Lucien Daudet

Who was Lucien Daudet?

Lucien Daudet was a French writer, the son of Alphonse Daudet. Although a prolific novelist and painter, he was never really able to trump his father's greater reputation and is now primarily remembered for his ties to fellow novelist Marcel Proust. Daudet was also friends with Jean Cocteau.

The Daudet family was composed of the father, Alphonse, the mother Julia, Léon, the older brother, Edmée, and Lucien. Every member of the family wrote books: father, mother, brother, sister, sister-in-law and uncle. Lucien himself published about fifteen books.

Cultivated, “very beautiful, very elegant, a thin and frail young man, with a tender and a somewhat effeminate face”, according to Jean-Yves Tadié, Daudet lived a fashionable life which made him meet Marcel Proust. They shared at least a friendship, which was revealed by Jean Lorrain in his chronicle in the Journal. It is for this indiscretion that Proust and Lorrain fought a duel in 1897.

Lucien Daudet was also a painter. After having taken lessons at the Académie Julian, he was a pupil of Whistler and had an exposition together with Bernheim-Jeune in 1906. His tableaux are not known anymore except by literary allusions to them.