Restif, Nicolas

(1734-1806)

   writer

   Nicolas Restif, known also as Rétif de Bretonne, was born in sacy, Yonne. Although he claimed to be self-taught, he received a religious education at Bicêtre and then was apprenticed as a printer in Auxerre and in Paris. His varied and abundant work shows a keen sense of observation, especially in the two novels, Le Paysan perverti ou les Dangers de la ville (1775) and La Paysanne perverti (1784), later combined under the title Le Paysan et la Paysanne perverties (1787). An autobiographical romance, La Vie de mon père (1779), evokes the social conditions of the peasantry under the ancien régime, while his Nuits de Paris, ou le Spectateur nocturne (1788-93) gives a detailed picture of the libertine society of the 18th century. while the overall tone of his work is characterized by acute psychological insight, this is most apparent in his autobiographical Monsieur Nicolas ou le Cœur humain dévoilé (1794-97). With his Anti-Justine ou les Délices de l'amour (1798), Restif took opposition to the marquis de sade's pornographic style and claimed to have added a moral note to eroticism. At the same time, he proposed a social reform inspired by jean-jacques rousseau that also anticipated the ideas of charles fourier in a collected work entitled Les Idées singulières.