Background
Alexandre Latil was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, of a family whose ancestors came from France and in early colonial days were sailors and coureurs de bois.
(Les Éphémères, Alexandre Latil. Texte établi par Kelsey B...)
Les Éphémères, Alexandre Latil. Texte établi par Kelsey Bellamy. Alexandre Latil - le poète-lépreux de la Louisiane créole - composa ses prières éphémères dans une cabane sur les bords du Bayou Saint-Jean, la Terre des Lépreux. À mesure que la maladie rongeait son corps, le jeune homme cherchait son asile dans un lyrisme poétique. Aveugle, toujours alité, les mains, les pieds se pulvérisant peu à peu, Latil entonna ces chants sublimes sur l'autel de son enfer personnel et passa toute son existence à les parfaire. Par moments, il est vrai, Latil donna des strophes forcées. Mais quand Latil chante ses souffrances, ses meilleurs vers rivalisent avec les plus belles créations du romantisme français. Si la France se dote d'Alfred Musset, la Louisiane peut se vanter d'Alexandre Latil dont certains Éphémères ne sont en rien inférieurs aux Nuits du poète de la mère-patrie.
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Alexandre Latil was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, of a family whose ancestors came from France and in early colonial days were sailors and coureurs de bois.
Young Alexandre attended Les Écoles Centrale et Primaires, and later, the Collège d'Orléans.
When Latil was only fifteen he fell in love with the pretty daughter of a Creole and they became engaged. Their families thought them too young to marry and insisted that they wait a few years. From then on Latil's life paralleled all the horrors of a Greek tragedy. He developed unmistakable signs of leprosy, which the neighbors attributed to the mating of one of his coureur-de-bois forebears with a sauvagesse, for it was then commonly believed that the mixture of French with Indian blood was responsible for this disease. In those days lepers were allowed to remain at home, so Latil continued to live with his parents. He released his fiancée from their engagement, but this did not change her devotion, for she visited him daily in an effort to bring some cheer into his hopeless situation. Finally when the ravages of his disease had become too terrible, Latil was sent to a small cabin out on Bayou St. John in the "Terre aux Lepreux, " where his fiancée followed him. No scandal ever attached to her name although she took entire charge of the sufferer and nursed him tenderly. So great was her love that she desired to be his wife in spite of his illness and finally succeeded in overcoming his scruples. After their marriage she continued her nursing, forced to watch the relentless progress of his disease, the repulsive scaly blanching of his face, and the torturing disintegration of his limbs.
During these years of suffering poetry had been Latil's great solace. He tried to forget his agony in reading Béranger, Barthélemy, and Delavigne, and was finally inspired to write French verse himself. It was good and some of the verses were printed in the Creole newspapers and literary magazines. The beauty of their resigned despair impressed the local literati and they urged him to collect and publish them in book form. He did this at his own expense and in 1841 Les Éphémères appeared. In a pathetic foreword this boy of only twenty-five regretted that the state of his health and his failing eyesight kept him from finishing some other verses which he had wished to include.
The remaining years of his life were an inferno of suffering. He became completely bedridden and blind and his fingers dropped off at the palms so he could not hold a pen. Finally, death came as a merciful release in March 1851. His wife remained with him until the end, and it seems unjust that the name of this self-sacrificing woman cannot be perpetuated; only her initials--E. T. --are known.
(Les Éphémères, Alexandre Latil. Texte établi par Kelsey B...)