Editing Octave Mirbeau (section)

===Aesthetic and political struggles===
[[File:Octave Mirbeau formal portrait.jpg|thumb|Octave Mirbeau.]]
The grandson of Norman notaries and the son of a doctor, Mirbeau spent his childhood in a village in [[Normandy]], [[Rémalard]], pursuing secondary studies at a Jesuit college in [[Vannes]], which expelled him at the age of fifteen.<ref>Cf. [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=242 « Rémalard »] and [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=254 « Vannes »], in [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/ ''Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau''].</ref> Two years after the traumatic experience of the [[Franco-Prussian War|1870 war]], he was tempted by a call from the [[Bonapartist]] leader Dugué de la Fauconnerie, who hired him as private secretary and introduced him to ''L'Ordre de Paris''.

After his debut in journalism in the service of the [[Bonapartists]],<ref>Cf. [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=155 « Bonapartisme »], in  [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/ ''Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau''].</ref> and his debut in literature when he worked as a [[ghostwriter]],<ref>Cf. [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=195 « Négritude »], in [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/ ''Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau'']; and [[Pierre Michel]], [https://www.scribd.com/doc/2363537/ « Quelques réflexions sur la "négritude" »], in ''[[Cahiers Octave Mirbeau]]'', n° 12, 2005, p. 4-34.</ref> Mirbeau began to publish under his own name. Thereafter, he wrote in order to express his own [[ethical]] principles and [[aesthetic]] values. A supporter of the [[anarchist]] cause (cf. ''La Grève des électeurs'')<ref>English translation: [http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3436 ''The Voters strike''], The Anarchist Library, 2012.</ref> and fervent supporter of [[Alfred Dreyfus]],<ref>Cf. [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/index.php?option=com_glossary&id=147 « Affaire Dreyfus »], in [http://mirbeau.asso.fr/dicomirbeau/ ''Dictionnaire Octave Mirbeau''].</ref> Mirbeau embodied the intellectual who involved himself in civic issues. Independent of all parties, Mirbeau believed that one's primary duty was to remain lucid.<ref>[[Pierre Michel]], [https://www.scribd.com/doc/2383817/ ''Lucidité désespoir et écriture''], Presses de l'Université d’Angers, 2001.</ref>

As an art critic, he campaigned on behalf of the "great gods nearest to his heart": he sang the praises of [[Auguste Rodin]], [[Claude Monet]], [[Camille Pissarro]], [[Paul Cézanne]], [[Paul Gauguin]], [[Félicien Rops]]<ref>Patrick Bade (2003) Félicien Rops. Parkstone Press Ltd, New York, 95 pp. {{ISBN|1859958907}}</ref> [[Auguste Renoir]], [[Félix Vallotton]], and [[Pierre Bonnard]], and was an early advocate of [[Vincent van Gogh]], [[Camille Claudel]], [[Aristide Maillol]], and [[Maurice Utrillo]] (cf. his ''[[Combats esthétiques]]'', 1993).

As a literary critic and early member of [[Académie Goncourt]], he 'discovered' [[Maurice Maeterlinck]] and [[Marguerite Audoux]] and admired [[Remy de Gourmont]], [[Marcel Schwob]], [[Léon Bloy]], [[Georges Rodenbach]], [[Alfred Jarry]], [[Charles-Louis Philippe]], {{ill|Émile Guillaumin|fr}}, [[Valery Larbaud]] and [[Léon Werth]] (cf. his ''[[Combats littéraires]]'', 2006).