Алоизиус Бертра́н: Жизнь и творчество французского поэта.

French poet

Louis Jacques Napoléon Bertrand, better known by his pen name Aloysius Bertrand (20 April 1807 — 29 April 1841), was a French Romantic poet, playwright and journalist. He is famous for having introduced prose poetry in French literature, and is considered a forerunner of the Symbolist movement. His masterpiece is the collection of prose poems Gaspard de la Nuit published posthumously in 1842; three of its poems were adapted to an eponymous piano suite by Maurice Ravel in 1908.

Born in Ceva on 20 April 1807, Louis Jacques Napoléon Bertrand was the son of Georges and Laure (or Laurine Marie) Bertrand, née Davico. Georges Bertrand was born on 22 July 1768 at Sorcy Saint Martin (or Saulieu, according to other sources) into a family of soldiers. A gendarmerie lieutenant, his parents wanted him to become a priest but he ran away from the seminary and enlisted in the 16e régiment de dragons of Orléans on 7 May 1785. His first marriage with Marie Jeanne Rémond (born in Montbard on 23 February 1779) gave birth to a daughter, Denise, on 9 March 1800 but his wife died three months later. He married his second wife during his stay in the Department of Montenotte (now the Province of Cuneo), Laure Davico (born 2 August 1782), on 3 June 1806 in Ceva. After the birth of Louis, the eldest, in 1807, a second son, Jean Balthazar, was born on 17 July 1808. On 15 March 1812 Georges was appointed as gendarmerie captain in Spoleto, whose mayor was at the time Pierre Louis Roederer. There, on 23 December, the poet's sister Isabella Caroline (or Elizabeth) was born. On 3 September 1814 he was assigned to Mont de Marsan, where he made the acquaintance of Charles Jean Harel, then prefect of the Department of Landes. Retiring at the end of August 1815, he left Landes and moved to Dijon, where on 19 March 1816 his fourth child was born, Charles Frédéric (who later became a journalist),

In January 1833, he went back to Paris. Soon after, the publisher Eugène Renduel agreed to publish “Gaspard”, announcing even it would come out in October. He became a secretary for baron Roederer. He wrote “Peter Waldeck ou la chute d’un homme”, a play with chants in 3 acts and 6 tableaux inspired by the “Adventures of Martin Waldeck” by Walter Scott. In Spring of 1834, he met Célestine F., to whom he proposed. According to Jacques Bony, his mother did not agree to the union, according to Max Milner his love was one sided. Between 1835 and 1837, he was in serious financial difficulties and had to borrow money from a lot of people. He contracted tuberculosis Théodore de Banville, an admirer and later rival of Baudelaire, also quoted Bertrand as a main inspiration in the opening of his book “La Lanterne Magique” in 1883. He became a cult author for the Symbolists, especially for Stéphane Mallarmé who discovered him at the age of twenty and referenced his work throughout his entire life. However, it is only in the 20th century that his work was really recognized. Max Jacob brought attention to Bertrand by making him the inventor of prose poetry. , 2 volumes.