Patrice de La Tour du Pin was born in Paris, the third child and second son of François de La Tour du Pin Chambly de La Charce (1878-1914), lieutenant in the 298th infantry regiment, and Brigitte O'Connor (1880-1948). On his paternal side, he was descended from René de La Tour du Pin Gouvernet, and his family was one of the oldest and most powerful families of the
Dauphiné, having for forefathers several
dauphins of Viennois. His mother was descended from
Arthur O'Connor and
Condorcet. Patrice was only three years old when his father was killed at the
First Battle of the Marne, at the beginning of the
First World War. Patrice, with his sister and older brother, was raised by his mother and grandmother; the family split its time between
Paris and
Le Bignon-Mirabeau in
Gâtinais. As a poet and a discreet
Catholic mystic, he entered into dialogue with all the intellectual trends of the time, including
atheist thought. Il fait ses études à
Sainte-Croix in
Neuilly-sur-Seine, then at the
lycée Janson-de-Sailly, and then at the
École libre des sciences politiques. He first drew the public eye through
La Quête de joie ("The Quest for Joy") which he wrote in 1930 at 19 years old and published in 1933 at his own expense through Éditions de la Tortue, after
Jules Supervielle had been unable to persuade the
Nouvelle Revue française to accept the manuscript. This collection contains the celebrated poem "Enfants de septembre" ("Children of September"). Then appeared, in the
Cahiers de Barbarie collection edited at
Tunis by Armand Guibert, ''L'Enfer
("Hell," 1935) and Le Lucernaire
("Lucernarium," 1936). He then began to publish the poems that he would later gather in Une somme de poésie
("A Summa of Poetry"). Le Don de la Passion
("The Gift of the Passion") appeared in 1937 in Cahiers des poètes catholiques
, Les
Psaumes
("Psalms") in 1938 from Gallimard, La Vie recluse en poésie
("The eremitic life in poetry") in 1938 from Plon, and Les Anges'' ("The Angels") was published in 1939 in Tunis. The
Académie française awarded him the prix Maurice-Trubert in 1938. Mobilized in
World War II, he was taken prisoner during the
Phoney War on 17 October 1939 and was held in
Oflag IV-D, where he stayed for three years. Throughout his captivity, he continued to write the poems which would become the first part of the
Somme; this internment would become the most artistically productive period of his life. He was liberated on 21 October 1943. On his return, he married his cousin Anne de Pierre de Bernis Calvière, member of the noble and influential Pierre de Bernis family, and continued work on the
Somme de poésie. After the war, he lived with his wife Anne and their four daughters at Bignon. He continued to work discreetly on the
Somme, which would not be published in its full three-volume form until 1981-1983. In 1963, he moved to Paris, where he published the
Petit Théâtre crépusculaire, the beginning of the third volume of
Une somme de poésie. In 1970 he published
Une lutte pour la vie ("A Fight For Life") for which he received the
Grand prix catholique de littérature. In 1974 came
Psaumes de tous mes temps, ninety psalms of his own composition. He died in Paris on 28 October 1975 at the age of 64. His wife died in 2015 at 94 years old. He was interred in the O'Connor family section near their chapel in the cimetière du Bignon-Mirabeau. == Translation work ==