Émile Deschamps

Who was Émile Deschamps?

Émile de Saint-Amand Deschamps was a French poet. He was born at Bourges. Deschamps was one of the chiefs of the Romantic school. To further the cause of romanticism he founded with Victor Hugo La Muse Française, a journal to which he contributed verses and stories signed "Le Jeune Moraliste." Four years afterward he collected and published Etudes française et étrangères, consisting of poems and translations. He published La paix conquise, an ode which won the praise of Napoleon; Contes physiologiques; and Réalités fantastiques. His Œuvres Complètes were published in six volumes. He wrote the text for the oratorio Romeo and Juliet composed by Hector Berlioz in 1839. He also collaborated with Giacomo Meyerbeer and Eugene Scribe on the libretti of Les Huguenots and Le prophète.