Bower, Henry

Heinrich Bauer was born on March 17, 1851, in a house located in the 10th Paris district . ^[2]

His birth was connected with the extramarital affair of Dumas father with Anna Bauer, a German woman of Jewish descent, whom he met in 1850. Dumas did not recognize his illegitimate son, despite the similarity of their appearances. His mother, Anna Bauër, was the wife of an Austrian sales agent, Karl-Anton Bauer, who lived with his family in Paris at that time. After the emigration of Karl Anton Bauer to Australia , the child lived with his mother, who, thanks to successful business and care, was able to ensure the upbringing and education of her son. Father's son was less interested in life. Subsequently, Henry condescendingly called him a "big child" ^[2] . Henry had an energetic, hot-tempered, but at the same time, very friendly character. With such a temperament and a sharpened concept of honor, Henry was ready to go all the way to a duel with his opponents, especially when it came to his origin. ^[3] In addition, he, like his father, was prone to a crazy waste of money. Sufficiently tall and large physique with a burly mane on his head. With age, his appearance more and more resembled the features of his father.

At the end of the Lyceum, Louis-le-Gran Henry makes an attempt to obtain a medical and legal education, but to no avail.

He is fond of the works of Proudhon and the works of other founders of anarchism and is gradually moving closer to the revolutionary circles of Paris . Henry takes an active part in revolutionary events dedicated to the protest against the regime of Napoleon III , for which he eventually receives several months in prison. However, it gains freedom as a result of the revolutionary events of September 4, 1870 . In October 1870, after participating in the riots organized by the national guard, he was again arrested on October 31 and imprisoned for some time ^[2] . In January 1871, he begins to write for various revolutionary magazines, including The Creek of the People , created by Jules Vallès. He signs his articles as Henry Bauer. He kept this pseudonym until the end of his life. In his publications, the young journalist critically perceives the surrender of the French armed forces and at the same time takes the side of the working class. In the article "Youth" on February 23, 1871, he writes:

“Before all this shame, only one side remains true to its fighting position: this is the party of workers, this is the party of the poor, this is the party of the future. This should belong to us, who are now 20 years old. ^[4] "

After the proclamation of the Paris Commune, Henry Bauer was appointed captain of the national guard of the General Staff on March 18, 1871 , and then commander of the sixth legion of the Federal Municipality on May 10. Finally, on May 22, he became chief of the General Staff. He took part in bloody street battles, including in the Montparnasse area.

After the fall of the Paris Commune, Henry hurriedly left Paris , however, on June 21, 1871 he was arrested at Joinville-le-Pont and taken to the Orangerie du château de Versailles, where the communards were arrested. His situation was aggravated by officer documents found during the arrest. His mother filed a petition for clemency with the appellate court, but to no avail. As a result, the military council condemns him to exile and on May 1, 1872, Henry Bauer, together with 300 communards, goes into exile on the North American mainland in New Caledonia , located in the Pacific Ocean.

Henry's obstinate character manifested itself even during a five-month voyage to the southwestern Pacific. For violations of order and discipline, he spends part of his time in a ship’s cell on bread and water. Upon arrival, he is taken to Nouméa, where the French penal colony was located. The events of the Paris Commune did not pass without a trace for his mother, who was also suspected of supporting the Communards. As a result, she had to leave France and move to Switzerland to Lausanne and Geneva , from where she regularly sent money to her son. In her letters to her son, Anna Bauer expresses a desire to come visit him. Despite the protests of her son, she arrived in New Caledonia at the beginning of 1875 , rented a house in Noumea in which she would live 15 months.

While in New Caledonia, Henry resumes journalistic activities. He writes articles in a local newspaper. With his new friend [Louise Michel] he organizes a number of cultural events, including live music evenings. In New Caledonia, Heinrich Bauer wrote his play La Revanche de Gaëtan, published in Noumea in 1879 .

The mother during all this time continues to bother about pardoning her son. She accompanies her requests with recommendations by letters from Jules Favre, Edouard Locrois and Victor Hugo. As a result, in April 1879, the new French President Jules Grevy signed the pardon documents and Henry Bauer returned to France on July 19, 1879 .

On March 24, at the age of 29, Henry Bauer, contrary to the wishes of his mother, would marry Pauline Lemirie, who was 13 years younger than him. Among the witnesses at the wedding was the well-known Communard Louis Blank . In the summer of the same year, a young couple goes to Germany in the Bavarian city ​​of Bayreuth for the annual Bayreuth festival , dedicated to the musical dramas of Richard Wagner and founded by the composer himself. Henry was an avid fan of his work and subsequently devoted a number of his articles to him. In 1882 , Charles was born, the first child, and four years later in 1888 , his second son - Gerard , later a well-known journalist. Between these two events, Henry loses his mother, who died in 1884 .

Upon arrival in his homeland, Henry Bauer returned to journalism and since 1881 has been writing for an article for the magazine Awakening (le Réveil). It is noteworthy that Alfons Daudet collaborated with the same magazine. The articles of the young journalist attracted the attention of a famous writer and he considered it possible to make him his successor. From that moment on, Henry was responsible for theatrical criticism, which was quite consistent with his creative aspirations. In addition, a visit to theatrical productions harmoniously blended with Henry's lifestyle. On March 12, 1884, the former editor of Awakening Valentin Simond founded the conservative-patriotic newspaper Echo of Paris (l'Écho de Paris) . He invites Henry Bauer to work. From that moment on, he regularly publishes the first column of critical material about major Parisian theaters, and also writes a critical review of Parisian literary life once every two weeks. In his work, Bauer advocates the aesthetics of naturalism in European theater . He violently defends Andre Antoine, the largest representative of theatrical naturalism , the creator and director of the Théâtre-Libre and the Theater of Antoine . In his critical article, he touched on the work of almost all significant writers of that time. He paid special attention to the writers of the northern countries, speaking the language of Henry - “people of the north”: Henryk Ibsen , Leo Tolstoy , August Strindberg , Oscar Wilde ^[5] , shared his views and contributed to the formation of Octave Mirbo . Events related to the Dreyfus affair did not go unnoticed.

This period of Henry Bauer's life includes his passionate love for Sarah Bernhardt , who lasted seven years and to which he devoted several enthusiastic articles ^[6] .

Henry Bauer sympathized with the Armenian people after the progroms that occurred in Constantinople . He received a letter on this subject from his drugg Arzhak Chopanyan with his comments on September 14, 1895, in the Echo of Paris newspaper ^[7] .

Collaboration with The Echo of Paris did not stop Bauer from publishing a series of his own books. However, “The Actress’s Novel” (1889) and the collection of short stories “On Life and a Dream” (1896) (De la vie et du rêve) were not particularly successful, while the Young Man’s Memoirs, a novel claiming autobiography, were even noticed outside of France ^[8] .

Henry Bauer's literary career could be considered successful. His word had the force of law, especially among artists ^[9] . All this was reflected in his financial situation. His family lived in a house on Vésinet, he could even afford another house in Bretagne, in addition to a Paris apartment. However, his hereditary motivation, the constant spending of money on various theater projects, gradually led to the decline of his financial situation by the end of his activities in the Echo of Paris .

Bauer's active position in the Dreyfus case was contrary to the political line Echo of Paris , whose orientation by that time was already quite conservative. Tension increased with conflict over Alfred Jarry ’s play “ King Ubyu ”, published April 25, 1896 ^[10] . Bauer finally left the newspaper in 1898 to write theatrical reviews of the theater for the socialist newspaper La Petite République . This period of creativity includes several of his own literary works. In 1902, he publishes the chronicle “Idea and Reality”, in 1900 he writes the comedy “Mistress”, the print edition of which was published in 1903 . Her production was carried out at the theater Théâtre du Vaudeville . However, only 12 performances took place, after which she was removed from the repertoire of the theater.

In 1915 , Bauer fell ill and went to Evian on Lake Geneva to restore his health, but his condition was rapidly deteriorating. Soon, his son Gerard brought Henry to a Paris hospital, where he died at the age of 64. His funeral took place at the Père-Lachaise cemetery of Chatou family crypt. In 1963, at the request of Gerard Bauer, his ashes were transferred to the cemetery Cimetière de Charonne , where a tombstone was installed.

• La Revanche de Gaëtan , Nouméa, Locamus, 1879.
• Une comédienne. Scènes de la vie de théâtre , Paris, Charpentier, 1889. lire en ligne sur Gallica
• Mémoires d'un jeune homme , Paris, Charpentier, 1895. lire en ligne sur Internet Archive
• De la vie et du rêve , Paris, H. Simonis Empis, 1896.
• Idée et réalité , Paris, H. Simonis Empis, 1899.
• Sa maîtresse. Comédie en 4 actes , Paris, Stock, 1903.
• Chez les bourgeois. Comédie en 4 actes , Paris, Stock, 1909.

• Marcel Cerf, Le Mousquetaire de la plume. La vie d'un grand critique dramatique: Henry Bauër, fils naturel d'Alexandre Dumas, 1851-1915 , Paris, Académie d'Histoire, 1975, 148 P.
• Luc Legeard , “De Ducos à l'or des théâtres” - Édition annotée et commentée de l'ouvrage: Mémoires d'un jeune homme, de Henry Bauër , Éditions L'Harmattan , 2013

• Henry Bauer and revolutionary Paris