Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de (1741-1803), was a French military officer and an author known for his first novel, Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons, 1782). The work is one of the earliest examples of the psychological novel in Western literature.
Laclos wrote Les Liaisons dangereuses as a series of letters. The story is set in aristocratic French society shortly before the French Revolution (1789-1799). It is a study in the corruption of innocence and virtue by the vicious Vicomte de Valmont and his equally malicious former mistress, the beautiful Marquise de Merteuil. Valmont and Merteuil work together to humiliate and betray the unsuspecting people around them. The pair seem to have no motive other than the callous amusement they gain from ruining the lives of others. At the end of the story, Valmont is killed in a duel, and the Marquise is disgraced. She eventually contracts smallpox, which ruins her beauty.
The novel has been adapted into several motion pictures. A stage adaptation in 1985 by the British playwright Christopher Hampton was a major hit both in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos was born in Amiens on Oct. 18, 1741. He became an army officer in 1761. Laclos played an important role in the French Revolution as an official in the Ministry of War. He rejoined the army following the revolution in 1800, becoming a general under Emperor Napoleon I. Laclos died on Sept. 5, 1803.
