Louis Lemercier de Neuville


Louis Lemercier de Neuville or La Haudussière, real name Louis Lemercier, was a French puppeteer, journalist, columnist, playwright and storyteller. He created the French Théâtre de Pupazzi.

Biography

Louis was the son of Louis Lemercier from Laval and Louise Deneuville, born in Rennes. He studied at the Lycée de Laval from 1842 to 1846. He began with a brief career in the Post Office. He then founded several ephemeral periodicals: on 4 March 1855, he launched his first newspaper entitled La Muselière, journal de la décadence intellectuelle. He later wrote for L'Indépendance dramatique. fairly regularly and published, in 1855 and 1856, the Pastiches critiques des auteurs contemporains, the Inconnus célèbres, and the novel Miettes de pain perdues. At the end of 1856, he became chief editor of L'Exemple. In 1857, he published several letters from Paris in the theatrical press and had a "comédie en vaudeville" played at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique entitled Recette pour marier ses filles.
In 1858, he founded Le Parisien, an illustrated journal. Only six issues were printed for lack of money. He also edited the 17 and 18 April 1858 issues of Le Foyer.
He married Ghislaine Antoinette Kuppens, 5 July 1858, who was born in Tournai, 12 November 1835. In December 1858, in collaboration with Victor Cochinat, he published Le Guide des Fumeurs. In January 1859, he founded La Causerie. He replaced Jules Moinaux as chief editor of the Zouave. In December, he established the Nouvelles de Paris. He later collaborated with several newspapers including Le Figaro, Le Nain jaune, and Le Monde illustré. He also published various types of books, including comédies en vaudeville, small novels etc.
In 1860, he opened a mobile pupazzi theatre staging celebrities of the time as caricatures. It was a great success in the salons of the late nineteenth century. He later married Céline Donnancé in Nice, 11 July 1917.
As daughter from his first marriage was Lucienne de Saint-Mart, a painter, wife of Georges-Maximilien de Saint-Mart. She lived in the United States and from 1910 to 1918, in Russia, at Nicholas II of Russia's court. She left Russia at the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Publications

Drawings