Jean-François Marmontel

Jean-François Marmontel is a Encyclopédiste (left literature) French, Historien, storyteller, Romancier, Dramaturge, Philosophe, near to Voltaire and enemy of Rousseau, grammairien and Poète which knew a great notoriety at the court of France and in all the Europe, born with Bort-the-Organ (Corrèze) the July 11th 1723 and deceased the December 31st 1799.

Biography

Resulting from a poor family, Marmontel however makes its studies at the Jésuites of Mauriac. Once completed its rhetoric, one wants to place it in a merchant of Clermont-Ferrand, but he refuses and manages to survive and make his philosophy while being used as repeater with young pupils. He loses his father then, and this event reduces its family to despair and misery, as he tells it in his Mémoires . He promises from of to draw it, and settles with Toulouse, where he is during more than sixteen years professor of philosophy of the seminar of Bernardins, sending to his part of his wages.

He presents to the contest Académie floral Plays an ode on the Invention of the gunpowder , which is not distinguished. “ I was outraged , writes it, and in my indignation I wrote with Voltaire and shouted revenge to him by sending my work to him It did one of these answers to me that it turned with such an amount of grace and of which it was so liberal. What flattered me much more still than its letter, it was the sending of a specimen of its works corrected with its hand, of which it made me present. ” This exchange marks the beginning, between the two men of a friendship which lasts thirty-five years, without the least cloud.

Marmontel perseveres near the floral Plays, and ends up gaining the three prices in 1745. It plans to be registered with the faculty of theology, but Voltaire advises to him to come rather to Paris. The sale of a money quadrant, which decreed to him the Académie of Montauban, makes it possible to provide for the expenses of the voyage.

In Paris, he knows initially an extremely difficult material situation. He tests, but without success, of launching a newspaper of literature entitled the Observateur arts person . He is saved by the French Academy which decrees to him in 1746 its price of poetry on the following subject: “the Glory of Louis XIV perpetuated in the King his successor”. Voltaire leaves to the fronts the Court to Fontainebleau with a few dozen specimens the poem Marmontel. “ On its return, tells Marmontel, it fills me my hat of ecus, by saying to me that it was the product of the sale of my poem. ”

From now on drawn from businesses, Marmontel testifies to its recognition to his/her friend while writing, always in 1746, an eulogistic foreword for an edition of Henriade , foreword often taken again at the head later editions of this poem. The following year, it again gains the price of poetry of the Academy over the subject: “the Clemence of Louis XIV is one of the virtues of her majestic successor”.

February 5th 1748, it gives its first tragedy, Denys the tyrant , part authentically original and which gains a great success: she has movement, action, and the painting of tyranny and its punishment, well in the spirit of time, interested the public. Its following part, Aristomène (1749), also has success thanks to the talent of M {{lle}} Clairon.

On the other hand, Cléopâtre (1750) falls, and is the occasion of a word remained famous: to the last act, a mechanical aspic, manufactured by Vaucanson, leaves a basket to go to bite the center of the queen of Egypt; a spectator exclaims “ I am of the opinion of the aspic ”, starting general hilarity. The following part, Héraclides (1752), also falls because, according to the friends of Marmontel, from the state of intoxication of Miss Dumesnil, into the role of Déjanire. As for Égyptus (1753), it has only one representation. After this new failure, Marmontel gives up the tragedy.

Thanks to the protection of M {{me}} of Pompadour, it obtains in 1753 a place of secretary of the Bâtiments of the King. He has to advise the King for the distribution of the pensions granted on the Mercure de France and makes allot the privilege of this periodical to Louis de Boissy, which he succeeds in 1758. It is in the Mercure that it publishes its moral Contes , which meets an immense success.

At M {{me}} Geoffrin, it recites a satire against the Duc of Aumont whose it refuses to denounce the author, which is worth to him to be imprisoned eleven days with the Bastille and makes him lose the privilege of the Mercure .

In 1760, the French Academy distinguishes its Épître with the poets on the charms from the study and, in 1763, it elects it with the number of its members.

In 1767, it publishes its novel Bélisaire , which is censured by the Sorbonne because of the chapter XV, which praises the religious tolerance. The archbishop of Paris, Mgr Christophe de Beaumont, condemns the work in mandement which it makes read with preaches of all the churches of the diocese. This censure and these judgments do nothing but contribute to the success of the work, which the Philosophers defend.

Marmontel is named historiographer of France in 1771. It takes the party of Niccolò Vito Piccinni in the quarrel which opposes it to Christoph Willibald Gluck, and composes against its adversaries a satire in eleven songs entitled Polymnie . It publishes Incas (1778), novel which stigmatizes slavery and also gains a sharp success. With died of of Alembert in 1783, he becomes perpetual Secrétaire of the French Academy. During the creation of the College in 1786, it receives the pulpit of history. In 1787, it gathers a volume, under the title of Éléments of literature , the articles which it published in the Encyclopédie , by extending them and by improving them.

Under the Revolution, after the removal of the academies, it is withdrawn close to Évreux. Under the Directory, it is named with the Conseil of Old the by the voters of the the Eure. Lining up among the moderate ones, it is proscribed with the 18 fructidor, but it is not off-set and returns in its retirement to Habloville (hamlet of Saint-Aubin). It is not long in dying, in 1799.

Works

Dramatic works

Marmontel published many booklets of operas and especially of light operas, kind in which he excelled without however being able to compete with Charles-Simon Favart.

Denys the tyrant , tragedy, February 5th 1748
Aristomène , tragedy, April 30th 1749
Cléopâtre , tragedy, May 20th 1750
the Garland , Act of ballet, 1751, music of Jean-Philippe Branch
Acanthus and Céphise , pastoral heroic in three acts, 1751, music of Jean-Philippe Branch
Héraclides , tragedy, May 24th 1752
Égyptus , tragedy, 1753
Lysis and Délie , pastoral heroic in an act, 1753, music of Jean-Philippe Branch
the Sybarites , act of ballet, 1753, music of Jean-Philippe Branch
dying Hercules , opera, 1761
Year and Lubin (1762)
the Shepherdess of the Alps (1766)
Huron the , Op3era Comique, 1768, music of Andre Grétry
Lucile , Op3era Comique, 1769, music of Andre Grétry
Sylvain , Op3era Comique, 1770, music of Andre Grétry
ItFriend of the house , Op3era Comique, 1771, music of Andre Grétry
Zémire and Azor , Op3era Comique, 1771, music of Andre Grétry
Céphale and Procris , 1773
the False magic , Op3era Comique, 1775, music of Andre Grétry
Didon , opera, 1783, music of Niccolò Vito Piccinni
False Pénélope , Op3era Comique, 1785, music of Niccolò Vito Piccinni
Démophon , 1788

Poetic works

Polymnie , satire in 11 songs
establishment of the Military academy , 1751
Towards on the convalescence of the Dolphin , 1752
birth of the duke of Aquitaine , 1753
Epistle with the poets , 1760
Neuvaine of Cythère , 1820 (licencieux poem)

Novels

moral Tales , 1755 - 1759
Bélisaire , 1767
Incas , 1778
New moral tales , 1792

Tests

Poetic Frenchwoman , 1763, 3 parts: work in which Racine and Boileau is highly attacked
Essai on the revolutions of the music in France , 1777
Of the Authority of the use on the language , 1785
Éléments of literature , 1787. Edition modern at Desjonquères, presented, established and annotated by Sophie Ménahèze, 2005.
Memory on the regency of the duke of Orleans , 1788
Apology for the French Academy , 1792

Various works

edition altered of Venceslas of Rotrou, 1759
Pharsale de Lucain , translated into prose, 1766
edition of the dramatic Chiefs of works of Mairet, Ryer and Rotrou , with a Comment , 1775
Memories of a father to be used for the instruction of his/her children , 1800
Lessons of a father to his children on the French language , 1806

See too

Odonyme

Street Marmontel in the 15 {{E}} district of Paris, Holy district Lambert, 170m length, 15m broad. It was called on August 24th 1864 in reference to Jean-François Marmontel.
Street Marmontel and Dead end Marmontel with Nantes opposite the maternity of the CHU Hospital.

Encyclopédistes
Grétry
Year and Lubin

External bonds

Site devoted to Marmontel and its work
detailed Biography of Jean-François Marmontel
French Academy: card-index Marmontel
Its works of theater on site CÉSAR

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