François-Timoléon de Choisy

François-Timoléon de Choisy , born with Paris the August 16th 1644 and died in Paris the October 2nd 1724, was a Abbé and literary man French.

Biography

Grandson of a general receiver of finances of Caen originating in Balleroy in Normandy, wire of an adviser of State, intendant of the Languedoc, chancellor of Gaston of Orleans and a close friend of Marie de Gonzague, queen of Poland which equips it as a girl until the eighteen years age to satisfy the whims of Mister, brother of Louis XIV. His/her mother said to him: Listen, my son; do not be glorious, and think that you are only one middle-class man. I know well that your fathers, that your grandfathers were Masters of the requests, advisers of State; but learn from me that in France one recognizes of nobility only that of sword. The nation, very warlike, put glory in the weapons: however, my son, not to be not glorious, never see but people of quality. Thus it is pushed, very young person, at the same time to be diverted military life and to make its court with the cardinal future of Bubble, its contemporary, of which there will remain the friend.

After being appeared, during one short period, equipped as a man, it takes again the female costume and resides, with the encouragements of its priest and the approval of his bishop, in a residence of the district Saint M3edard's Day, under the name of “Mrs. de Sancy” until the duke of Montausier publicly does to him the reproach with the Opera. It is withdrawn then in province with Bourges where it is made pass for a widowed rich person under the name of “countess of the Bars” and allured under this costume girls of good family and actresses - including the actresses Montfleury and Mondory - from of which one which it makes fall pregnant before marrying it with the actor of Rosan, all adventures which it reported in his Mémoires of the abbot of Choisy equipped as a woman .

At twenty-three years, its family having persuaded it to give up disguising itself, it goes to Venice where, giving up itself with its other passion, ruins itself with the play. Impecunious income in France, relative poverty obliges it to live of its ecclesiastical benefit with the Saint-Seine in Burgundy. In 1676, it visits Rome in the continuation of the cardinal of Bubble and, a little later a serious disease causes a sudden and surface conversion. It is about at the time of this voyage that it binds with Daniel de Cosnac, bishop of Valence.

During its youth, its two passions, the dressing-up and the play cost him, one, the episcopate; the other was worth food to him all its life of expédients.

In 1685, it accompanies, like " coadjuteur" , the knight of Chaumont in a mission with the Siam. It is ordered there priest. He tells his tour in a very alive Journal of voyage to Siam . He receives, with his return in France, the benefit of the priory of Saint-Benoit-of-Sault the in 1689 and of the Doyenne pear of the cathedral of Bayeux in 1697. Received in the French Academy in 1687, it collaborates with Charles Perrault in the drafting of the Opuscules on the French language . He writes a short biography of his relationship, edifying Mrs. de Miramion. The facetious abbot draws a little with the line, but awakes when he tells the rocambolesque attempt at removal of the aforesaid the lady by Bussy-Rabutin.

Its work, perhaps most outstanding is the newspaper of a witness of a few outstanding moments of the reign of Louis XIV: Memories to be used the history as Louis XIV . He writes, always equipped as a woman until age the eighty years, a certain number of historical and religious work including one bulky Histoire of the Church in 11 volumes about which he declared not without humor: “ I completed, thanks to God, the history of the Church; I, at present, will start to study it. ” It wrote it appears he on the council of Bossuet.

Its two Memories, that on Louis XIV and that on his dressing-up, are written with grace, alacrity, humor and a direction penetrating of the restitution of the gestures, the attitudes, the intonations… One finds sometimes at Choisy, though with less intensity, the direction of the portrait, animation of Saint-Simon (one thinks for example of the portrait by Saint-Simon of Mrs. de Castries, this paradigm of the Mortemart spirit).

Works

Memories of the abbot of Choisy equipped as a woman
History with the marchioness-marquis de Banneville , 1695
Newspaper of the voyage from Siam made in 1685 and 1686 (ED. critical by Dirk Van der Cruysse, 1995)
Memories of the abbot of Choisy
Memories to be used for the history of Louis XIV
History of the countess of Madam Bars the marchioness of Lambert
life of Saint Louis , 1690
French history under the reigns of Saint Louis… of Charles V and Charles VI , 1688-1695
Life of Mrs. de Miramion , 1716
History of the Church , 1703-1723
Four dialogs on the immortality of the heart , 1684
Translation of the Imitation of Jesus-Christ , 1692

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