31 Facts About Paul Claudel

Paul Claudel was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.

Paul Claudel was born in Villeneuve-sur-Fere, into a family of farmers and government officials.

Paul Claudel worked towards "the revelation through poetry, both lyrical and dramatic, of the grand design of creation".

The young Paul Claudel considered entering a monastery, but instead had a career in the French diplomatic service, in which he served from 1893 to 1936.

Paul Claudel was first vice-consul in New York, and later in Boston.

Paul Claudel was French consul in China during the period 1895 to 1909, with time in Shanghai.

Paul Claudel returned to China as vice-consul in Fuzhou.

Paul Claudel was one of a group of writers enjoying the support and patronage of Philippe Berthelot of the Foreign Ministry, who became a close friend; others were Jean Giraudoux, Paul Morand and Saint-John Perse.

Paul Claudel sent them, for the first issue, the poem Hymne du Sacre-Sacrement, to fulsome praise from Gide, and it was published under his name.

Paul Claudel had not sought permission to publish, and there was a furore in which he was criticised.

Paul Claudel wrote extensively about China, with a definitive version of his Connaissance de l'Est published in 1914 by Georges Cres and Victor Segalen.

Paul Claudel was in Rome, ministre plenipotentiaire in Rio de Janeiro, Copenhagen, ambassador in Tokyo, Washington, DC and Brussels.

In 1935 Paul Claudel retired to Brangues in Dauphine, where he had bought the chateau in 1927.

Paul Claudel supported the Vichy regime, but disagreed with Cardinal Alfred Baudrillart's policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany.

Paul Claudel went to Vichy to intercede for him, to no avail; Weiller escaped and fled to New York.

Paul Claudel wrote in December 1941 to Isaie Schwartz, expressing his opposition to the Statut des Juifs enacted by the regime.

The Vichy authorities responded by having Paul Claudel's house searched and keeping him under observation.

Paul Claudel was elected to the Academie francaise on 4 April 1946, replacing Louis Gillet.

Paul Claudel was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in six different years.

Paul Claudel's poetic has been seen as Mallarme's, with the addition of the idea of the world as a revelatory religious text.

Paul Claudel rejected traditional prosody, developing the verset claudelien, his own form of free verse.

Paul Claudel summarized his findings in the monograph Paul Claudel et l'Actualite de l'etre, which was recognized by Dominique Millet-Gerard, his doctoral advisor, for its contribution to understanding Claudel's work in the French-speaking world.

Paul Claudel was a conservative of the old school, sharing the antisemitism of conservative France.

Paul Claudel addressed a poem after the defeat of France in 1940, commending Marshal Petain for picking up and salvaging France's broken, wounded body.

Paul Claudel's diaries make clear his consistent contempt for Nazism.

Paul Claudel knew Francis Vetch through his diplomatic work, and had met Rosalie on a sea voyage out from Marseille to Hong Kong in 1900.

Paul Claudel had four children, and was pregnant with Claudel's child when the affair ended in February 1905.

Francis Vetch and Paul Claudel had caught up with Rosalie at a railway station on the German border in 1905, a meeting at which Rosalie signalled that her relationship with Paul Claudel was over.

Paul Claudel married on 15 March 1906 Reine Sainte-Marie Perrin.

Paul Claudel was the daughter of Louis Sainte-Marie Perrin, an architect from Lyon known for completing the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere.

Paul Claudel committed his sister Camille to a psychiatric hospital in March 1913, where she remained for the last 30 years of her life, visiting her seven times in those 30 years.