Jules Moinaux, real name Joseph-Désiré Moineaux or Moineau[1] (24 October 1815 – 4 December 1895) was a 19th-century French writer, playwright, and librettist. Georges Courteline, whose civil status name was Georges Moinaux (or Moineau), was his son.
Biography
The son of Joseph-Jacques Moineau, a cabinetmaker in Tours, Jules Moinaux began with learning the trade from his father. But soon, he preferred to live by his pen, and became a journalist and a writer-reporter at Palais de Justice, Paris.
By the late 1840s, he began writing, very often in collaboration, comic pieces that found success. In 1853, he wrote Pépito, an opéra comique for Jacques Offenbach, and in 1855, again for Offenbach, Les Deux Aveugles, a musical buffoonery.
His judicial chronicles of the Criminal Court, written with verve for La Gazette des tribunaux, Le Charivari, etc., were collected in 1881 under the title Les Tribunaux comiques. His son Courteline sometimes drew inspiration from these for some of his own plays.
His satire of the police community, Le Bureau du Commissaire, was published in 1886 with a preface by Alexandre Dumas fils.
Le Monde ou l'on rit, his last work, was published in 1895. That collection of sketches featured among others Le Sourd qui n'avoue pas, On demande un malade gai, Le Rapia de Champigny, and L'Homme aux goûts champêtres.
1869: L'Astronome du Pont-Neuf, one-act pochade musicale
1870: Le Ver rongeur, three-act play
1870: Le Joueur de flute, vaudeville romain
1870: Le Canard à trois becs, opéra-bouffe
1871: Le Testament de Monsieur Crac, opéra-bouffe
1874: Les Parisiennes, four-act opéra-bouffe
1875: La Cruche cassée, opéra comique
1876: Le Jeu de l'amour et du... houzard, one-act comédie en vaudeville
1877: La Sorrentine, three-act opéra comique
1880: Les Mouchards, five-act play
1881: Les Tribunaux comiques, édition définitive
1881: Ça fait toujours plaisir
1886: Le Bureau du commissaire, foreword by Alexandre Dumas fils
1886: Un conseil judiciaire, three-act comedy
1886: Le Bracelet, one-act comedy
1888: Les Nouveaux Contes du Palais par la presse judiciaire parisienne
1888: Les Gaietés bourgeoises
1892: Le Monsieur au parapluie, novel
1894: Les Tribunaux du bon vieux temps, Causes grasses et causes salée
1895: Le Monde ou l'on rit
Jules Moineau c. 1885
References
^"Moinaux or Moineau? The surname appears never to have been finally determined. Joseph-Désiré's father enrolled his son as Moineau but himself signed Moinaux. An uncle, born in 1826, is registered under the name of Morinaux and opted later for Moineaux... Later generations used indifferently Moinaux or Moineau, without the choice being ever meaningful. " Emmanuel Haymann, Courteline, Flammarion, 1990
