Louis (Aloysius) Bertrand, a French Romantic writer, was born in Northern Italy in 1807 and died in 1841. In Paris, he associated with the literati of his time (Hugo, Sainte-Beuve) but could not interest publishers in his work. Finally, the sculptor Pierre-Jean David (David d'Angers) took up the cause of seeing Gaspard de la Nuit into print, which happened the year after Bertrand died. Gaspard is considered to be the first modern collection of prose poetry.