Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
| Pierre Choderlos de Laclos | |
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Portrait of Choderlos de Laclos attributed to Alexander Kucharsky
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| Born | Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos 18 October 1741 Amiens, Kingdom of France |
| Died | 5 September 1803 (aged 61) Taranto, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies |
| Occupation | Writer, official and army general |
| Nationality | French |
Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos (French: [pjɛʁ ɑ̃brwaːz ʃɔdɛʁlo də laklo]; 18 October 1741 – 5 September 1803) was a French novelist, official, freemason and army general, best known for writing the epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) (1782).
A unique case in French literature, he was for a long time considered to be as scandalous a writer as the Marquis de Sade or Nicolas-Edme Rétif. He was a military officer with no illusions about human relations, and an amateur writer; however, his initial plan was to "write a work which departed from the ordinary, which made a noise, and which would remain on earth after his death"; from this point of view he mostly attained his goals, with the fame of his masterwork Les Liaisons dangereuses. It is one of the masterpieces of novelistic literature of the 18th century, which explores the amorous intrigues of the aristocracy. It has inspired a large number of critical and analytic commentaries, plays, and films.
Born in Amiens into a bourgeois family, in 1760 Laclos began studies at the École royale d'artillerie de La Fère, ancestor of the École Polytechnique. As a young lieutenant he briefly served in a garrison at La Rochelle until the end of the Seven Years' War (1763). Postings to Strasbourg (1765–1769), Grenoble (1769–1775) and Besançon (1775–1776) followed.
In 1763 Laclos became a freemason in "L'Union" military lodge in Toul.
Despite a promotion to the rank of captain (1771), Laclos grew increasingly bored with his artillery garrison duties and with the company of soldiers; he began to devote his free time to writing. His first works, several light poems, appeared in the Almanach des Muses. Later he wrote an opéra comique, Ernestine, inspired by a novel by Marie Jeanne Riccoboni. Its premiere on 19 July 1777, in the presence of Queen Marie Antoinette, proved a failure. In the same year he established a new artillery school in Valence, which would include Napoleon Bonaparte among its students in the mid 1780s. On his return to Besançon in 1778 Laclos was promoted second captain of the Engineers. In this period he wrote several works which showed his great admiration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).
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