Jules Arsène Arnaud Claretie

After studying at the lycée Bonaparte in Paris, he became a journalist, achieving great success as dramatic critic to Le Figaro and to the Opinion nationale.

He was a newspaper correspondent during the Franco-Prussian War, and during the Paris Commune acted as staff-officer in the National Guard.

[1] During the battle for Octave Mirbeau's comedy Les affaires sont les affaires (Business is business), the Comité de Lecture was abolished, in October 1901, and Jules Claretie obtained sole responsibility for choosing the modern plays to be performed.

[1] The long list of his works includes: La Vie à Paris was completed in 1913, and published after his death in 21 volumes in 1914.

[2] Several plays, some of which are based on novels of his own: Claretie also wrote three operas for the music of Jules Massenet; La Navarraise (1894), based on his novel La cigarette and written with Henri Cain,[1] Thérèse (1907), and Amadis (1922), a work begun by Massenet in 1895, but shelved and finished in the last years of his life and premiered posthumously.