Soldier and writer, author of the classic Les Liaisons dangereuses, one of the earliest examples of the psychological novel.
Laclos chose a career in the army but soon left it to become a writer.
His first novel Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782, Dangerous Acquaintances) caused an immediate sensation. Written as letters between the major characters, the story deals with the seducer, Valmont, and his accomplice Mme de Merteuil who take unscrupulous delight in their victims misery.
Laclos second novel De l´éducation des femmes (1785) is of little importance except for the light it throws on the psychology of the early novel
Lettre à MM. de l´Académie Française sur l´éloge de M. le Maréchal de Vauban (1786, Letter to the Gentlemen of the French Academy on the Praise of the Marshal de Vauban) mocked the French Army and its hopelessly outdated methods of defense and as a result lost him his army commission.
He then entered politics working for a while as secretary to the Duc d´Orléans.
He again joined the army in 1792 and ultimately rose to the rank of general under Napoleon serving in the Rhine and Italian campaigns.
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