Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray

Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray (2 February 1840 – 4 July 1910) was a French Breton composer, pianist, and professor of music history/theory at the Conservatoire de Paris as well as a Prix de Rome laureate. He was born at Nantes and died at Vernouillet, near Dreux. Debussy was one of his protégés. Career His bucolic upbringing near the family estate of Grézillières certainly added to his eventual fascination with the folklore, music, and culture of Brittany and other nations. Later in life, Bourgault would support the Breton Regionalist Union, an organization indebted to the propagation of Breton culture, ideals, and the notions of independence. He was also represented in the Goursez. Bourgault was from a family of considerable political and ancestral influence. His uncle was Adolphe Billault, the famous minister of the Second Empire, personally selected by Napoleon III to act as France’s Interior Minister from 1854 to 1858. Another of his uncles, Jules Rieffel, from Alsace, founded one of France’s first agricultural schools called the École nationale supérieure agronomique de Rennes. His father was an important businessman, ship owner and munitions expert. These family connection