Jean-François of the Toothing-stone

Biography

The many detractors of the Toothing-stone affirmed that he was a found child who owed his name with the street of Paris where it had been discovered. Itself declared in 1790, in a letter addressed to the Mercure de France , which it resulted from a noble family of the canton of Vaud (Suisse), known since the 14th century. Christopher Todd could establish that his/her father, Jean-François of the Toothing-stone, were well a Swiss officer, former captain of artillery fallen into the destitution and whose death in 1749 plunged to them his in a dreadful misery.

Jean-François of the Toothing-stone was then dealt with by the sisters of the charity of the parish Saint-Andre-of-Arts. A purse enabled him to enter to the Collège of Harcourt. It obtained two consecutive years the price of rhetoric. Worms made up against some of its schoolmasters were worth to him with delayed-action, in 1760, a few weeks of imprisonment. In 1764, it married the girl of a café owner, but this marriage was not happy and the husbands separated soon.

As of 1759, it published Héroïdes whose anticlericalism was noticed by Fréron, which denounced it, but also by Voltaire, which granted its protection to their author that it held in high regard, enabling him even to correct its worms. This one made a stay with Ferney, where it concealed the manuscript of the second song of the War of Geneva which it published in 1767, year to which it was accepted with the Académie of Rouen.

This incident, which made a certain noise, did not stop the rise of the Toothing-stone. In 1771, its Praise of Fénelon , crowned by the French Academy, gave place to the intervention of the archbishop of Paris and the King and with the re-establishment of the visa of the Doctors of Divinity. The Academy felt this episode hard, and the Toothing-stone missed there several times its entry. Voltaire, far from him to hold rigor of its larceny (but perhaps they had scheme the business together) put all its weight to push its candidature, which pushed back the marshal-duke of Richelieu and the prosecuting attorney Séguier, which went until putting their resignation in the balance. But, Malesherbes being ensured that the King would not put his veto at this election, the Toothing-stone ends up being elected the May 13rd 1776, at thirty-seven years, the armchair that the unhappy Colardeau had not had time to occupy.

In 1779, the Toothing-stone gained, under the veil of anonymity, before giving up it the price of eloquence of the Academy for its Éloge of Voltaire . With the Academy, it gave up D' Alembert, which had however battled for its election, and adopted the party of Buffon, voter for Bailly against Condorcet, which was elected. It adopted the party of the piccinists against the gluckists. Teaching the literature with the College, writer with the Mercure de France , the Toothing-stone enjoyed a very enviable situation then. He corresponded regularly with the tsar Paul Ier, who invited it several times at his table when he visited France.

The Toothing-stone embraced passionately the cause of the Révolution when this one burst. It took again in 1793 the drafting of the Mercure which it had given up, dealing with the literary part when Mallet of the Side had in load the political part. In spite of its zeal for the novel ideas, or because of this one, it made a four months stay to the prison of Luxembourg in 1794.

It came out from it converted (it had occupied its detention to translate the psalms) and gained with opinions much more preserving. It started to attend with ostentation the churches and, in its course of the College, did not cease attacking Encyclopédistes violently. These opinions were worth to him to be proscribed after the 18 fructidor (1797). It returned to France after the 18 brumaire, was proscribed again in 1802 because of its relations with the royalist mediums. It remaria, but his wife asked for the divorce at the end of a few weeks. He died on February 11th 1803, victim of the flu epidemic which prevailed then in Paris.

Literary work of the Toothing-stone

The Toothing-stone was an abundant dramatic author (but not with success), composed of the worms, of prose, of compilations (a general Histoire of the voyages in 32 volumes) but remains especially known as literary pedagog and critical.

Dramatic works

The Toothing-stone wrote many parts whose majority fell and who are almost all completion forgotten. Only Warwick and Philoctète , imitated of Sophocle, had a certain success.

It is necessary to mention particular Melanie, or the forced Wishes , that the author made print in 1770 but which was played only on December 7th 1791 with the Th3e4atre Fran1cais. It remains, according to Jacques Truchet, “ most curious about its parts and most representative of the spirit of time ”. The subject - forced wishes - could be appropriate for the anticlericalism which the Toothing-stone posted when it composed this part but much less with the censure of time, which explains why she was played only after the Revolution. Although presented in the shape of a part in three acts and worms, Melanie approaches the drama which will know fortune that one knows at the end of the 18th century.

This bringing together is all the more prickly as the Toothing-stone always professed the greatest contempt of the drama, that it attacks violently in its comedy Molière in the new room , written to defend the Comédie-Française against the competitor theaters.

In addition, its literary Correspondence , addressed to the Large-duke Paul of Russia, is truffée theatrical anecdotes on the actors and the parts of his time.

the Count de Warwick (created with the French Theater on November 7th, 1763)
Timoléon (created with the French Theater on August 1st, 1764)
Pharamond (1765)
Melanie, or Wishes forced (1770)
Olinde and Sophronie (1774)
Menzicoff, or Exiled the (Fontainebleau, November 1775)
the Barmécides (created with the French Theater on July 11th, 1778)
rival Muses, or the Apotheosis of Voltaire (comedy in 1 act and free verse, created with the French Theater on February 1st, 1779)
Jeanne of Naples (created on December 12th, 1781)
Molière in the new room, or the Audiences of Thalie (created on April 12th, 1782), comedy in an act and worms
Philoctète (created on June 16th, 1783)
Coriolan (created on March 2nd, 1784)
Virginia (created on July 11th, 1786)

Critical works

The principal work of the Toothing-stone is its Lycée or Course of literature (appeared in 1799), which gathers in 18 volumes the lessons that it had given during twelve years to the college. It is a monument of literary criticism. Even if certain parts is weak - that on the ancient philosophers in particular - all that is known as on the dramatic art, of Crow with Voltaire, admirably is thought and reasoned, even if it is the thought and the reasoning of an often fastidious purist. The passages concerning the contemporary authors, in which the Toothing-stone tackles with strength the philosophical party, are often of a great drolery.

Comment on Root (1795-1796, published in 1807)
Of the War declared by our new tyrants with the reason, morals, the letters and arts (1796)
Refutation of the book of the Spirit of Helvétius (1797)
Of Fanaticism in the revolutionary language, or of the Persecution caused by the barbarians of against the Christian religion and its ministers (1797)
the College, or course of literature , 18 vol. (1798-1804)

Various works

Alétophile or the friend of the Truth (1758)
Héroïdes news, preceded by a test on the héroïde in general (1759)
the Philosopher of the Alps, Glory (1762): odes
the Delivery of Salerno and the foundation of the kingdom of Deux-Siciles (1765): poem
philosophical literary Mixtures or epistles (1765)
Poëte (epistle, price of the French Academy in 1766)
Praise of Charles V (price of the French Academy in 1767)
Of Misfortunes of the war and the advantages of peace (speech, price of the French Academy in 1767)
navigation (1768): ode
Praise of Henri IV (1769)
Praise of Fénelon (price of the French Academy in 1771)
Praise of Root (1772)
Praise of the Fountain (1774)
Praise of Catinat (1775)
the Councils with a young poet (1775)
Of Fanaticism in the revolutionary language, or Of the persecution caused by the barbarians of the 18th Century against the Christian Religion and its ministers (1797)
Praise of Voltaire (1780)
Tangu and Filine, erotic poem (1780)
Shortened general history of the voyages , 32 vol. (1780)
French Pseautier, new translation, with notes… preceded by a speech on the spirit by the holy Books and the style of the prophets (1797)
literary Correspondence addressed to the large-duke of Russia , 4 vol. (1801 - 1807)
Camaldule (1802)
Answer of a recluse of the Trap door with the letter of the abbot of Rancid (1802)
Triumph of the religion, or the King martyr (1814): heroic poem
Comment on the theater of Voltaire (published in 1814)
Prediction of Cazotte, made in 1788 (1817)

References

Emile Faguet, History of French poetry , volume IX , Paris, 1935
Gabriel Peignot, Historical research, bibliographical and literary on the Toothing-stone , 1820
Christopher Todd, Voltaire' S disciple: Jean-François of the Toothing-stone , London, 1972
Jacques Truchet, Theater of the , Paris, Gallimard, bibl. of the Pleiad, 1974, vol. II , p. 1488-1492

External bonds

Its plays and their representations on site CÉSAR
prophecy of Cazotte (1817)
Portrait of Jean François of the Toothing-stone, miniature allotted to Hall.

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