1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Borel, Petrus

BOREL, PETRUS, whose full name was Pierre Joseph Borel d’Hauterive (1809–1859), French writer, was born at Lyons on the 26th of June 1809. His father had been ruined by taking part in the resistance offered by the Lyonnese royalists against the Convention, and Petrus Borel was educated in Paris to be an architect. He soon abandoned his profession to become one of the most violent partisans of the Romantic movement. His extravagant sentiments were illustrated in various volumes: Rhapsodies (1832), poems; Champavert, contes immoraux (1833); Madame Putiphar (1839), &c. His works did not rescue him from poverty, but through the kindness of Théophile Gautier and Mme de Girardin he obtained a small place in the civil service. He died at Mostaganem in Algeria on the 14th of July 1859.

See Jules Clarétie, Petrus Borel, le Lycanthrope (1865); and Ch. Asselineau, Bibliographie romantique (1872).