Etienne Canaye

See also: Canaye

Etienne Canaye , born the September 7th 1694 with Paris where he died the March 12th 1782, is a writer French.

Same family as Jean Canaye, the Jesuit who appears in famous the Conversation of the marshal of Hocquincourt , allotted to Saint-Évremond, Canaye being intended at the ecclesiastical state, after having studied among Jesuits, had gone to make her theology with the seminar of Saint-Magloire, directed by the Oratoriens. As his/her father wanted to buy to him a load of adviser-clerk at the Parliament, it did not agree and, to cross short to the authorities of its family, entered to it, in 1716, with the Oratory, where it hoped to carry out a studious and quiet life, and whose father of the Tower, his relative, was then general. there accepted the priesthood and remained twelve years there, delivering itself with heat to the study of the letters and antiquity. It was even charged to teach the Philosophie with the college of Juilly and discharged, of 1717 with 1722, of this function with the greatest distinction. Yielding to the pressing requests of its family, it left the Oratory and returned, in 1728, in the world, but refused to follow the career of the magistrature for which his/her parents intended.

Received to the Academy of the inscriptions the same year, it bound friendship with Foncemagne, Fontenelle and of of Alembert which often reproached him for not writing more, what Canaye answered that “In literature as the theater, the pleasure is seldom for the authors”.

The Canaye abbot left only three Mémoires on Thalès, Anaximandre and the Aréopage published in the collection of the Academy of the humanities. The two last treat mainly birth and progress of old philosophy. He is necessary to join to it some Dissertations on several old books.

Source

Ferdinand Hoefer, New general Biography , T. 8, Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1855, p. 443-4

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