Jean Baptist Antoine Suard

Jean-Baptist-Antoine Suard , born with Besancon the January 16th 1733 and died in Paris the July 20th 1817, is a man of letters French.

Biography

Wire of the secretary of the university of Besancon, Suard came to Paris towards the age twenty years and was allowed in the company of Mrs Geoffrin.

In 1754, it started to publish in collaboration with the abbot Arnaud, the Abbé Prévost and the lawyer Pierre-Jean-Baptist Gerbier, the foreign Journal , collection containing of the extracts and criticisms of works. It continued it with the Arnaud abbot under the same title until in 1764, then two years still under that of literary Gazette of Europe . From 1762, it wrote the Gazette of France , whose duke of Choiseul had entrusted the drafting to the Arnaud abbot. This one having lost its privilege in 1771, Suard obtained a pension of 2.500 books thanks to the credit of D' Alembert.

Elected official member of the French Academy in 1772 with the armchair of Charles Pinot Duclos, Suard saw his election cancelled under the pretext which he was collaborator of the Encyclopédie , in which he had not actually written anything, but actually because he owed his election with the party of Alembert, against which the academic coterie of Richelieu had near Louis XV the support of Madam of Barry. He was elected again in 1774 and, this time, Louis XV not only ratified his election but named it critic plays, function which he occupied until in 1790. For this reason, it had to come to a conclusion about the Marriage of Barber of Beaumarchais, whose audacity frightened it but which ends up being represented.

When the French revolution burst, Suard did not tackle the novel ideas frontally but wrote in the monarchical newspaper of the Indépendants . During Terror, it was withdrawn around Paris. It is at his place that Condorcet, which had gone there to seek asylum, was stopped after having found closed the door giving on the countryside that one had however promised to him to leave open, circumstance which was variously interpreted.

Under the Directory, Suard wrote in the Nouvelles policies , a royalist sheet. Outlaw the 18 fructidor, it took refuge with Coppet then with Anspach. He returned to France after the 18 brumaire and became writer of the Publiciste , which appeared until in 1810. February 20th 1803, it was named perpetual secretary of the French Academy. He requested Restauration to find his post of critic of the theaters but only managed to be made appoint honorary critic. One allotted to him an active share in the purification which undergoes then the Institut of France.

He had married Amélie Panckoucke, sister of the editor Charles-Joseph Panckoucke.

Works

The fame of Suard rested at the same time on its talent of conversation and its articles of literary criticism, not deprived of irony and smoothness, but which preserved only one reputation rather unfavorable and are hardly any more read today. He collaborated in the periodic collections quoted above like with the literary Archives of Europe and with the Journal of Paris.

Written letter of the other world, by a.D.F. (Abbé Desfontaines) with F. (Fréron) , 1754
critical Lettres , 1758 against the Mémoires of Trévoux and the Journal of the scientists
literary Variétés or collections of parts, as well original as translated , with the abbot Arnaud, 1768 - 1769, 4 vol.
impartial Speech on the current businesses of the bookstore , 1777
Letters of the anonymity of Vaugirard on Gluck and Piccinni, in favor of this last
Mixtures of literature , 1803 - 1805, 5 vol.
Of freedom of the press , 1814

Suard also carried out several translations of English. It published a Choix of old Mercury (1757 - 1764, 108 vol.) and the third part of the Correspondance of Grimm (1813, 5 vol.).

External bond

biographical Card of the French Academy

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