Maurice Rollinat (29 December 1846, Châteauroux, France - 26 October 1903, Ivry-sur-Seine, France), was a French poet, composer and singer.

Maurice’s father, François Rollinat, was a lawyer; he was also a close friend of George Sand. Coming from an educated family, Maurice began playing the piano at a very early age, and apparently he was very talented. During the holidays, he enjoyed spending time at his parents’ country house in Ceaulmont (Indre), which the young boy considered a veritable paradise. On their walks, his father introduced him to the observation of nature.

After Maurice passed his baccalaureate, his parents arranged for him to work as a clerk for a solicitor in Châteauroux, and later for a notary in Orléans (Loiret). Maurice, however, dreamt of becoming a poet.

In his youth, his favorite authors were Jean de La Fontaine, Virgil, Victor Hugo and, of course, George Sand. He later discovered Charles Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe, who had a significant influence on his poetry.

During the war of 1870–1871, Maurice Rollinat returned to Châteauroux. In June 1871, he moved to Paris and took on a series of odd jobs. Thanks to George Sand and Emmanuel Arago, he secured a post at the Hôtel de Ville to help re-establish the civil registry which had been destroyed by fire. He then passed the civil servant entrance examination and was appointed to the civil registry department of the town hall in the 7th arrondissement.

Maurice dreamt of being published; George Sand, described as his ‘literary godmother’, encouraged him but urged him to write poetry for children. He published his first collection, Dans les brandes, in 1877.

On 19 January 1878, Maurice Rollinat married Marie Sérullaz, the daughter of a foreign exchange trader from Lyon. Although he was supposed to be living in Lyon (Rhône), Rollinat returned to Paris regularly. In October 1878, he co-founded the Club des Hydropathes, under the chairmanship of Émile Goudeau.

Rodolphe Salis opened the Chat Noir cabaret in late November 1881. Maurice Rollinat was a regular there; he would recite his poems whilst playing the piano, captivating his audiences.

Sarah Bernhardt wanted to meet him, and she invited him to a soirée at her home on 5 November 1882. Albert Wolff, a renowned journalist who was also present, published an influential article about the event on the front page of Le Figaro on Thursday 9 November 1882, with the headline ‘Courrier de Paris’.

There came a point when Maurice’s wife Marie could no longer tolerate his literary circle, and they separated for good in February 1882. He used his newfound freedom to work on his second volume, Les Névroses. When it was finally published in February 1883, it made him famous.

But there are two sides to every coin, and in articles, Maurice was sometimes described as a ham and even as a plagiarist of Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire. He often suffered from headaches and migraines, as well as stomach and intestinal problems. Although regarded as a teetotaller, in bars or at salons he was obliged to consume alcohol (absinthe, beer, vermouth…), which was not good for his health. In addition, the invitations following the article in Le Figaro and the publication of his book Les Névroses must certainly have taken a toll on him. Consequently, by the end of the first half of 1883, Maurice Rollinat was disillusioned, feared for his health and decided to leave Paris.

In mid-September, Rollinat settled with Cécile Pouettre in Fresselines (Creuse), initially in Puy-Guillon and then, from March 1884, in La Pouge. For nearly twenty years, he led a quiet life, entertaining his friends in a simple, unpretentious manner. Claude Monet visited him in La Pouge from February to May 1889 and painted twenty-three paintings during his stay. In 1895, Maurice was appointed a Knight of the Legion of Honour.

During this period, Rollinat wrote four collections of poetry: L’Abîme (1886), La Nature (1892), Les Apparitions (1896) and Paysages et Paysans (1899), as well as a prose work, En Errant (1903). Numerous previously unpublished texts and poems were published posthumously in three further works: Ruminations (1904), Les Bêtes (1911), and Fin d’Œuvre (1919).

Maurice Rollinat was also a musician. Although he did not consign his compositions to paper himself and had to rely on copyists, in total, one hundred and thirty-seven of his scores were published.

In 1903, Rollinat’s health began to deteriorate. His partner Cécile Pouettre died on 24 August 1903 in Paris, probably not from rabies as has often been claimed, but as a result of the morphine injections she was administering to herself for her pain. His friend Eugène Alluaud invited him to his home in Crozant (Creuse); then, in early October, he took him, along with Léo d’Ageni – who was there to transcribe musical scores – to Limoges (Haute-Vienne), where Alluaud settled them into a small flat near his own home. Tired of suffering, Maurice Rollinat attempted suicide with a small revolver, but the resulting wound to his mouth was not serious. On 21 October, he was admitted to a nursing home in Ivry, where he died on 26 October 1903, presumably of colorectal cancer. He was buried in the Saint-Denis cemetery in Châteauroux.

Bibliography: Régis Miannay, Maurice Rollinat, Poète et Musicien du Fantastique, Imprimerie Badel, Châteauroux, 1981, XVII + 596 pages.

Online: Website of the Association des Amis de Maurice Rollinat.

Benoît Kremer.