Placide Cappeau

Placide Cappeau (25 October 1808 – 8 August 1877) was a French poet and the author of the poem "Minuit, chrétiens", set to music by Adolphe Adam and known in English as "O Holy Night" or "Cantique de Noël".

Biography

He was born on 25 October 1808 in Roquemaure (Gard). He was the son of Mathieu Cappeau, a cooper, and Agathe Louise (née Martinet). He was expected to follow his father in the family business (vinification and cooperage), but after an accident, he turned to the life of an academic. While he was at play as an eight-year-old, his friend Brignon was handling a gun and shot Cappeau in the hand. Cappeau's hand was amputated. With the financial support of Brignon's father, who supplied half the tuition, Cappeau attended a town school and then the Collège Royal d'Avignon. There he was awarded the first prize in drawing in 1825.

After studying in Nîmes, where he received a baccalauréat littéraire (A level in literature), he studied law in Paris and was awarded a license to practice law in 1831. Following in his father's footsteps, he became a merchant of wines and spirits.

Cappeau was known locally as a poet. On a business trip to Paris in December 1847, at the request of his local priest, he composed his Christmas-themed text and, as his local priest had requested, presented it to Adam to set it to music, the request based on their shared acquaintance with a singer, a certain Madame Laurey, who was then living near Roquemaure where her husband, a civil engineer, was supervising the construction of a bridge.

Cappeau's other works include the 4000-line philosophical poem Le château de Roquemaure (1876),

He died on 8 August 1877 in Roquemaure at the age of 68. He was buried in his family's crypt in Roquemaure cemetery.