Editing Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (section)

==Biography==
Jules-Amédée Barbey — the d'Aurevilly was a later inheritance from a childless uncle — was born at [[Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte]], Manche in [[Lower Normandy]]. In 1827 he went to the [[Collège Stanislas de Paris]]. After getting his [[baccalauréat]] in 1829, he went to [[Caen University]] to study law, taking his degree three years later. As a young man, he was a [[liberalism|liberal]] and an [[atheist]],<ref>Robinson-Weber, Anne-Gaëlle (2000). "Présentation de l'Auteur." In: Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, ''Les Diaboliques'', Paris: Bréal, pp. 15–17.</ref> and his early writings present religion as something that meddles in human affairs only to complicate and pervert matters.<ref>Rousselot, Marguerite (2002). [http://www.barbey-daurevilly.com/textes-integraux/textes-sur-barbey/une-vieille-maitresse/ "''Une Vieille Maitresse'', Roman d'un Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly a-religieux ou Converti?"]. In: ''Roman et Religion en France (1813–1866).'' Paris: ed. Honoré Champion.</ref><ref>Rudwin, Maximilian J. (1921). [https://archive.org/stream/opencourt_feb1921caru#page/82/mode/2up "The Satanism of Barbey d’Aurevilly,"] ''The Open Court,'' Vol. XXXV, No. 2, pp. 83–90.</ref> In the early 1840s, however, he began to frequent the Catholic and [[legitimist]] [[salon (gathering)|salon]] of [[Baronne Almaury de Maistre]], niece of [[Joseph de Maistre]]. In 1846 he converted to [[Roman Catholicism]].

His greatest successes as a literary writer date from 1852 onwards, when he became an influential literary critic at the [[Bonapartist]] paper ''Le Pays'', helping to rehabilitate [[Balzac]] and effectually promoting [[Stendhal]], [[Flaubert]], and [[Baudelaire]]. [[Paul Charles Joseph Bourget|Paul Bourget]] describes Barbey as an idealist, who sought and found in his work a refuge from the uncongenial ordinary world. [[Jules Lemaître]], a less sympathetic critic, thought the extraordinary crimes of his heroes and heroines, his reactionary opinions, his [[dandyism]] and snobbery were a caricature of [[Lord Byron|Byronism]].<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Barbey d'Aurevilly, Jules Amédée|volume=3|pages=386–387}}</ref>

Beloved of [[fin-de-siècle]] decadents, Barbey d'Aurevilly remains an example of the extremes of late [[romanticism]]. Barbey d'Aurevilly held strong [[Catholic]] opinions,<ref>Guérard, Albert Leon (1913). [https://archive.org/stream/frenchprophets00gueruoft#page/n49/mode/2up "The Gospel of Authority – Barbey d’Aurevilly and Veuillot."] In: ''French Prophets of Yesterday.'' London: T. Fisher Unwin, pp. 43–49.</ref><ref>Beum, Robert (1907). [https://web.archive.org/web/20170217214006/http://www.mmisi.org/ma/39_03/beum.pdf "Ultra-Royalism Revisited: An Annotaded Bibliography,"] ''Modern Age'', Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 311–312.</ref> yet wrote about risqué subjects, a contradiction apparently more disturbing to the English than to the French themselves. Barbey d'Aurevilly was also known for having constructed his own persona as a dandy, adopting an aristocratic style and hinting at a mysterious past, though his parentage was provincial bourgeois nobility, and his youth comparatively uneventful.<ref name="EB1911"/> Inspired by the character and ambience of [[Valognes]], he set his works in the society of [[Normandy|Normand]] aristocracy. Although he himself did not use the [[Norman language|Norman]] patois, his example encouraged the revival of [[vernacular literature]] in his home region.

Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly died in Paris and was buried in the [[Montparnasse Cemetery|cimetière du Montparnasse]]. During 1926 his remains were transferred to the churchyard in Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte.