Comte d'Erlette

The fictional Comte d'Erlette, created by H.P. Lovecraft, is an homage to August Derleth, and said to be the author of the infamous tome Cultes des Goules.

Timeline

1. 1635: Antoine-Marie Augustin de Montmorency-les-Roches is born. According to some, he is later known as the Comte d'Erlette, author of Cultes des Goules. (Ex Libris Miskatonici, Stanley)
2. c. 1665: If Antoine-Marie Augustin de Montmorency-les-Roches is indeed the Comte d'Erlette, then Cultes des Goules is probably completed around this time. (Ex Libris Miskatonici, Stanley)
3. 1703: François-Honoré Balfour, if he is the Comte d'Erlette as some believe, probably publishes Cultes des Goules in this year, before shutting himself out from the world. (Call of Cthulhu 5th Ed., Petersen and Willis et al)
4. 1724: The Comte d'Erlette Francois-Honore' Balfour vanished. Four days later he was found 'torn apart by animals' on the grounds of his estate. His burial instructions included being sealed in a solid brass casket and placed in a newly-constructed concrete vault. ("Down in the Delta", Scott Glancy, 2014)
5. 1737: According to some, Cultes des Goules by the Comte d'Erlette is published in Rouen, France.
6. c. 1793: The d'Erlettes flee France and settle in Bavaria at the time of the French Revolution. They change the family name to Derleth. (Factual)

Rumors and Speculation

• The Comte d'Erlette was an 18th-century Mythos investigator whose repulsive tome was an ill-advised expose' of the activities of a secret cult of Ghouls hidden in upper-class French aristocracy; d'Erlette's investigations resulted in his death by their hands.
• The Comte d'Erlette was a Ghoul, and the shocking activities of the Ghoul-Cults in his tome are auto-biographical.

Quotes

• "Comte d'Erlette's Cultes des Goules? An invention of Bloch's. The name Comte d'Erlette, however, represents an actual (and harmless) ancestor of August W. Derleth's, who was a royalist emigre from France in 1792 and bacame naturalised in Germany under the slightly Teutonised name of Derleth. His son, emigrating to Wisconsin in 1835, was the found of the Derleth line in America." - H.P. Lovecraft
• The Comte d'Erlette and Cultes des Goules are mentioned at least twice by H.P. Lovecraft in his published fiction, but only in passing among lists of fantastical books studied by background characters in "The Shadow out of Time" and "The Haunter of the Dark".