author
Jean-Charles Gervaise de Latouche
1715–1782
An eighteenth-century French writer and lawyer, he is best known today for works linked to the bold, scandalous edge of libertine literature. His life sits at the meeting point of respectable legal society and the underground world of forbidden books.
1 Audiobook
Le portier des Chartreux, ou mémoires de Saturnin écrits par lui-même
by Jean-Charles Gervaise de Latouche
About the author
Born in Amiens on November 26, 1715, Jean-Charles Gervaise de Latouche became a lawyer at the Parlement of Paris during the Ancien Régime. He is remembered as a French man of letters whose career combined the formal world of law with a reputation for daring writing.
He is commonly associated with several libertine and erotic works, including Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Bonneval (1738) and Histoire de Dom Bougre, portier des Chartreux (1741). Some sources also suggest he may have written other provocative titles, though those attributions are less certain.
Gervaise de Latouche died on November 28, 1782. Even though much about him remains shadowy, his name has lasted because his books capture a lively, transgressive side of eighteenth-century French literature that official culture often tried to keep out of sight.