Pierre "Le Tigre" Regnier

Pierre de Régnier
4th Cousin, twice removed  

Known by his pseudonym "Tigre" (The Tiger), was a French writer, poet, illustrator, and chronicler of Parisian high society, born on September 8, 1898, in Paris's 16th arrondissement. He was the son of the acclaimed Symbolist poet and Académie Française member Henri de Régnier and Marie de Heredia (who wrote under the pen name Gérard d'Houville), daughter of the Cuban-born French poet José-Maria de Heredia y Girard. 

Officially recognized as Henri's child, Pierre was widely rumored to be the biological son of his mother's lover, the poet Pierre Louÿs—a scandalous detail that fit the bohemian family dynamic. From a young age, his unconventional mother affectionately nicknamed him "Tigre," a moniker that would define his public persona as a flamboyant dandy of the Roaring Twenties (les Années Folles).

Régnier showed little interest in formal education, attending the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly but preferring the nightlife of jazz clubs, Russian cabarets, and the glittering casinos of Deauville and Cannes. After World War I, he fully embraced the hedonistic spirit of the era, becoming a fixture in Paris's social whirl. A self-proclaimed "patachon" (a term for a carefree, debt-ridden bon vivant), he lived extravagantly—often in tuxedos and white scarves—frequenting parties, racecourses, and Riviera resorts, while indulging in opium, cocaine, absinthe, gin, and calvados. His lifestyle left him perpetually broke, but his charm and connections kept him afloat in elite circles.

Literarily, Régnier began publishing poems in magazines like *La Presqu'île* (1916) and *La Revue de Paris* (1924). He illustrated books, including his mother's children's tale *Les Rêves de Rikiki* (1930) and *Le Danseur de Madame* (1921), with his signature simple black-ink caricatures. His breakthrough came as a journalist: In 1930, he started writing columns for the right-wing weekly *Gringoire* under the title "Paris ma grand'ville," offering witty, illustrated dispatches on the city's scandals, fashions, and follies. He later contributed to *La Vie Parisienne*, cementing his role as a mondain chronicler. His only novel, *La Vie de Patachon* (1935), was a semi-autobiographical romp through his dissipated world. Other works include the poetry collection *Le Livre gai* (1927) and *Deauville* (1927), a playful ode to the resort town dedicated to a bartender who "prevented [him] from dying of thirst."

Régnier's personal life was as colorful as his writing. He was a notorious rake, linked to numerous affairs amid the era's sexual liberation. One notable romance was with the actress Musidora (Jeanne Roques), the iconic "vamp" of silent cinema who famously played the bat-like thief Irma Vep (an anagram of "vampire") in the 1915-1916 serial *Les Vampires*. Their relationship in the 1920s captured the interwar blend of art, vice, and celebrity. Despite his talents, Régnier's excesses took a toll; he died prematurely on October 29, 1943, in Paris at age 45, deeply in debt and worn out by his "empty life of a wastrel." In 1964, a literary prize in his name was established to aid impoverished writers, a poignant irony for the man who chronicled excess but ended in penury.