author
comte de A. (Alphonse) Fortia de Piles
1758–1826
An émigré nobleman, soldier, and prolific man of letters, he turned turbulent years into travel writing, historical studies, and literary curiosities. His books open a small but vivid window onto French intellectual life around the Revolution and after.
1 Audiobook
Les mystifications de Caillot-Duval Choix de ses lettres les plus amusantes avec les réponses de ses victimes
by comte de A. (Alphonse) Fortia de Piles, Pierre Marie Louis de Boisgelin de Kerdu
About the author
Born in Marseille on August 18, 1758, Alphonse-Toussaint-Joseph-André-Marie-Marseille de Fortia de Piles was a French aristocrat, military officer, and writer. Sources identify him as comte de Piles and later duc de Fortia, and note that he died in Sisteron on February 18, 1826.
He is remembered less for public office than for the range of his writing. Library records and book listings connect him with travel literature, including Voyage de deux Français dans le nord de l'Europe, and with works published under the name Caillot-Duval. That mix of memoir-like observation, literary play, and historical curiosity gives his bibliography an appealingly eclectic character.
Fortia de Piles belonged to the world of late eighteenth-century France, shaped by nobility, military service, exile, and scholarship. For modern readers, his interest lies in the way his books preserve the tone of a restless age, moving between society, politics, and anecdote with the energy of someone who had lived through dramatic change.