Abel-François Villemain

Biography

Wire of Ignace Jean Villemain, rider, merchant of silk trade and owner of a ground with Combs-the-City, and of Anne Genevieve Laumier, girl of a middle-class man of Paris, it began its studies at Planche where, as of twelve years, it played the tragedy in Greek, and with the Louis-the-Large Lycée continued them where it was characterized by his extreme facility. In rhetoric, he was the pupil of Luce de Lancival, which was made compensate by him when the disease moved away it from its pulpit, and followed the courses of the school of right. Its spirit was worth to him very quickly, in the world, an early reputation.

Fontanes named it from the start temporary professor of rhetoric to the Lycée Charlemagne (1810), then university lecturer of French literature and Latin versification to the National university. It was in charge of the Latin speech, of which the use had just been restored with the prize giving of the open Competition and, in 1812, it obtained a price of the French Academy for a praise of Montaigne, “where spread themselves already, according to Gustave Vapereau, great qualities of the future writer: the exquisite of the details, plain feeling with the faculty of generalization and the natural gift of a harmonious and rich sentence of ideas”.

This success ensured to him the protection of Suard, the count de Narbonne, the princess of Vaudemont, and the votes of the literary living rooms of the time, where its talent of fine talker made it seek, in spite, known as Armand de Pontmartin, “of its simiesque ugliness, of its neglected behavior, the waistcoat of knitting of a suspect cleanliness exceeding the sleeve of the dress”.

Under the Restoration

The fall of the Empire closed for him the administrative career for which it was intended. But the Restoration, the parliamentary mode and the literary reaction which prepared, answered its temperament better.

The April 21st 1814, the young writer was authorized by exception to reading in the enclosure of the French Academy, in the presence of the king de Prusse and of the emperor of Russia, his report entitled Avantages and disadvantages of criticism . He believed duty to address to the foreign sovereigns compliments which were judged severely by the liberal opinion.

In May 1814, it was initially named assistant professor of modern history to the Sorbonne, where it compensated Guizot. The August 25th 1816, it was again crowned by the Academy for its Éloge of Montesquieu , and, a little later named, in November 1816, professor of French eloquence in the Sorbonne, to replace Royer-Collard. It is there that it gave, during ten years, except very short interruptions, a series of courses of literature which had an enormous influence on its younger contemporaries.

It had been likely to be come immediately before the romantic movement and to be impassioned of literature without being an extremist. The majority of young cultivated people who belonged to this brilliant generation of the Années 1830 passed under his influence; and, whereas it liked romantic for its sincere appreciation of the beauties of poetries German, English, Italian and Spanish, it décria not the traditional ones, neither those which were clean in Greece where in Rome, nor traditional French. Applying to the history of the literature the spirit of generalization that Victor Cousin and François Guizot carried in philosophy and the history, he endeavoured to light the philosopher's stones of the French literature by the comparison of the times and the countries.

In 1819 it published the Histoire of Cromwell , delivers which was translated into several languages and in which Cromwell was supposed to point out Bonaparte and the political state of France that of England to leaving protectorate.

Named Main of the requests to the Council of State under the ministry Decazes (November 4th 1818), then to advise State in 1826, he became head of the division of printing works and the bookstore to the ministry for the Interior (December 1819). Attached to the doctrinary party, it contributed, under the influence of its ideas, with the drafting of the laws on the press enacted by the Restoration.

In 1821, it succeeded Fontanes with the French Academy. Taken of a sharp sympathy to the cause of Hellenic independence, it published Lascaris or the Greeks of XVe century (1825) and the Essai on the state of the Greeks since the Moslem conquest (1825), two studies, one literary, the other history, which moved the opinion highly. In 1822, it had given the translation of the Republic of Cicéron, according to the manuscript discovered by Angelo May, with an introduction and erudite notes.

The ministry Villèle, seeing with concern the success of the courses professed in Sorbonne by Cousin, Guizot and Villemain, ordered their suspension. Also, in 1827, when the Academy charged Lacretelle, Chateaubriand and Villemain to write a petition with Charles X against the re-establishment of the censure (law of the June 24th 1827), Villemain discharged its task brilliantly and the very same day lost its functions with the Council of State. The ministry Martignac reinstated it (1828) and reopened the suspended courses. Villemain then put all the flexibility of its corrosive spirit at the service of the liberal cause and resigned of the Council of State in 1829 at the time of the advent of the ministry Polignac.

Elected official appointed by the college of Department of the Eure the July 19th 1830, it took seat among the constitutional ones.

Under the monarchy of July

The Révolution of 1830 ensured to him a political position of foreground. It belonged to the charged commission of the revision of the Charter and was of opinion to repeal the article which declared the Catholic religion religion of the State. With the elections of 1831, the voters of Évreux refused to renew its mandate, but Louis-Philippe named it member of the royal Council of the State education, of which he became vice-president in 1832, adviser of State in extraordinary service and Pair of France (October 11th 1832). He was also elected perpetual secretary of the French Academy (December 11th 1834). In 1841, it entered to the Académie of the inscriptions and the humanities.

The January 30th 1832, it had married with Dreux Louise Desmousseaux de Givré, girl of Antoine Desmousseaux de Givré, prefect of the Empire and deputy in 1815.

With the Palate of Luxembourg, Villemain was pointed out by the relative independence of its character. It fought laws of September (1835) and hesitated not to defend theory according to which it there has not offenses of opinion, from where it concluded that the press was to be subjected to the common right, even if he did not go until submitting it to the jury.

At the time of the coalition against the ministry Mole, he refused to join it, offered his contest to the ministry, and was named Minister for the State education the May 12th 1839 in the second ministry Soult. He gave a new impulse to the publication of the new Documents on the French history and prepared a reorganization of the libraries. He remained in functions until March 1st 1840, when the House of Commons pushed back suddenly and without debate the project of equipment of the duke of Nemours: “We are strangled by dumb men, it are as with Constantinople”, exclaimed Villemain, attracting each other this counterpart of a deputy of left: “It is sometimes the fate of the eunuques ones! ”

Villemain returned to the businesses the October 29th 1840 in the third ministry Soult and remained in station until the December 30th 1844. “The University, wrote Alfred Mézières, had seldom at its head such a worthy minister to represent it by the authority of the word and the glare of the talent. One cannot say however that its ministry left in teaching a deep trace. Villemain was not these bold innovators who touch at the institutions devoted by the experiment and which flatter themselves to renew the field where they reign. Careful by character, it tried to improve what existed, slowly, little by little, without jolts and without Peut-être upheavals it in Villemain missed, to leave the reputation of a minister of first order, the firmness and the decision of the character. It arrived to him what often arrives at the spirits fine and accustomed to the critical analysis: he saw at the same time the aspects most different from the things, he saissait with a marvellous sagacity the most delicate nuances of the questions, and, solicited in various directions by reasons plausible, but contradictory, he hesitated to conclude. ”

The bill which it prepared on the freedom of teaching, corrected, altered, withdrawn, reported in front of the Rooms, ends up being adopted, but did not satisfy anybody: the University complained to be sacrificed, the clergy not to have obtained what he asked, not to be consulted left. Villemain, whose health had deteriorated, and with which cruel domestic concern removed a share of its independence of mind, was during some time plunged in a despair close to the madness; this agitation was calmed but it remained to him since then in the spirit a bottom of a morose sadness. Resigner, for these reasons, in 1844, it noblement refused a pension of 15.000 francs which the government proposed with the Rooms to decree to him and, when its health was restored, took again its place with the Room of the pars where it intervened with some recoveries, on the question of the political refugees and the teaching of medicine.

During all the Monarchie of July it was one of principal among those which one sought literary patronage in France, but in its last years its reputation dropped.

After 1848

The Révolution of 1848 returned it to its favorite studies. It did not take again its pulpit in Sorbonne, dislocated of its title of professor in 1852, and was devoted exclusively to the publication of some new books and the republication of its old works and speech. In 1860, it made appear France, the Empire and the Papacy , delivers in which it defended the temporal power of the pope and who made some noise. Its History of Gregoire VII , one of its best works, was published in 1873 after its death in 1870.

Works

The masterpiece of Villemain is its Cours of French literature (1828 - 1829, 5 vol.; nlle. ED. 1864, 6 vol. in-8), including/understanding the Table of the literature to the Middle Ages in France, in Italy, in Spain and England (1846, 2 vol.) and the Table of the literature at the 18th century (1864, 4 vol.). Among his other works one can quote particularly: contemporary Memories (1856, 2 vol.) and History of Gregoire VII (1873, 2 vol.).

Carmen. Teenagers discipuli queruntur suum has barbatis discipulis invadi Parnassum , Parisiis, typis Fain, sd (v. 1806 - 1810), in-8
Discours made in front of L. The emperor of Russia and the king of Prussia , slnd (April 21st 1814)
the king, the charter and monarchy , Paris, Impr. of F. Didot, sd, in-8
History of Cromwell, according to the memories of time and the parliamentary collections , Paris, 1819, 2 vol. in-8
Lascaris or Greeks of XVe century , Paris, 1825, in-8
Test on the state of the Greeks since the Moslem conquest , Paris, 1825
Considerations on the French language , being used as foreword with the 6th edition of the Dictionary of the French Academy, SSL, Impr. of Firmon-Didot brothers, sd (1835), in-8
Note on Pascal, considered as writer and moralist , in Thought of Blaise Pascal , Paris, A. Ledoux, 1836, in-8
Test on the funeral oration , in “Funeral orations of Bossuet, Arrow-maker and other speakers , Paris, 1837, in-8

Rapport on the “History of the found children” makes with the French Academy, in the meeting of August 9th, 1838 , in Nouvelles considerations on the children found by J. - F. Term and J. - B. Monfalcon , Lyon, Impr. J. - M. Bajat, 1838, in-8

biographical and literary Test on Shakespeare , in Masterpieces of William Shakespeare , Paris, 1839, in-8

Table of the actual position of the primary education in France: report/ratio presented to the King by Mr. Villemain, to Minister for the State education, on November 1st, 1841 , Paris, J. Renouard, 1841, in-18

Fénelon, considered as writer , in selected Pieces of Fénelon , Paris, L. Hatchet, 1842, in-18

Note and judgment on Plutarque , in Life of Thémistocle , Paris, 1847, in-12

Table of the Christian eloquence in IVe century , Paris, Didier, 1849, in-12

Of Mr. de Féletz and of some living rooms of its time , Paris, With the offices, 1842, in-8

the Patriarch of Alexandria, rented by the archbishop of Constantinople, year of our era 326-379, historical fragment , Paris, At the offices of the contemporary Re-examined , 1852, in-8

Holy Ambroise , Paris, impr. of Firmin-Didot brothers, 1852 (extracted the New universal biography )

Memories of the Sorbonne in 1825. Démosthène and the general Foy , Paris, Impr. J. Claye, 1853, in-8 (extracted the Re-examined from the Two Worlds , text included in the contemporary Memories of history and literature )

contemporary Memories of history and literature , Paris, Didier, 1854, in-8

the modern Platform. First part. Mr. de Châteaubriand, his life, its writings, its literary and political influence over its time , Paris, Mr. Levy brothers, 1858, in-8

Tests on the genius of Pindare and on lyric poetry in its relationship with the moral and religious rise in the people , Paris, Firmin-Didot brothers, wire and Co, 1859, in-8

France, Empire and Papacy: point of public law , Paris, C. Douniol, 1860

Note about L. Annaeus Florus , in Velleius Paterculus. Florus , Paris, Garnier Brothers, 1864, in-16

History of Gregoire VII, preceded by a Speech on the history of papacy until IXe century , Paris, 1873, 2 vol. in-8

It gave many articles in the Revue of the Two Worlds , the Journal of the Scientists , the contemporary Revue , etc

Works of Villemain were joined together under the literary title Discours and mixtures (Paris, Didier, 1846, in-8, 399 pp.), Études of modern history (Paris, Didier, 1846, in-8, 349 pp.), Études of old and foreign literature (Paris, Didier, 1846, in-8, 391 pp.).

Decorations

1820 : Knight of the Legion of honor
October 20th 1843: Large-officer of the Legion of honor

Judgments

“Villemain is thirty-four time more intelligent than Eugene Sue and Frederic Soulié. ” (Lautréamont, Poetries I )

References

External bonds

biographical Card on the site of the French Academy
biographical Card on the site of the National research institute teaching

Sources

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