Francine Faure

Francine Faure (6 December 1914 in Oran, Algeria – 24 December 1979) was a French pianist specializing in Bach[1] and a mathematician.[2] She was the second wife of Albert Camus, whom she met in 1937 in Algiers. They were married in Lyon on 3 December 1940.[3] She came from a middle-class French family in Oran, Algeria, which was a French colony at the time.[2] She also taught mathematics, sometimes as a supply teacher.[3]

Personal life

Francine's father Fernand Martial François Faure died in World War I, at the Marne, where Camus' father had also died. Her mother, Marie-Fernande Charlotte "Fernande" Faure (née Albert), was considered by Camus biographer Olivier Todd to be domineering. Her grandfather had built part of the Oran harbor. Her maternal grandmother Clara Albert (née Touboul) (1868-1940) was a Berber Jew and was born in Oran to Fredj Touboul (also reported as Fredja Abitboul) and Messaouda Touboul (née Tabet) (1834-1890).

Although Camus was indifferent if not hostile to formal marriage, the couple had twins, Catherine and Jean Camus, in Paris in 1945 after the city's liberation. Francine had moved there from Algeria after two years' separation from Albert, who was participating in the French resistance at the time.

She was different from Camus' string of petites amies. Her beauty was striking, but her presence was reserved, unassuming, and gentle. And she had a cœur droit, in the words of Camus.[4]

Francine suffered from and was hospitalized for depression, for which insulin and electroshock therapy were at various times prescribed.[5] At one point she attempted to throw herself from a balcony, whether to escape the hospital or to kill herself is not known.[6] Her depression was blamed in part on her husband's infidelities, and above all on his affair with María Casares. Camus told Francine, "They think I'm the guilty one." [7]

Shortly after being awarded the Nobel Prize, Albert Camus mentioned in a letter to her cousin Nicole Chaperon how he was moved by the generosity of Francine, “whom I have never stopped loving in my bad way." In the same letter he said that Francine had “forgiven” him.[8]

She and Camus are buried together in Lourmarin.[9]

References

1. Weagel, Deborah (2005), "Musical and Verbal Counterpoint in Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould", in Lodato, Suzanne M.; Urrows, David Francis (eds.), Essays on Music and the Spoken Word and on Surveying the Field, Word and music studies, 7, Rodopi, pp. 181–196, ISBN 9789042018976. Footnote, p. 193: "In fact, Camus's second wife, Francine Faure, was a pianist who specialized in the music of Bach.".
2. Bronner, Stephen Eric (2009), Camus: Portrait of a Moralist, University of Chicago Press, p. 8, ISBN 9780226075679, Francine Faure, a pretty if physically delicate mathematician from a provincial middle-class family in Oran.
3. Severson, Marilyn S. (2004), Masterpieces of French Literature, Greenwood introduces literary masterpieces, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 19, ISBN 9780313314841, Francine Faure arrived in Lyon in December 1940, and she and Camus were married there on December 3. ... The couple returned to Oran in January 1941 where [...] his wife found some work as a substitute teacher.
4. "Camus, A Romance" by Elizabeth Hawes (2009) - Chapter 2.
5. Heims, Neil (2003), "Biography of Albert Camus", in Bloom, Harold (ed.), Albert Camus, Chelsea House, pp. 3–54, ISBN 9781438115153. On p. 41, Heims writes: "In 1953, Francine's pain at Camus's indifference and her unreciprocated love became overwhelming. It was expressed in a depression that grew in severity into a full blown illness which included a suicide attempt and severe withdrawal, staring straight ahead and repeating the name Maria Casarès. Francine was hospitalized and subject to more than thirty electroshock treatments."
6. O'Brien, Stephen M. (2008), God and the Devil are Fighting: The Scandal of Evil in Dostoyevsky and Camus, Ph.D. Thesis, City University of New York, Department of Comparative Literature, p. 221, ISBN 9780549611370, Camus's second wife may have attempted suicide on two occasions by jumping, in one case from a balcony in Oran, in another instance from the second floor of the Sainte-Mandé psychiatric hospital in which she was being treated for depression. It is reasonable to think that these suicide attempts were related, at least partially, to the humiliation and disorientation that Francine may have felt because of Camus' open marital infidelity.
7. "Albert Camus: A Life" by Olivier Todd (1996) - Chapter 41.
8. "Albert Camus: A Life" by Olivier Todd (1996) - Chapter 47.
9. Luberon 2012 Dominique Auzias, Dominique Auzias, Jean-Paul Labourdette, Collectif, Jean-Paul Labourdette - 2012 "La tombe de Camus et de son épouse Francine Faure ressemble à deux jardinets piqués de romarins, de lavande et d'iris."