Claude Balyne
An ecologist ahead of his time, Claude Balyne helped, together with his wife, the cultural influence of the island of Port-Cros. Claude Balyne, whose real name was Jean Picard, was a poet and sub-prefect in Orange. In autumn 1918, while suffering from tuberculosis, Claude Balyne, who was also a notary, fell under the spell of Port-Cros and decided to settle there to enjoy its pure air and unique charm. He convinced his wife to join him.
Once in Port-Cros, she fell in love with the island's beauty. An intelligent and cultivated woman, she decided to develop tourism there by opening the Auberge Pascal, still known as the Hotellerie Provencale.
In 1929, Claude Balyne published L'ile fee. Port-Cros en Mediterranee, a work in which he evokes the beauty of the island.
The couple also decided to work for the island's preservation and contributed to its classification in 1930 among natural sites of artistic character.
The couple's inn became so successful that it attracted to Port-Cros many artists, writers, and famous personalities who, like Claude Balyne and his wife, were interested in ecology and respectful of the island's landscape.
One could then see Jules Supervielle and his family, Valery's and Malraux's daughters, the Renaud-Barraults, and even the famous American novelist Robert Penn Warren, to name only a few.
The couple thus played a major role in the influence of Port-Cros. However, the person who most marked the island and definitively made it a favorite destination for the most gifted writers and artists of their time was Jean Paulhan, then head of the Nouvelle Revue Francaise.
An old 18th-century mill in Porquerolles is fully restored