Hippolyte Auger
Hippolyte Auger, born 25 May 1797 in Auxerre and died 5 January 1881 in Menton, was a French writer, Russian translator, and editor of the Journal de Saint-Pétersbourg.
Biography
In 1810, at the age of fourteen, Hippolyte Auger left his Bourgogne home, with the consent of his parents, to work to Paris. He found employment in a fabric shop, Mamluk, near the Palais-Royal. His teenage charm was employed mostly on men, including Russian soldiers who were present in Paris following the abdication of Napolean in 1814. Auger followed them back to Russia, and was recruited into the army of Tsar Alexander I at the age of eighteen. He served eighteen months.
In St Petersburg, Auger befriended the aristocrat Filipp Vigel, a famous Russian memoirist and friend of Pushkin. Vigel supported Auger for most of his life and enabled him to get to know the imperial family and senior Russian nobility.
In Vilna[1] he also met an aristocratic Chevalier Guard's officer Mikhail Lunin (1787-1845), later famous as a political philosopher, revolutionary, and Decembrist. For Auger it was love at first sight.[2] Lunin wanted to distance himself from his father, and together they decided to head to South America to join Bolivar's Liberadores. They only got as far as Paris, where they shared a tiny garret, Lunin penning a novel about "False" Dmitri, a 17th-century gay pretender to the Russian throne, while Auger introduced him to Jesuits, Saint-Simonians, and theatre acquaintances.
After more than a year in France, Michael Lunin, returned to Russia to inherit the fortune of his father and a political role. Obliged to earn a living, Auger remained in Paris. He wrote plays, then entered the service of a wealthy Scottish diplomat, William Drummond (1770-1828), who was stationed in Italy. {William Drummond of Logiealmond}
Back in France, Hippolyte Auger befriended the Saint-Simonians Hippolyte Carnot (1801-1888) and Philippe Joseph Benjamin Buchez (1796-1865) and took an active part in their conferences. Auger also achieved several successes as a playwrite. He chose to return to Russia for a writing project supported by the Tsar, on the famous work of Marquis de Custine , Russia in 1839. This was eventually abandoned, but Auger remained some time in St. Petersburg.
Auger passed the last years of his life in Paris, and on the French Riviera. In Toulon, he befriended the Justice of the Peace and bibliophile Alexandre Mouttet (1814-1901), who encouraged him to publish his memoirs.
Published posthumously in 1891 as Mémoires d'Auger (1810-1859, they were of remarkable frankness; his exploits confirming the presence of his name on the register of homosexuals then maintained by the Paris police.[3]
Works
- Translation of Karamzine, Marpha, or conquered Novgorod (Marpha, ou Novgorod conquise ), (1818)
- Boris (Boris), (1819)
- Ivan VI or Forteres Schlusselbourg (Ivan VI ou la forteresse de Schlusselbourg ),(1819)
- Rienzi (Rienzi), (1820)
- Gabriel Vénance, story written by himself (Gabriel Vénance, histoire écrite par lui-même), (1818)
- Machiavelli's The Prince (Le Prince de Machiavel, ou la Romagne de 1502), (1834)
- Morals (Moralités), (1834)
- Women of the world and the woman artist (la Femme du monde et la femme artiste),(1837)
- All for Gold(Tout pour de l'or), (1839)
- Advotia, a Russian novel (Advotia, roman russe), (1846)
- An Untitled Novel (Un Roman sans titre), (1846)
- Marcel, or within a household (Marcel, ou l'intérieur d'un ménage), a play first performed in 1838 at the Gaiety Theatre
- Mademoiselle Bernard, or Paternal Authority (Mademoiselle Bernard, ou l'autorité paternelle), a vaudeville comedy (1838)
- The Crazy Girl (La Folle), a three act drama first performed in 1836 at the theatre of Ambigu-Comique
- Poor Mother, (Pauvre Mère) a drama in five acts, first performed in 1837 athe Gaiety Theatre
- Historical Essay on the Republic of San-Marino (Essai historique sur la république de San-Marino ), (1827)
- Theatre of Physiology (Physiologie du théâtre) (1840)
- Theatre Beaumarchais (Théâtre de Beaumarchais) (1842)
References
- ^ Barratt,G. R. The Catholicism of Mikhail Sergeyevich Lunin, The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 49, No. 115 (Apr., 1971), pp. 255-271
- ^ Mémoires d'Auger (1810-1859, Paul Cottin, Aux Bureaux de la Revue Rétrospective, 1891, p76
- ^ Registre des pédérastes de la Préfecture de police de Paris. BB4, f° 39.
Bibliography
- Jean-claude Féray – « Hippolyte Auger » in Le Registre infamant, Quintes-feuilles, 2012, p. 168-178