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Illustrated portrait of Marquis de Rollebon

A character in Nausea

Marquis de Rollebon

The dead eighteenth-century aristocrat whose scattered records become the subject of Roquentin’s abandoned biography.

What they want in The novel’s account

To the extent the documents permit a character to be inferred, to act within eighteenth-century court and diplomatic worlds while remaining impossible to reconstruct completely.

The book

Cover of Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
NauseaJean-Paul Sartre, 1938

Existence itself becomes physically disturbing to a solitary writer in a French town.

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At a glance

Period
Eighteenth century
Status
Aristocrat and historical subject
Connection
Roquentin’s abandoned biography

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Rollebon never appears as a living participant in the diary’s present. He exists through portraits, documents, rumors, and the coherent personality Roquentin tries to build from them.

As Roquentin’s confidence in historical storytelling collapses, Rollebon becomes evidence of how a researcher may use a dead person to escape his own contingent life.

How the book draws them

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • Eighteenth-century aristocratThe image resembles an archival engraved portrait.
  • Formal court dressPeriod status is clear.
  • Ambiguous expressionThe records do not yield one stable personality.
  • Historical distanceHe is imagined, not presented as directly known.
  • Close engraved bustNo documents, palace, or silhouette treatment appears.
  • Muted plum accentThe color separates the archival figure from Bouville.
What happens to Marquis de RollebonHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

Rollebon remains dead and unrecoverable. Roquentin abandons the biography when he no longer believes the documents justify the coherent life he has been constructing.

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