Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Pronunciation

The French-speaking people hesitate between two pronunciations for Choderlos , that is to say sho-DER-lo and KB-DER-lo .

The French Academy recommends pronunciation Sho-DER-lo however. Roger Vailland in his Laclos by itself (p. 65), gives a facsimile of a Mémoire to ask for the Cross of Saint-Louis written by Laclos and dated August 26th, 1787, it names there Chauderlot de Laclos .

Biography

Pierre Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos was born with Amiens, chief town of the department of the Sum, on October 18th, 1741. It is the second wire of one secretary to the intendance of Picardy and Artois, of small and recent nobility - a family of dress recently anoblie.

The military career

To be a soldier is for him a true vocation, and it thus chooses soldiering although its prospects for promotion are not very large. It chooses the Artillerie, which is a technical weapon being appropriate well for its mathematical spirit, and is allowed in 1760 with the royal École of artillery of Fère - ancestor of the Polytechnic school.

It is successively named Sous-lieutenant in 1761 then lieutenant as a second in 1762. Dreaming of conquests and glory, it is made assign to the Brigade colonies, in garrison with La Rochelle. But the treated of Paris in 1763, puts an end to the Guerre Seven Year old. Fault of war, young lieutenant de Laclos is obliged to choke its warlike ambitions and to carry out a dull garrison life: with the 7th artillery regiment of Toul in 1763, with Strasbourg of 1765 with 1769, Grenoble of 1769 with 1775, then with Besancon of 1775 with 1776.

Named captain with the seniority in 1771 - it will remain it during seventeen years until the day before Révolution - this artillerist, cold and logician, with the subtle spirit, are bored among his coarse soldiers, and to occupy its time, it is invested in the literature and the writing. Its first parts, written in light worms, are published in “ the Almanac of the Muses ”. Taking as a starting point a novel of Mrs. Riccoboni, he writes a rather bad Op3era Comique “ Ernestine ”, the mulatto of origin Chevalier inhabitant of Guadeloupe of Saint-Georges taking care of the partition. This work will have only one disastrous representation, on July 19th, 1777 in front of the queen Marie-Antoinette.

At the time of this same year 1777, it receives the mission of installing a new artillery school with Valence which will receive in particular Napoleon. Of return to Besancon in 1778, it is promoted first mate of Sapeur S. During his many spare times in garrison, it writes several works, in which it seems an enthusiastic admiror of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and its novel the News Héloïse , that it regards as “ most beautiful of the works produced under the title of novel ”. In 1778, it begins the writing of the dangerous Liaisons .

Dangerous Connections

In 1779, it is sent on mission in the island-in Aix to assist the Marquis de Montalembert in the direction of constructions of fortifications against the British. In fact, it spends much time to write the dangerous Connections , and also a Epître with Madam de Montalembert . Promoted in this end of the year Capitaine of bomber, he asks for a leave of six months that he occupies with Paris to write; he knows that from now on his literary ambition must pass before its military ambition, for which he feels frustrated.

Its work in gestation contains its military frustrations - not to have never been able to put forward its qualities at the time of a war - but also many humiliations which it estimates to have undergone all its life, on behalf of truths aristocrats, as well as women that it thinks inaccessible. the dangerous Connections are thus also for him a kind of revenge and a therapy by the writing.

In 1781, promoted Captain-commander of gunners, it obtains new a six months permission, at the time which it completes his masterpiece. He entrusts to the editor Durand Neveu the task to publish it in four volumes which are proposed with the sale on March 23rd, 1782. Success is immediate and fulgurating; the first edition includes/understands two thousand specimens which are sold in one month - what for the time is already rather extraordinary - and in the two years which follow ten republications are also proposed and sold.

dangerous Connections
This epistolary novel recalls the adventures in love with the Marchioness of Merteuil and its former lover, the Viscount of Valmont.
The Marchioness, wanting to be avenged for an inaccurate lover then promised with the girl of a cousin, Cecile de Volanges, makes so that the Viscount dishonors the latter before the marriage. What the Viscount achieves, while at the same time it tries to allure a woman recognized for her virtue: the President de Tourvel. She tries to remain faithful to her husband but the Viscount manages to trap it to make it die love. Cecile de Volanges, as for it, falls in love with the knight Danceny, her Master of musical theory. But, the Marchioness of Merteuil makes this one his/her lover, by all kinds of operations. She thus causes a duel between the Viscount of Valmont, which seeks to find its favors - destabilized by its mishaps of Volanges and Tourvel -, and the young Danceny knight, which will manage to kill the Viscount, tormented regrets to have condemned the President de Tourvel. It then gives to the knight all the correspondence which it held with the Marchioness of Merteuil so that this one is revealed not like a woman of most virtuous of any Paris, but like a dangerous demon.

The publication of this sulfurous work, considered as an attack against the aristocracy, is judged like a fault by its command. Order is given to him to immediately join its garrison in Brittany, from which it is sent to La Rochelle in 1783 to take part in the construction of the new arsenal. It is there that it becomes acquainted with Marie-Soulange Duperré , that it allures and who quickly awaits a child of him. He is 42 years old, it only 24, but, really in love, he will marry it in 1786 and will recognize the child. Marie-Soulange will be the great love of her life and will give him two other children.

Choderlos de Laclos resembles of nothing to the seducer prototype character of Valmont and does not have the tares at all of them. He is of nothing a seducer, and one describes it like “ a thin and yellow Mister ” with the “ cold and methodical conversation ”. Free from conquests, its love life is limited to his Marie-Soulange wife for whom he is a faithful husband, just as he is for his children an attentive father.

Thereafter, it takes part in an academic contest whose subject is “ Which would be the best means of improving the education of the women? ”, which enables him to develop rather feminist sights on the equality of the sexes and the education given to the young girls. In this text remained unfinished, there denounces the education given to the young girls who then does not aim, according to him, “ that to accustom them with the constraint, and maintaining there”. The topic of the female emancipation already had in the dangerous Connections a big role.

June 17th, 1787 he wrote with the Newspaper of Paris his project of numbering of the streets of Paris.

The Revolution

In 1788, it leaves the army. After one period of personal research of the best means of supporting its ambition, and various attempts to approach a large lord, it enters to the service of the duke of Orleans from which it shares the ideas on the evolution of the royalty.

The Revolution which bursts is finally for him the occasion of living intensely. As of the beginning it carries out intrigues in favor of its Master and organizes plots and machinations. The 5 and October 6th, 1789, it work with the Journées of Versailles and write with Brissot the petition at the origin of the Fusillade of Field-of-March. July 17th, 1791, it negotiates the repurchase of the six hundred spades of July 14th.

It adopts the republican idea and leaves the duke of Orleans for a post of police chief to the ministry for the War where it with the responsibility of reorganize the troops of the young Republic. This post of police chief of the ministry is the equivalent of the Brigadier general rank of . Thanks to its activities, it prepares in a decisive way with the victory at the time of the Bataille of Valmy. After the treason of Dumouriez, he is imprisoned as orleanist, but he is released at the time of Thermidor.

He develops then, during ballistic experiments, a “hollow ball” charged with powder. Choderlos de Laclos is thus the inventor of the Obus. In 1795, hoping to be réintégrê in the army, it writes a report entitled “ Of the war and peace ” which it addresses to the Comité public safety, but without immediate effect. It also tries to enter the diplomacy and to found a bank but without more success.

Finally, it becomes acquainted with the young general Napoleon Bonaparte, new the First Consul, artillerist like him, and adopts the ideas Bonapartists. January 16th, 1800, it is reinstated as brigadier general of artillery and affected in the Armée with the Rhine, where it receives the baptism of fire to the Bataille of Bilberach. Affected in the command of the artillery reserve of the Armed with Italy, he dies on September 5th, 1803 with Tarente, not at the time of a battle, but weakened by the Dysenterie and the Malaria. He is buried on the spot - with the return of the Bourbons in 1815, its tomb was violated and destroyed.

Works

Ernestine (1777)

dangerous Connections , its greater success (1782)

Of the education of the women (1783)

Instructions at the assemblies of bailliage (1789)

Newspaper of the friends of the Constitution (1790 - 1791)

Of the war and peace (1795)

See too

Joachim Vilate

External bonds

a remarkable study of the '' dangerous Liaisons '' on the site Magister
the free audio version of the '' dangerous Liaisons '' in the course of recording, under creative license let us commons, librivox.org

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