Jean Bertheroy

Jean Bertheroy
ca. 1900
Born	Berthe Jeanne Le Barillier 24 July 1858 Bordeaux, France
Died	24 January 1927 Le Cannet, France
Pen name	Jean Bertheroy
Occupation	classicist writer
Notable awards	Legion of Honor Prix Archon-Despérouses Montyon Prize Prix d’éloquence
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Jean Bertheroy was the pen name of Berthe Jeanne Le Barillier (1858–1927), a French intellectual, classicist, and writer. First noted for her poetry, she turned to the historical novel and then the modern novel. Her work, although largely forgotten, is served by a sober style and very solid documentation. The most substantial part of her work is probably that devoted to Roman antiquity. Bertheroy was a three-time laureate of the Académie Française.

Berthe Jeanne Le Barillier was born in Bordeaux, France, 24 July 1858.^[1][2] She was the daughter of Jeanne Laure Elisabeth Fabre (1830–1900)4, and Hyacinthe Édouard François Le Barillier1 (1823–1894),^[3] naval health officer in 1842, doctor of medicine in 1848, the date on which he settled in Bordeaux, hospital doctor in 1854, chief doctor of the Lescure ambulance in 1871.^[3]

She was a student of the classics.^[4]

Bertheroy became known to the literary world by a book of verse, Les Vibrations, which she published in 1887 under the name of "Jean Bertheroy". Three years later, a second book of verse, Les Femmes antiques, received a prize by the Académie française.

A successful novelist in her time,^[5] Bertheroy's novels fell into two categories: modern novels such as Le Roman d'une âme, Double Joug, Sur la Pente, Le Mirage, and Le Rachat; and novels of antiquity, notably Cléopatre, La Danseuse de Pompei, Les Vierges de Syracuse, and La Beauté d'Alcias. Novels of antiquity had been brought into vogue by the Thaïs of Anatole France and the Aphrodite – mœurs antiques of Pierre Louys, in imitation of which many poor ones were written. Bertheroy's, however, are excellent, and the best one of them is probably La Danseuse de Pompei. La Beauté d'Alcias contains admirable descriptions of the Eginian Sea, Megara and Athens. Jean Bertheroy wrote in a musical, harmonious language, mingling the ardor of passion with a strong impulse toward the ideal.^[4]

She worked for Le Figaro and the Revue des deux Mondes, was the first secretary of the Prix Femina jury in 1904, and was a member of the Société des gens de lettres. Bertheroy campaigned for the improvement of the status of women.^[5]

Jean Bertheroy died on January 24, 1927, in Le Cannet,^[2] a town where she owned a villa.^[6]

Her memory lives on in Montmorency, Val-d'Oise, where she had an Italian-style house built in 1891, at 5 Rue de l'Hermitage,^[5] in the immediate vicinity of the Hermitage of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a writer she admired and wanted to get closer to.^[5] This house is sometimes called Hôtel Bertheroy,^[5] sometimes Maison Jean Bertheroy.

• Prizes of the Académie Française^[7]

• 1890: Prix Archon-Despérouses for Femmes antiques
• 1894: Montyon Prize, for Ximénès
• 1900: Prix d’éloquence for André Chénier - Dans l’âme du poète, un Dieu même respire

• 1911: Knight, Legion of Honour^[8]