Anthony Aufrère

[4] Not much is known about his early life but he appears to have got into serious financial difficulties and his friend, the Reverend William Gunn (1750–1841), rector of Sloley, Norfolk, helped him out in 1781 with his debts.

The American royalist Thomas Hall (1750–1824), chaplain to the British factory at Leghorn (Livorno), also an antiquary, wrote to Gunn in October 1785 about "news of Aufrère who lives at Pisa".

[7] Riviere writes of "Aufrere's old lodgings by the centre bridge" presumably he lived in the Via Borgo Stretto by the Ponte di mezzo over the Arno river.

[10] Soon after he visited Germany, he settled down in Stuttgart and befriended Karl Friedrich Emich Freiherr von Uxküll[11]=Gyllenband (1755–1832), gentleman of the chamber to the Duke of Wirtemberg.

This false attribution was widely shared in Germany, and the error (that even Herder himself complained about as late as 1793), was still being made by German professors of literature in the 1840s.

Should I fail in my wishes in these respects, I still hope that my endeavours to make known in England the merits of a great and a virtuous man, will shelter me from censure, and that the defects in the execution will be pardoned in favour of the intention."

[14] Aufrère and Marianne had almost certainly met in Pisa in 1785 as his friend William Gunn had already been introduced to father and daughter and, as he wrote somewhat begrudgingly, it was expected of him to spend the evenings at the houses of the three English families there.

[15] After the marriage the Aufrère family chose to live abroad in Heidelberg, Germany, possibly for financial reasons, and in the following year their daughter Louisa Anna Matilda (17 November 1792 – 1868) was also born there.

In 1798 appeared his popular anti-revolutionary pamphlet A Warning to Briton's (1798)[17] Aufrère also had in mind the translation of German work, and had written to his publishers Cadell & Davies in 1799: "As I hate to be idle I have some thoughts of employing my few leisure hours in a free translation & alteration of a German Novel, with additional portraits of some characters within the sphere of my own observations- & if I follow it up, as I now think I shall, I shall have it ready by next spring, & will send it you for perusal, & for publication if you think it will take.

According to the Genealogical Notes, compiled by George Lockhart Rives (1849–1917), but based on Aufrère's own MS, it says "He and his family went to France in 1802 and were among the English prisoners seized by Napoleon at the rupture of the Treaty of Amiens in May, 1803.

"[20] Lawrence gave a charming description of Mrs Aufrère confronting the commandant's wife, Madame la Generale Wirion at Verdun.

[23] When he was in England he resided at Old Foulsham Hall, Norfolk, which is now a grade II listed building,[24] which was previously the home of Major General Philip Skippon, Commander of Parliamentary Forces at the battle of Naseby.

[25] In his last years he was often to be found at the Italian spa resort, Bagni di Lucca, Tuscany, he even wrote a small article for the Gentleman's Magazine there.

In his last will & testament, in a last codicil written at Pisa 22 January 1833, Aufrère wrote "I desire to be interred in the English burial ground at Leghorn as near as possible to the Lockhart monuments..." He also stipulated his inscription on a plain monumental stone: "Anthony Aufrère Esquire of Foulsham Old Hall in the county of Norfolk upwards of 48 years in the Commission of the Peace for that county.