Alphonse Daudet
Louis Marie Alphonse Daudet was a French naturalist writer born into bourgeois family whose father's silk manufacturing business failed.
After an unhappy stint as a schoolteacher in Alès that haunted him for years, he fled to Paris in 1857 to join his brother Ernest in journalism.
His first poetry collection, Les Amoureuses (1858), gained recognition.
He worked for Le Figaro and wrote plays, eventually becoming secretary to Napoleon III's minister Morny until 1865.
His famous works include Lettres de mon moulin (1869), stories of Provençal life.
He married Julia Daudet; their children Léon, Lucien, and Edmée all became writers.
