Vicaire was born at
Belfort. He served in the
campaign of 1870, and then settled in Paris to practise at the
bar, which, however, he soon abandoned for literature. His work was twice "crowned" by the
Académie française, and in 1892 he received the cross of the
Legion of Honour. Born in the
Vosges, and a Parisian by adoption, Vicaire remained all his life an enthusiastic lover of the country to which his family belonged (in
Bresse), spending much of his time at
Ambérieu-en-Bugey. His freshest and best work is his
Emaux bressans (1884), a volume of poems full of the gaiety and spirit of the old French
chansons. Other volumes followed:
Le Livre de la patrie, ''L'Heure enchantée
(1890), A la bonne franquette
(1892), Au bois joli
(1894) and Le Clos des fées'' (1897). Vicaire wrote in collaboration with
Jules Truffier two short pieces for the stage, ''Fleurs d'avril
(1890) and La Farce du marl refondu
(1895); also the Miracle de Saint Nicolas
(1888). With his friend Henri Beauclair he produced a parody of the Decadents
entitled Les Deliquescences
and signed Adoré Floupette. His fame rests on his Emaux bressans'' and on his
Rabelaisian
drinking songs; the religious and fairy poems, charming as they often are, carry simplicity to the verge of affectation. Vicaire died in Paris, after a long and painful illness, on 23 September 1900. ==References==