MÈCHE BRÛLANTE ... (BURNING FUSE)

Nicolas-Edme Rétif de la Bretonne was a late-18th-C. writer of repute, a great romantic and an eclectic chronicler of social realities leading up to the French Revolution. He loved Paris and provided vivid vignettes of life in both its amorous and harsh aspects.

His ability to mingle in the crowd and to spot social trends; his great sexual appetites and his talent for recording his experiences;

"À chaque fois qu'elle posait un paquet de fil, elle me tournait le dos, et tendait une jambe en arrière; son pied me touchait; c'était une mèche brûlante."( Each time she placed a packet of thread [on a shelf, while she is standing on a chair], she turned her back, and extended her foot behind her; her foot brushed me; it was a burning fuse. )

(Monsieur Nicolas, I)

his ability to combine a natural identification with the common people with insight into the motives of the ruling class and royalty, distinguished him from being merely another opportunist afflicted by -- as we would be tempted to psychologize today -- an inability to make long-term commitments.

Among his well-known works are Les Nuits de Paris (Nights of Paris), a remarkable documenting of Rétif's peregrinations in the night-life of real Paris; Monsieur Nicolas (a two-volume autobiography), Les Contemporaines (The Contemporaries, or Adventures of the Prettiest Women of Our Time), and books such as Le Pied de Fanchette (Fanchette's Foot), Le Paysan Perverti(The Perverted Peasant). He adored women, and it was perfectly natural for him to view them as "goddesses" and to be overcome, again and again, by new visions of beauty. The Nights of Paris is a highly unusual work, and the good deeds performed in the city by "the Nocturnal Witness" (i.e., the author) seem in some sense to be a discharging of the burden of his soul, for the many other adventures of uncertain moral caliber. His treatment of sexual matters was considered somewhat scandalous in certain circles; while by today's standards it is quite tame, the passion and heat Nicolas shows us is considerable.

". . . mais l'unique object de ma frénésie etait Colette, [. . .] Je baisais avec transport, avec rage d'amour, tout ce qui l'avait touchée, et mes desirs ne flagraient que davantage; . . ." (But Colette was the sole focus of my frenzy . . . Carried beyond myself, I kissed, with raging love, every object that had touched her, and my desires only surged higher . . .") Monsieur Nicolas, I

An interesting -- though probably less than historically accurate -- introduction to this fascinating individual is the portrayal of Rétif as played by Jean-Louis Barrault in the 1987 Ettore Scola film La Nuit de Varennes. A little masterpiece of romantic badinage, the movie centers on mere conversation, during a voyage en carrosse, between Rétif de la Bretonne, Casanova (Marcello Mastroianni), a lady-in-waiting (Hannah Schygulla) from the court of Marie Antoinette, Thomas Paine the American patriot (Harvey Keitel) and others. This film portrays the myth of de la Bretonne more than the real man, but it is a myth that stimulates the imagination. . . .