Gerfaut (dodo Press)

Pierre-Marie-Charles de Bernard du Grail de la Villette, better known simply as Charles de Bernard, (1804-1850) was a French writer. He was born in Besanon, member of a very ancient family of the Vivarais, was educated at the college of his native city, and studied for the law in Dijon and at Paris. He was awarded a prize by the Acadmie des Jeux Floraux for his Une Fte de Neron in 1829. Bernard published a volume of odes: Plus Deuil que Joie (1838), which was not much noticed, but a series of stories in the same year gained him the reputation of a genial 'conteur'. They were collected under the title Le Noeud Gordien. Gerfaut, generally acclaimed as his greatest work, crowned by the Academy, appeared also in 1838, then followed Le Paravent, another collection of short stories (1839), Les Ailes d'Icare (1840), La Peau du Lion and La Chasse aux Amants (1841), L'Ecueil (1842), Un Beau-Pre (1845), and Le Gentilhomme Campagnard, in 1847.