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      Jules Verne was born in Nantes on 8 February 1928. His father Pierre Verne was a solicitor. His mother Sophie Allotte de la Fuÿe belonged to the small nobility of Nantes. Jules Verne had a brother, Paul and three sisters: Anna, Mathilde and Marie. His childhood was quiet. His so-called runaway, at the age of eleven, on a ship travelling to India is due to the imagination of not very reliable biographers. In fact, Jules Verne visited a ship moored in the harbour, without his crew knowing it, as he related in Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse, written in his last years for an American newspaper. He studied in Saint-Stanislas school, and then in the Royal school in Nantes. An average pupil, he obtained his high school diplomas in 1846 (literature) and in 1848 (Law). His father allowed him to finish his Law studies in Paris, where he settled at the end of 1848. Attracted by literature, poetry and theatre, since his childhood, he devoted his time to the latter. Having met the Dumas, in 1850 he managed to put on stage in the Théâtre Lyrique, which belonged to Dumas's father, a comedy in one act and in stanzas, Les pailles rompues, which had just written with the help of Dumas the son. He also wrote stories and news, which appeared in the Musée des familles from 1851. A bachelor in Law in 1850, he refused to come back to Nantes and stayed in the capital, city where he was the secretary of the Théâtre Lyrique until 1854. He had put on stage, plays which were written with Michel Carré's collaboration. As he had wished to marry for a long time, Jules Verne met in Amiens, in 1856, a young widow, Honorine Morel, who was born Du Fraysse de Viane (or Devianne). He married her in January 1857. To face is new responsibilities, he was a stockbroker in Paris for a few years. The Verne couple had only one child, Michel who was born in 1861,and who caused many worries to his parents. Honorine, on her side, had two girls from her first marriage. Among Jules Verne's friends of that time, we can name the explorer Aristide Hignard, with whom he travelled in England and in Scotland (1859), and in Scandinavia (1861). Hignard wrote songs whose words were often due to Jules Verne. The photographer and balloonist Félix Tournachon known as Nadar, whose balloon The Giant was very famous at the time, was also one of his best friends. Together they found The Society for the promotion of locomotion by means of machines heavier than the atmosphere. Besides Nadar was to inspire later to his friend Verne, the character of Michel Ardan (Ardan = Nadar) novels From the Earth to the Moon (1869). Still attracted by the literature, Jules Verne had a decisive meeting at the end of the summer 1862 with the Parisian publisher Pierre Jules Hetzel. . . . I Continuation . . . I High of page I |
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