Guy de Pourtalès (1881-1941) was born in Berlin to an aristocratic family who later settled in Switzerland. After attending universities in Germany, Pourtalès moved to Paris in 1905 to study literature at the Sorbonne. He published his first novel in 1910, married in 1911 and, claiming Huguenot ancestry, acquired French citizenship in 1912. During the First World War he served as a translator for the British army in Flanders. Victim of a gas attack at Poperinghe in 1915, he was later diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis. Pourtalès soon departed Paris for the slower pace of the Château d'Etoy on lac Léman, where between 1926-1932 he applied himself to romantic biographies of musicians. Pourtalès was prolific as an essayist, reviewer and polemicist, whilst maintaining a vast correspondence with other European writers including Stefan Zweig. In 1937 his autobiographical novel La Pêche miraculeuse finally won him a major literary prize, but the loss of his only son during the battle for France in May 1940 sent Pourtalès into a steeper decline. He died in Lausanne in June 1941.
On le connaît d’abord par ses châteaux, mais comme le soulignait Jacques Bainville, « il serait difficile de compter ce que doit la littérature à la légende de ce malheureux roi ». Louis II, le roi fou, a vécu dès sa jeunesse dans l’exaltation de ses rêves caressés par la musique...
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