He was born in Villeneuve-sur-Fère (Aisne), into a family of farmers and government officials.
After a long affair with Rosalie Vetch, a married woman with four children and pregnant with Claudel's child, ended in February 1905 (Vetch left him for another man), Claudel married Reine Sainte-Marie-Perrin on 15 March 1906 [REF].