Who wrote Clisson et Eugenie?
Clisson et Eugenie was written by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1795. It is a romantic novella widely seen as a fictionalised account of his own doomed relationship with Eugenie Desiree Clary.
Questions about Clisson et Eugénie
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is the plot of Clisson et Eugenie?
A heroic but war-weary French soldier named Clisson falls in love with Eugenie at a public bath, marries her, and retires to a countryside idyll. When war compels him to return to service, he is wounded, and his comrade Berville seduces Eugenie in his absence. Heartbroken, Clisson sends a final letter to his unfaithful wife and her lover, then deliberately engineers his own death by leading a charge at the enemy.
What literary works influenced Napoleon when he wrote Clisson et Eugenie?
Some observers have identified Jean-Jacques Rousseau's La Nouvelle Heloise, published in 1761, and Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774, as influences on Napoleon's approach to romantic catastrophe in the novella.
How many fragments does the manuscript of Clisson et Eugenie consist of?
The manuscript survives in six separate fragments, which were scattered across Europe and the Americas before being reassembled. Napoleon appears to have made five attempts at writing the story, based on the number of surviving handwritten drafts.
Where are the fragments of the Clisson et Eugenie manuscript held?
One fragment is at the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum in Santa Barbara, California, purchased by Howard Samuel in 1955 for two thousand three hundred pounds. A fourth fragment is held at Moscow's State Historical Museum, having been acquired by Count Grigoriy Vladimirovich Orlov in December 1823.
When was Clisson et Eugenie first published in English?
A translation by Christopher Frayling was published in 1972. A new definitive edition, edited by Peter Hicks and published by Gallic Books, appeared after Hicks discovered a missing section of the manuscript in December 2007 and assembled multiple drafts into a complete text.