Editing Gérard de Nerval (section)

===Early life===
Gérard Labrunie was born in Paris on 22 May 1808.<ref name="Cogez11">Gérard Cogez, ''Gérard de Nerval'' 11.</ref> His mother, Marie Marguerite Antoinette Laurent, was the daughter of a clothing salesman,<ref name="Petitfils15">Pierre Petitfils, ''Nerval'' p. 15.</ref> and his father, Étienne Labrunie, was a young doctor who had volunteered to serve as a medic in the army under [[Napoleon]].<ref name="Cogez13">Cogez 13.</ref>

In June 1808, soon after Gérard's birth, Étienne was drafted. With his young wife in tow, Étienne followed the army on tours of Germany and Austria, eventually settling in a hospital in [[Głogów]].<ref name="Cogez14">Cogez 14.</ref> While they travelled East, the Labrunies left their newborn son Gérard in the care of Marie Marguerite's uncle Antoine Boucher, who lived in [[Mortefontaine, Oise|Mortefontaine]], a small town in the [[Counts and dukes of Valois|Valois]] region, not far from Paris.<ref name="Cogez13">Cogez 13.</ref> On 29 November 1810 Marie Marguerite died before she could return to France.<ref name="Cogez14" /> Gérard was two years old. Having buried his wife, Étienne took part in the disastrous [[French invasion of Russia]].<ref name="Cogez15">Cogez 15.</ref> He was reunited with his son in 1814.<ref name="Cogez15" />

Upon his return to France in 1814, Étienne took his son and moved back to Paris, starting a medical practice at 72 rue Saint-Martin.<ref>Cogez 16</ref> Gérard lived with his father but often stayed with his great-uncle Boucher in Mortefontaine and with Gérard Dublanc at 2 rue de Mantes (now 2 rue du Maréchal Joffre) in [[Saint-Germain-en-Laye]]. (Dublanc, Étienne's uncle, was also Gérard's godfather.)<ref name="Cogez11" />

In 1822 Gérard enrolled at the [[Lycée Charlemagne|collège Charlemagne]]. This was where he met and befriended [[Théophile Gautier]]. This was also where he began to take poetry more seriously. He was especially drawn to epic poetry. At age 16, he wrote a poem that recounted the circumstances of Napoleon's defeat called "{{Lang|fr|Napoléon ou la France guerrière, élégies nationales|italic=no}}".<ref>Cogez 20.</ref> Later, he tried out satire, writing poems that took aim at Prime Minister [[Jean-Baptiste de Villèle|Villèle]], the Jesuit order, and anti-liberal newspapers like ''[[La Quotidienne]]''.<ref>Cogez 21–22.</ref> His writing started to be published in 1826.

At age 19, with minimal knowledge of the German language, he began the ambitious task of translating [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]]'s ''[[Goethe's Faust|Faust]]''.<ref>Cogez 24</ref> His prose translation appeared in 1828. Despite its many flaws, the translation had many merits, and it did a great deal to establish his poetic reputation.<ref>{{cite book|first=Jean |last=Richer |title=Nerval par les témoins de sa vie |publisher= éditions Minard |year= 1970 | page=73|isbn= 0-320-05499-3}}</ref> It is the reason why [[Victor Hugo]], the leader of the [[French romanticism|Romantic movement in France]], felt compelled to have Gérard come to his apartment on 11, rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs.<ref name="Cogez27">Cogez 27.</ref>