Little What's-His-Name, Le Petit Chose

Alphonse Daudet (1840 - 1897) was a French novelist. He was the husband of Julia Daudet and father of Edmée Daudet and writers Léon Daudet and Lucien Daudet. In 1857 he abandoned teaching and took refuge with his brother Ernest Daudet, only some three years his senior, who was trying, "and thereto soberly," to make a living as a journalist in Paris. Alphonse took to writing and his poems were collected into a small volume, Les Amoureuses (1858), which met with a fair reception. He obtained employment on Le Figaro, then under Cartier de Villemessant's energetic editorship, wrote two or three plays and began to be recognized in literary communities as possessing distinction and promise. Morny, Napoleon III's all-powerful minister, appointed him to be one of his secretaries - a post which he held till Morny's death in 1865.