La liberté de l’enfant errant Le témoignage de Valentin Jamerey-Duval

Valentin Jamerey-Duval (1695-1775) related in his Memoirs the story of his life as an runaway child, thereby providing a direct record of a reality that his contemporaries’ writings tended to overlook. This self-taught author drew on various genres and styles, particularly picaresque novels and pamphlets, to share his feelings and perception as a child with his readers and, above all, to provide insights into the ways he viewed his miserable childhood, the hardships of his original social group and his struggle to escape a socially conditioned existence.