Sully Prudhomme elected to the Académie française in 1881. Another distinction, "Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur", was to follow in 1895. After, "Le Bonheur", Prudhomme turned from poetry to write essays on aesthetics and philosophy. He published two important essays: "L'Expression dans les beaux-arts" (1884) and "Réflexions sur l'art des vers" (1892), a series of articles on Blaise Pascal in "La Revue des Deux Mondes" (1890), and an article on free will ("La Psychologie du Libre-Arbitre", 1906) in the "Revue de métaphysique et de morale". The first writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (given "in special recognition of his poetic
Paul Prudhomme His father was a farmer, who struggled financially during Prudhomme's childhood, and his mother was a creative cook. Previously named after Saint Paul, as chosen by a Catholic priest, Prudhomme adopted the pseudonym "Gene Autry Prudhomme" during his youth. Paul Prudhomme's maternal ancestors include early Acadian settlers Martin Aucoin (c. 1651 – 1711) and Marie Gaudet (c. 1657 – 1734). Prudhomme opened his first restaurant in Opelousas in 1957, a hamburger restaurant called "Big Daddy O's Patio". The restaurant went out of business in nine months, which also saw the end of his first marriage. He became a magazine seller