French poet and man of letters, born at Cormeilles-en-Parisis (Seine-et-Oise) in 1840. He wrote under the pseudonyms of Jean Caselli and Jean Lahor. His works include the following: Chants populaires de l’Italie (1865); Vita tristis, Réveries fantastiques, Romances sans musique (1865); Le Livre du néant (1872); Henry Regnault, sa vie et son œuvre (1872); L’Illusion (1875–1893); Melancholia (1878); Cantique des cantiques (1885); Les Quatrains d’Al-Gazali (1896); William Morris (1897). The author of the Livre du néant has a predilection for gloomy subjects and especially for pictures of death. His oriental habits of thought earned for him the title of the “Hindou du Parnasse contemporain.” He died in July 1909.
See a notice by P. Bourget in Anthologie des poètes fr. du XIXe siècle (1887–1888); J. Lemaître, Les Contemporains (1889); É. Faguet in the Revue bleue (Oct. 1893).
