 Certain significant chapters of his life are known only from the Preface to the "Histoire Comique par Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac, Contenant les Estats & Empires de la Lune" ("Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon") published in 1657, nearly two years after his death.Without Henri Le Bret, who wrote the biographical information, his country childhood, his military engagement, the injuries it caused, his prowess as a swordsman, the circumstances of his death and his supposed final conversion would remain unknown.Since 1862, when Auguste Jal revealed that the “Lord of Bergerac” was Parisian and not Gascon, research in parish registries and notarial records by a small number of researchers, in particular Madeleine Alcover of Rice University, has allowed the public to know more about his genealogy, his family, his home in Paris and those of some of his friends, but has revealed no new documents that support or refute the essentials of Le Bret's account or fill the gaps in his narrative.