Editing Joris-Karl Huysmans (section)

===Civil service career===
For 32 years, Huysmans worked as a civil servant for the French Ministry of the Interior, a job he found tedious. The young Huysmans was called up to fight in the [[Franco-Prussian War]], but was invalided out with [[dysentery]]. He used this experience in an early story, "''Sac au dos''" (Backpack) (later included in his collection, ''[[Les Soirées de Médan]]'').

After his retirement from the Ministry in 1898, made possible by the commercial success of his novel, ''La cathédrale'', Huysmans planned to leave Paris and move to [[Ligugé]]. He intended to set up a community of Catholic artists, including [[Charles-Marie Dulac]] (1862-1898). He had praised the young painter in ''[[The Cathedral (Huysmans novel)|La cathédrale]]''. Dulac died a few months before Huysmans completed his arrangements for the move to Ligugé, and he decided to stay in Paris.

In 1905 Huysmans was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth. He died in 1907 and was interred in the [[Montparnasse Cemetery|cimetière du Montparnasse]], Paris.[[Image:JkHuysmans.grave.jpg|thumb|right|Huysmans's grave]]

[[Image:JK Huysmans.jpg|thumb|right|A portrait of Huysmans, by [[Jean-Louis Forain]], {{circa|1878}} ([[Musée d'Orsay]])]]