Draft:Maurice Radiguet

On 12 July 1866, Jules Maurice Radiguet was born to Eugénie Augustine Françoise Perray (1827–1907) and Louis Sidelly Radiguet (1837–1873), who were first cousins.^[1] At the time of their marriage, Eugénie managed a chocolate shop called Maison Boissier, and Louis was a notable optician. Maurice's uncle, Arthur Honoré, invented a "Radiguet battery" and was a specialist in radiology.^[1] Maurice's grandfather, Marie-Honoré Radiguet, founded Radiguet et Fils,^[2] a company that constructed instruments for science.^[3]

Maurice was the family's third child; he had an older brother, Paul, who died at four years old, and an older sister, Marie Eugénie Sophie, four years older than Maurice.^[1] According to a pamphlet privately printed by Maurice's father, entitled Advice to my Children (Conseils à mes enfants), the family experienced bankruptcies and significant financial difficulties.^[1] Louis Radiguet died in 1873, when Maurice was seven years old.

At first, Maurice studied to become an optician, but around 1885 he began to work as an illustrator, notably for L'Éclipse.^[4] In his youth, Maurice associated with the Hydropathes, an avant-garde literary club. During the 1890s, he gained notoriety for his caricatures, collaborating with Adolphe Willette and Henri Pille on the magazine of Le Chat noir cabaret. He illustrated many issues of L'Assiette au beurre, and also contributed to Le Rire, La Vie en rose, Le Bon Vivant, La Jeunesse illustrée, Les Belles Images, Le Matin, Pierrot, Guignol, Le Petit Journal, and L'Almanach Vermot. He also did courtroom sketches (notably for the trial of Héra Mirtel),^[1] and illustrated books by Alphonse Allais.^[5] The Munich journal Jugend also sometimes published his drawings, and he illustrated the cover of its 24th issue in 1897.

Radiguet married Jeanne-Louise-Marie Tournier (1884–1958), eighteen years his junior, on 23 June 1902.^[6] They settled at 30 bis avenue du Rocher, Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, which they rented rather than owned. Maurice's income from his drawings was quite meager.^[1] They had seven children, one of whom, Raymond (1903–1923), would distinguish himself as a writer. A daughter, Madeleine, died at two years old. Politically, his son Paul described Maurice as an "anarcho-syndicalist of the right." Maurice was one of the founders of the Union des artistes dessinateurs ("Union of Illustrators").^[1]

His first strips signed "Rad" appeared in L'Épatant in 1912, introducing his character "Duronflar."^[5][7]

Radiguet continued to publish until 1940.^[1] André Salmon writes of his funeral as attended mainly by friends of his late son and surviving collaborators from Le Chat noir, with very little recognition from "the small journals where the poor artist who worked himself to death had lavished his wit."^[8]

• Alphonse Allais, L'Arroseur, Paris, Félix Juven, 1901.
• L'Actrice chaste et le capitaine amoureux, coll. « Bibliothèque galante », Paris, Ollendorff, 1901.
• avec Marcel Arnac, La Chasse aux maisons boches, Paris, Ollendorff, [avant 1919].
• Comtesse de Ségur, Les Malheurs de Sophie, signé Rad, Paris, éd. de La Semaine Vermot, 1927.
• John Crickry veut gagner sa vie, bande dessinée, Liège, Gordinne, 1934 — available at Gallica.

• Illustrations by Maurice Radiguet
• 
  Couverture pour Jugend, No. 24 (1897).
• 
  Illustrations for L'Arroseur by Alphonse Allais, published by Félix Juven (1901).
• 
  "Le centenaire du Code" ("The Centenary of the Code"), L'Assiette au beurre, December 1904.
• 
  Caricature of Expert-Bezançon during the lead white scandal, L'Assiette au beurre, No. 210, 8 April 1905.