romance. The phrase “l’amour le fit poète,” from Durand’s poem, “La Fiancée,” resonates
throughout the collection. Conversely, poems like “A la ville de Saint Marc,” mourning the loss
of an ideal past renders the poet nostalgic for both the eloquence of poetry and the joys of love.
The evidence is that their relationship continued to provide inspiration for both poets. One of the
bitterest poems is Durand’s “Le Divorcé,” a rebuttal to the poem, “L’Abandonnée,” which
Sampeur published in a regional journal in 1876.
In Rires et Pleurs, Durand dedicates his poem “Le Divorcé” to “Estelle,” a name whichrecurs as part of a series of characters throughout the collection. At first glance, relating
Sampeur to the fictional Estelle remains hypothetical, based solely on the biographical
knowledge surrounding this poem. Another poem, however, entitled “Le rêve d’Estelle,”
includes the note “Pour V.S.” and makes the connection unmistakable. The poet recounts a
dream in which he had too much love for a frivolous but beautiful and fragile butterfly and how
in an attempt to keep her, he clips her wings. Although the poet is remorseful, the dream
interpreter understands the ending as the poet’s desperate efforts to hold on to the creature during
this moment in time. The capturing of these moments relates to much of the underlying
sentiments in poems in Book Two of Rires et Pleurs, where the poet affectionately sketches a
series of joyful instants of love. Although many of these memories recall those in love as being
light-hearted and carefree, others inevitably attest to the ephemeral and inconstant aspects of
romantic affection. If poetry is composed of and dependent on such moments, it also becomes a
fleeting enterprise. This correlation comes to light in another poem entitled “Estelle.” After an
epigraph by Victor Hugo, the poem begins with this recollection of the poet’s former happiness:
Il répétait joyeux, quand il aimait Estelle,
Ces vers du grand poète, aux sublimes accents;
Il faisait du bonheur une fleur immortelle,
Une lyre aux accords sans cesse ravissante: