М. Бербигье: Демонолог және әдеби өнердің ерекшесі

French author and demonologist

Alexis Vincent Charles Berbiguier de Terre Neuve du Thym or better known as M. Berbiguier (1765 – December 3, 1851) was a French author and demonologist who may have had psychosis. He was born, and died, in Carpentras in Southern France, and was the heir to an estate, which he used to finance the publication of his unusual memoirs. He is remembered chiefly for his lengthy autobiography, Les farfadets ou Tous les démons ne sont pas de l'autre monde ("The Imps; or, All the demons are not from the other world"), originally published in three volumes between 1818 and 1820. The book was handsomely illustrated by a series of lithographs whose originals were sketched by Berbiguier himself.

As a result of these activities, he eventually was committed to the Hospice de la Salpêtrière under the care of Dr Philippe Pinel, a pioneer of psychotherapy; he was eventually released. Pinel was unable to achieve much for him, and appears in the book as a servant of the imps. An ultimate improvement in Berbiguier's mental state may be indicated by a report that he attempted to round up and destroy the surviving copies of his book, which as a result are quite scarce.

Raymond Queneau and André Blavier considered Berbiguier to be a fou littéraire, a "literary madman," or rather, the literary equivalent of outsider art in France. Théophile Gautier used Berbiguier as a model for his fantastic story, Onuphrius; ou les vexations fantastiques d'un admirateur d'Hoffmann, and Gustave Flaubert similarly consulted Berbiguier's work for his tale of Bouvard et Pécuchet.