Name Achille Allier | ||
Died April 3, 1836, Bourbon-l'Archambault, France | ||
Achille Allier (Montluçon, 1807 (1807) — Bourbon-l'Archambault, 3 April 1836 (age 29) was a French writer, art critic and archaeologist.
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Biography
Son of a grocer, Allier went to Paris to study law, and earned a license to practice which did not however dissuade him from complaining about the 'decaying morals' that he felt were rampant in the capital. He went back to the provinces to settle in Bourbon l'Archambault.
Victor Hugo, next to the Orleans royal family, encouraged Achille Allier to contribute with the renewal of the French provinces' interest. Both saw on it an opportunity to oppose the fragmentation of the French departments, and to contest the Jacobinism.
During his short existence, Achille Allier showed an outstanding work as a scholar archaeologist, responsible for the restoration of the chapel of the church at Bourbon. He was also the illustrator, designer and founder-director of the monthly magazine Art en Province (Art in the provinces), founded by him in 1835. Maria Amalia of Bourbon, Louis Philippe I's wife, appreciated several designs of the young provincial and, amongst them, it is pointed La jeune fille de la garde (The young guard's daughter) she acquired in 1835.
Achille Allier died in 1836 from a stroke.
Honors
A plaque was fixed at his birthplace in Montluçon, 18 rue Notre-Dame. In Bourbon-l'Archambault, a street is also named after him, and a bust by the sculptor Auguste Préault was erected in his memory in the town's churchyard in time for a memorial service held on 15 September 1836. Préault had met the writer through a mutual friend, Célestin Nanteuil, and offered his services for the commission, which was paid for by public subscription and a 300 franc payment by the ministry of the interior.
The Achille Allier Prize was created in 1991, and its objective is to prize every work about the bourbon's rurality; it is conceded yearly.