Octave Pradels

Octave Pradels
Lyrics by Pradels, music by Lucien Colin.
Born	15 February 1842 Arques (Pas-de-Calais)
Died	30 April 1930(1930-04-30) (aged 88) Parmain (Seine-et-Oise)
Occupation	Poet, novelist, vaudevilliste, lyricist

Octave Pradels (15 February 1842 – 30 April 1930) was a French poet, novelist, vaudevilliste and lyricist.

Octave Frederick Pradels published his first monologues, tales in verse and songs in 1883.

Among his greatest successes were Ça commençait si gentiment, La Chula, Dans l'oasis, Marche lorraine () (written in collaboration with Jules Jouy ()). His songs were created in particular by Kam-Hill, Anna Judic, Amiati (at the Eldorado) and Thérésa.

A director of the Théâtre des Capucines, Octave Pradels was also president of the SACEM from 1895 to 1898.

After a first marriage in 1865 in Villefranche-sur-Mer, with Angélique Thérèse De Villa-Rey, daughter of a commander of the Monaco Marine, who gave him a first son, Édouard Joseph, Pradels supposedly married the divette Maria Theresa Mirbeau in 1873. They had a son, unrecognized by the mother, Edmond André, born 26 July 1878 in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, who collaborated with his father as lyricist and composer under the pseudonym Edmond Aramis. He died for France in Fort Vaux at Vaux-devant-Damloup (Meuse), 9 April 1916. In 1917 Octave Pradels remarried with Marie Louise Fransurot.

Octave Pradels took great pride of having given his two sons to France. Imbued with the chauvinist and revanchist mentality that arose after the capitulation in 1871, he contributed throughout his career to the dissemination of this feeling. Evidence is given by this excerpt from the words of this Marche Lorraine written in 1892:

Tes fils n'ont pas dégénéré,
Sol sacré !
Adoré !
Dans leurs veines encore ruisselle
Du sang de la Pucelle !