss on your neck as he passes. Let him, if he undresses you after the ball, laughing like a fool. You have fine spiritual qualities, it is true, but your little body is not bad either and when one loves, one loves completely. Behind these follies lies happiness

— Droz

Quoted in T. Zeldin, France 1848–1945, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), p. 295.^[1]

Notes

1. The two sentences preceding it and the quote are found in McKay, John P.; et al. (2007). A History of Western Society, Volume 2: From Absolutism to Present. Macmillan. pp. 800, 802, 811. ISBN 9780312683122. Retrieved August 12, 2013. As is the reference to Zeldin (1973).

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Droz, Antoine Gustave". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

External links

• Works by Gustave Droz at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Antoine Gustave Droz at Internet Archive