See also: Fréron

Élie Catherine Fréron , born with Quimper the January 20th 1718 and died in Montrouge the March 10th 1776, is a journalist, critic and polemist French.

Biography

Wire of a goldsmith established in Quimper in 1693 but originating in Agen - the cradle of Fréron is in fact with Clairac (47) since the 16th century -, Daniel Fréron, and of his wife Marie-Anne Campion born with Pont-l'Abbé, relative distant from Malherbe, Fréron made poor studies with the college of Quimper then among Jesuits with the Louis-the-Large college, where it entered like beginner in 1737 and remained until in 1739.

The Abbé Desfontaines made it take part in the drafting its Observations on the modern writings . With died of Desfontaines, in 1745, Fréron created its own newspaper, the Lettres of the countess of *** . This collection having been removed in 1749, it was replaced by the Lettres on some writings of the time which appeared until in 1754, with however an interruption in 1751 when Fréron briefly remained in prison with Vincennes not to have regulated a sum of thousand ecus of which it was indebted. It left there thanks to a measurement leniency the Minister of Justice. In 1751, it married an orphan young person quimpéroise, Therese Guyomar. They had a son, Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron (1754 - 1802) which played a part under the French revolution.

In 1754, Fréron founded the literary Year , which was the work of its life and which it directed until its death in 1776. It there highly criticized the literature of its time by bringing it back to the models of the 17th century and fought the Philosophers in the name of the religion and of monarchy. The periodical had, initially, much success and Fréron earned its living very well. The weather lived a superb house Rue of the Seine, decorated splendid gilded skirtings, and was very good expensive, receiving with his table the duke of Choiseul, the duke of Orleans or the king Stanislas.

He attacked mainly Voltaire which he had already described in the Lettres on some writings of sublime time “ in some of his writings, crawling in all its actions ”. Criticism then was taken again with each number of the literary Year , often corrosive but always expressed with coolness and on a tone of courtesy.

Voltaire, who supported the attacks badly, counteracted with an extreme strength. He made against Fréron a virulent satire, the poor devil , a play, the Coffee, or Scottish the (1760), where Fréron is represented by the character of Wasp (in English: wasp or Frelon), spy and informer, rascal envieux and cheap, always ready to calumniate at money price in its newspaper the literary Ass . Fréron attended the first two representations: if his wife disappears in front of the strength of the attack, itself did not lose its coolness and made part an ironic and correct report. Voltaire stripped also many epigrams to him, in prose or worms, of which this one remained famous:

the other day at the bottom of a small valley,

a snake pricked Jean Fréron;

Which do you believe that it arrived?

It was the snake which burst.

But Voltaire and the philosophical party also used against Fréron of their powerful relays to the Government and in the important administration, in particular the director of the Bookstore, Lamoignon-Malesherbes. Fréron having lost several of its guards remained protected by the queen Marie Leszczyńska and by her father the king Stanislas, though this last friendly barrel of the Philosophers. In spite of that, the literary Year undergoes many suspensions and Fréron a few days of imprisonment to the Bastille and For-l' Évêque. The newspaper périclita. In 1766, Fréron had been remarié with a cousin, Annette (known as Annetic) Royou, which endeavoured to put order in its business. But ultimately, the Minister of Justice, Hoot of Miromesnil, ordered in 1776 the suppression of the literary Year . Fréron into sudden such a contrariety that he died shortly after. Its enemies however accused an attack of drop, result of durable excesses of table and drink.

Works

• History of Marie Stuart , with the abbot of Marsy, 1742
• Ode on the Battle of Fontenoy , 1745
• Letters of the countess of *** , 1746
• Letters on some writings of this time , with the abbot of the Door, 1749 - 1750 and 1752 - 1754, 13 vol.
• Opuscules , 1753, 3 vol.
• the literary Year , 1754 - 1790, 290 vol.
• History of the empire of Germany , 1771, 8 vol.

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