SOURCE: Peters, Arthur King. “Jean Cocteau and His World.” Laurels 58, no. 2 (fall 1987): 87-102.

In the following essay, which was printed as an excerpt from the book Jean Cocteau and His World, Peters recounts major events in Cocteau's life and work.

The Cock Crows

At his birth, Clément Eugène Jean Maurice Cocteau uttered “a pretty cry, with a strong and resonant voice”, according to his proud grandmother Lecomte. The time: early on the morning of July 5th, 1889. The place: Maisons-Laffitte (Seine-et-Oise). This fashionable suburb of Paris was the summering place of Eugène and Emilie (née Renaud) Lecomte, the parents of Jean Cocteau's mother, Eugénie. Winters, Cocteau's parents also shared the Lecomte home at 45 rue La Bruyère, in Paris, and Jean with his older sister Marthe and brother Paul spent most of their childhood shuttling between the two places.

Turn-of-the-century Maisons-Laffitte, with its race...