Aloysius Bertrand

Who was Aloysius Bertrand?

Louis Jacques Napoléon Bertrand, more well known by his pen name Aloysius Bertrand, 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, that was published posthumously in 1842 and had three of its poems famously adapted to a homonymous piano suite by Maurice Ravel in 1908.

Born in Ceva on April 20, 1807, Louis Jacques Napoléon Bertrand was the son of Georges and Laure Bertrand, née Davico. Georges Bertrand was born on July 22, 1768 at Sorcy-Saint-Martin into a family of soldiers. A gendarmerie lieutenant, he married his second wife during his stay in the Department of Montenotte, Laure Davico, on June 3, 1806 in Ceva. After the birth of Louis, the eldest, in 1807, a second son, Jean Balthazar, was born on July 17, 1808.

On March 15, 1812, Georges was appointed as gendarmerie captain in Spoleto, whose mayor was at the time Pierre-Louis Roederer. There, on December 23, the poet's sister Isabella-Caroline was born.