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Mortefontaine, a small commune in the Oise region near the Ermenonville forest, has never had more than a few hundred inhabitants. Yet it has a rich 18th-century history, not only because Joseph Bonaparte bought the estate in 1798 and brought his family with him, but also because it was the site of the treaty of friendship between France and the United States of America in 1800, as well as the weddings of Caroline and Joachim Murat in 1800, and Pauline and Camille Borghese in 1803. Coincidentally, it was also in Mortefontaine that Gérard de Nerval was taken in by his uncle, Antoine Boucher, in 1810. Gérard Nerval’s nostalgia for his complicated childhood remains with him throughout his life, and is expressed in many of his works. It is the telescoping of these two events that is explored here.