Robert-André Andréa de Nerciat

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Andréa de Nerciat.
by Félix Bracquemond (1867).

Robert-André Andréa de Nerciat (born April 17, 1739 in Dijon , † 1800 in Naples ) was a French writer, soldier, architect and librarian.

Childhood and Adolescence (1739–1764)

Little is known about Nerciat's childhood and adolescence. What is certain is that he became a half-orphan at the age of eleven because his father died. Until 1758 he went through military training and made it up to lieutenant in a military battalion in the province of Burgundy . From 1758 to 1764 he stayed in Denmark and served in the infantry regiment of Oldenburg, where he rose to the rank of captain. During this time, he traveled a lot and learned Italian and German.

Military career and first attempts at writing (1764–1776)

After he returned to France, his traces are lost for some time. It is documented that from 1771 to 1775 he served as a captain en second for the Garde du corps du roi of the French King Louis XVI. belonged to. He went in and out of court societies and experienced the free forms of sexuality practiced by the nobility as a parlor game that included the hunt for ever more voluptuous sensations as its main occupation. What Nerciat observed here, he began to process literarily. As a result, numerous poems, plays, stories and novels were written in which he described the revealing and dissolute lifestyle of the French upper class. During this time he was a frequent guest in the salon of the Marquis de La Roche, who later took the name Luchet ( Jean-Louis Barbot de Luchet , chevalier de Saint-Louis). A few years later he was to become his temporary sponsor at the court of Friedrich II , Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel .

Nerciat's first novel Félicia or my youthful follies appeared in 1772 (1775 according to other sources) and became an instant success. In contrast, his first play, the comedy Dorimon or the Marquis de Clarville, at the premiere in Versailles on December 18, 1775, fell through with the audience.

In 1776 the author lost his officer post and ran into financial problems. Some of the characters in his documentary novel les Aphrodites, published in 1793, in which he reports on the clubs of the "Aphrodites", whose members, members of the upper class at the time, had aliases (the gentlemen from the mineral water sector, the ladies from the flora) discover what grudges he harbored towards the count who had brought him into this precarious situation.

Stay abroad (1776 to 1783)

Nerciat now left Paris and went on a journey. For a while he lived in Switzerland and Germany, where he worked in aristocratic circles. It is believed that he acted as a secret agent similar to Gabriel de Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau and Dumouriez . But who did he work for? In view of the great political instability in the various states in Europe at that time and in view of Nerciat's financial shortage, one can assume that he was simultaneously active as a kind of double agent for several ruling houses.

Around 1777 he stayed for some time in Flanders with the Prince of Ligne, where he published his Contes nouveaux in Liège . On the recommendation of Marquis Luchet, Nerciat came into contact with the court of Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel in 1779. Here the marquis worked as master of ceremonies and organized the performances of festive courtly events. For this, Nerciat should write new plays. The landgrave was a patron of art, architecture and science. Nerciat presented his comic opera to him in three acts Constance ou l'heureuse témérité , the version of which has been preserved in the library in Stuttgart . The first performance of this work took place in 1781 in the theater in Kassel. It seemed to please the Landgrave, who was proud that pieces in French were celebrating their premieres in Kassel.

Inspired by this success, Nerciat now hoped for a lucrative position at the Kassel court, but to his disappointment he was only offered the position of sub-librarian at the Fridericianum . Nevertheless, he took over this function and moved to Kassel in early 1780. Through ingratiation and opportunism he soon became one of the respected favorites at court, but his professional goal was not fulfilled: the post of sub-manager for music and theater events at court, which Luchet had promised him, was filled by the Marquis de Trestondam, who as the first hunting third master worked at court since 1772. The fact that Nerciat was denied a further career may have something to do with the fact that at the court of Hessen-Kassel - in contrast to the other taste at German rulers of the time - French music was preferred, whereas Nerciat tended to favor Italian music. In Félicia there is a debate between lovers of Italian and French music, in which Italian takes precedence.

Nerciat's work as a sub-librarian was not very happy. His task of reorganizing the holdings of the museum library failed because numerous errors were found in the library regulations, for which Nerciat was held responsible. Apollinaire has found contemporary sources accusing Nerciat of a blatant lack of literary knowledge. The latter reacted angrily and defended himself by pointing to the responsibility of the Marquis de Luchet. In June 1782 he quit his job in Kassel and came to the neighboring court of Prince Karl Emanuel , where he held the position of court architect for a year. During this time he discovered his love for German literature, especially anacreontics .

In 1782 he married Marie Anne Angélique Condamin (1760–1830), their children were Auguste Andréa de Nerciat (1782–1846) André Louis Philippe Andréa, Baron de Nerciat (1783–1855) and Caroline Dorothée Robertine Andréa de Nerciat (* 1793 ).

As a secret agent in the service of the French army (1783 to 1789)

In 1783 he returned to Paris and presumably took up his service again in the army. Again he was working as a secret agent. In March 1783 he was appointed baron of the Holy Roman Empire (baron du Saint-Empire). On behalf of the French royal family, he went to the Republic of the Seven United Provinces , i.e. the Netherlands , in 1786 to support rebellious republicans who - spurred on by the Enlightenment - opposed the ruling House of Orange . Apparently France had an interest in destabilizing this ruling house.

Here Nerciat joined the Légion de Luxembourg, which had been founded to supply the Dutch East India Company : one of his orders was to take a merchant ship to Ceylon as captain. However, the departure of the ship was delayed again and again and was finally canceled entirely. Nerciat then decided to stay in the Netherlands. In the winter of 1787 he stayed in The Hague and waited in vain for a job with the Rheingrafen Salm, which had been promised to him. Thanks to his military skills, he instead hired himself out to the city of Amsterdam and fought as a staff officer, later as a lieutenant colonel in an infantry regiment, for the defense of Utrecht , Naarden and Muyden against the ruling Orange. Nerciat processed personal experiences from this time in his novel Juli .

But despite some successes, the fortunes of war turned in favor of the House of Orange. Since the Republicans were unable to pay him wages, Nerciat was forced to move to Brussels in 1787 , from where he returned to Paris in August 1788. Here he was awarded the croix de Saint-Louis , the cross of St. Louis .

Two of his comedies were printed in Prague in 1787 and 1788: Les rendez-vous nocturnes ou l'aventure comique and Les amants singuliers ou le mariage par stratagème. During this time his works Les Galanteries du jeune chevalier de Faublas ou les folies parisiennes and Le Doctorat impromptu appeared .

In the turmoil of revolution and restoration (1789 to 1800)

The role that Nerciat played in the outbreak of the French Revolution is unclear. The letter he wrote to his wife on November 8, 1796, allows the conclusion that he must have stayed temporarily in 1790 in Paris, which was marked by revolutionary turmoil. Then he went with the commanders' army, Armée de Condé, to Koblenz on the left bank of the Rhine , where the population was to be won over to the ideals of the French Revolution. At that time he held the rank of colonel.

In 1792 he acted as negotiator for the Duke of Braunschweig, to whom he had offered his services as a secret agent. Possibly he did this in order to guarantee the protection of the life of King Louis XVI, overthrown by the revolution. to obtain. Other sources suggest that he served as an officer in the Prussian army from 1792 to 1795.

But one looks in vain for this reference in Prussian archives. What is certain, however, is that Nerciat officially worked for the revolutionary government from September 1792. In the archives of the French Foreign Office there is a note dated September 9th, 1792 that a certain Certani, an anagram of Nerciat, received payments from the French government for his services as a secret agent. These funds were apparently paid for two jobs that Foreign Minister Charles-François Lebrun entrusted him with. These led Nerciat to Neuwied , Hamburg and finally to Leipzig . Following these missions, he did not return to France, but practiced the profession of librarian in all three cities (whether with or without approval of the revolutionary regime is unknown).

In 1796 he was again entrusted with an important secret mission by the new Foreign Minister Charles-François Delacroix (1741–1895): he was supposed to sound out the chances of a separate peace with Austria in Vienna. On the way there he made stops in Halle, Dresden, Prague and Leipzig. He was probably in the company of Count von Waldstein , with whom he had a meeting at the fair in Leipzig . Presumably he also stayed for some time in his castle Dux in Bohemia, where he allegedly met Casanova .

His regular reports to the Foreign Ministry were encoded in the form of notes according to the rules of music theory, a coding developed by Nerciat himself. At that time he had a false passport in the name of Certani, a music teacher from Naples. He came to Vienna under this pseudonym. Here he tried to meet earlier acquaintances such as Prince de Ligne, Prince Lubomirski and the Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinfels. Nerciat lived in constant fear of being seen through by his noble friends. His exposure as a secret agent came when General Henri Clarke d'Hunebourg arrived in Vienna as the official representative of the Revolutionary Directory (France) .

On the orders of the Viennese police, Nerciat had to leave the city on December 24, 1796 and went to Linz. Here, however, he was recognized within a few days, so that he finally turned his back on Austria and traveled back to Paris via Regensburg and Basel .

The next assignment he received from Delacroix took him to Milan, where he was supposed to assist General Clarke in preparing the peace of Campo Formio . Presumably this official mission was just a pretext, because in truth he was supposed to oversee the conduct of Josephine Bonaparte's life in Italy.

He benefited from his Italian-sounding name. This allowed him to impersonate an Italian baron, which was very useful for this task. In Naples he was supposed to slip back into the role of a double agent from December 1797 as an inspector at the court of the Kingdom of Naples-Sicily . So he became chamberlain to Queen Maria Karolina of Austria , Queen of Naples-Sicily.

On her instructions, he went to Rome at the beginning of February 1798 to conduct espionage in the vicinity of the Holy See. However, when the French troops of General Louis Alexandre Berthier captured the city on February 11, he was arrested and imprisoned in Castel Sant'Angelo . It was not until September 1799, when the Neapolitans recaptured the building, that he was released again. During his imprisonment, the manuscripts of several of his works were lost. Sick and weak, Nerciat returned to Naples, where he died a little later, in January 1800, presumably as a result of his imprisonment. His novel Le diable au corps did not appear posthumously until 1803.

Evaluation of his literary oeuvre

The new cultural luxury and the associated savagery of the nobility reached under Louis XV. a peak that was never known before. Versailles and especially Paris become the sin babel of Europe (see the works of e.g. Crébillon the Younger ). The parlor game of the senses, the hunt for voluptuous sensations, the rampant lifestyle of the rich French upper class is evident in the art of the Rococo as well as in the dissolute lifestyle of the nobility. This is the theme of Nerciat's narrative work, which reveals clear references to pornography .

Félicia ou Mes Fredaines, 1921 edition, with an introduction by Guillaume Apollinaire.

His literary work was forgotten for almost a century before it was rediscovered by Guillaume Apollinaire .

Works (selection)

Novels
  • I was a courtesan . Droemer Knaur, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-426-71010-2 .
  • Beloved friend . Droemer Knaur, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-426-71008-0 .
  • Julie philosophe ou le Bon patriote ... . Éditions Tchou, Paris 1968.
    • German translation: Julie. The adventures of a street girl during the French Revolution (Heyne Exquisit; vol. 48). Heyne, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-453-50351-1 .
  • Mon noviciat ou les joies de Lolotte
    • German translation: love spring. Leaves from the diary of the Marquise de Montrevers . Aufbau-Taschenbuchverlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-7466-2269-9 (former title: Mein Noviziat or Lolotte or the ladder of lust , 1979).
  • The beautiful Cauchoise . Moewig, Rastatt 1985, ISBN 3-8118-6555-2 .
  • Lust and vice in the monastery . Stephenson, Flensburg 1980.
  • Love spring (Heyne Exquisit; Vol. 48). Heyne, Munich 1971 (EA Krusaa / Denmark 1921).
  • Félicia ou Mes fredaines . Lattes, Paris 1979.
    • German translation: Felicia or Meine Jugendtorheiten . Heyne, Munich 1979 (EA Hamburg 1969; former title: The nights of a love gallery 1970).
  1. The erotic bestseller from the 18th century (Heyne Exquisit; Vol. 178). 1979.
  2. The erotic bestseller from the 18th century (Heyne Exquisit; Vol. 183). 1979.
  • Les aphrodites . Union Générale, Paris 1997, ISBN 2-264-02557-3 .
    • German translation: Les aphrodites or the adventures of an erotic secret society . Greno, Nördlingen 1988, ISBN 3-89190-906-3 (EA Magstadt 1967).
  • Le docotrat impromtu . EJL, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-290-30762-9 .
    • German translation: The doctoral hat acquired overnight (Heyne Exquisit; Vol. 163). Heyne, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-453-50132-2 (EA Hamburg 1965).
  • Le diable au corps . Merivaux, Paris 1980, ISBN 2-86380-015-9 (3 vols.).
    • German translation: The devil in the body . Kiepenheuer, Leipzig 1986 (EA Munich 1976).
  • Dorimon, ou le marquis de Clarville . Gay, Strasbourg 1778, ISBN 3-628-63415-6 .
  • L'étourdi . Belser Wissenschaftlicher Dienst, Wildberg 1989/90, ISBN 3-628-55134-X (2 vols., EA Paris 1784).
    • German translation: The bon vivant. Roman (Heyne Exquisit; Vol. 362). Heyne, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-453-50331-7 .
Plays
  • Constance, ou l'heureuse témerité comédie en trois actes . Hampe, Kassel 1780.
  • Télescope de Zoroastre or clef de la grande cabale divinatoire des mages . Alexandre de Dánann, Paris 2006 (EA Paris 1796).

literature

  • Anonymous: 140 gravures libertines pour illustrer Andréa de Nerciat et John Cleland (Images obliques; vol. 5). Editions Borderie, Noyons 1979, ISBN 2-86380-009-4 .
  • Vital Puissant (arr.): Bibliography anecdotique et raisonnée de tous les ouvrages d'Andréa de Nerciat . Cox, London 1876.
  • Carmen Szabries: Libertinage et libertins dans les romans d'Andréa de Nerciat . Dissertation, University of Paris 2007.
  • Marion Toebbens: Étude des romans libertins du chevalier Andréa de Nerciat (1739-1800) . University Press, Tuscaloosa, Ala. 1974.
  • Eberhard Wesemann: Foreword. In: Robert-André Andréa de Nerciat: The devil in the body . Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, Leipzig 1986, pp. 7–30.

Web links

Wikisource: Robert-André Andréa de Nerciat  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Category: Andréa de Nerciat  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to other data, he died in Naples in January 1801
  2. ^ François Xavier de Feller: Biography universal. Onthenin-Chalandre, 1839 p. 578
  3. ↑ Biographical data
personal data
SURNAME Nerciat, Robert-André Andréa de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nerciat, André-Robert Andréa de (alternative form)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French writer, soldier, architect and librarian
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1739
PLACE OF BIRTH Dijon
DATE OF DEATH 1800
Place of death Naples