Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues

Luc de Clapiers, marquis of Vauvenargues , (August 6th 1715 - May 28th 1747) is a French writer, Moraliste and Essayiste.

Life

He was born with Aix-en-Provence, of a noble family to the modest incomes. During its studies with the college of Aix he studied neither the Latin nor the Greek , but became a large admiror of Plutarque which he had read in translation.

He engaged in the army and was used for it during ten years, fascinating share with the war of succession of Poland, the countryside of Italy of the Maréchal Villars in 1733, and with disastrous forwarding in Bohemia to support the ambitions of Frederic II of Prussia on the Silesia, in which French was forsaken by their allies. Vauvenargues took share with the retirement of the Maréchal of Beautiful-Isle of Prague. There was the frozen leg, and in spite of a long stay at the hospital of Nancy, of never given completely. It was with the Bataille of Dettingen, and of return in France, was in garrison with Arras. End of its military career.

His/her friend the marquis de Mirabeau, author of the Friend of the Men and father of the politician, pushed it to turn to the literature, but it was too poor to go up to Paris. He in vain sought to enter the diplomatic service. An attack of Variole put besides fine at this possibility of career.

Vauvenargues settled in Paris in 1745 and carried out to it a withdrawn life, attending only some friends of which Jean-François Marmontel and Voltaire. It had among its correspondents the archeologist Fauris de Saint-Vincens. On the councils of Voltaire and the exhortations of Mirabeau, it ignored the objections of his father and launched out in the writing. It took again the observations and notes of any kind thrown at one time on paper and published in 1746, under the veil of anonymity, a Introduction to the knowledge of the human spirit , followed some Réflexions and Maximes . The book did not pass completely unperceived, but the reception was not very cordial. Voltaire who had never doubted his talent, incited Vauvenargues to take again his work for to make the book excellent of an end to the other for one second edition. It took the advice of Voltaire, improved the style in many places and removed more than two hundred thoughts. This edition, published in 1747, after the death of Vauvenargues by the abbots Trublet and Séguy, is most faithful to the ideas of the moralist.

Vauvenargues had perhaps complete sound Introduction to the knowledge of the human spirit , if death had suddenly broken it.

He died in Paris on May 28th, 1747. He was only thirty-two years old. Through various portraits, one discovers a heart pure and proud, generous and tender, éprise of ideal. A man with the firm, lucid and balanced judgment, not stripped of smoothness .

Critical of its work

It left few writings but their interest is considerable. In the Introduction , the Reflections and other fragments minor, it puts forward fragmentary thoughts on questions of moral philosophy and Critique arts person - but these last considerations do not have anything original.

It is better as a writer, though its style is not always correct from a strictly academic point of view, and that its rare incursions into the Rhétorique have the defects of artificiality and assignment of its century.

It shines especially as a Moraliste. Its vocabulary is popular and slackens, and its ideas would be organized badly in system. Its true force is to express in a language rather epigrammatic the results of its attentive observation of the behaviors and motivations of the men, an observation to which it had any leisure to be devoted during its campaigns.

The principal difference between Vauvenargues and its famous predecessor Rochefoucauld is that Vauvenargues has a noble idea of the Man, and that it is as more inclined with the Stoïcisme as with the theories épicuriennes. It was qualified the stoical modern one.

Works of Vauvenargues

Introduction to the knowledge of the human spirit.

Reflections on various subjects; fragments in the second edition.

the Council with an young man. (addressed to Hippolyte de Seytres).

Speech on glory.

Treated free will.

Imitation of Pascal; Meditation on the Faith.

critical Reflections on some poets.

Fragments.

on some characters.

Reflections and maxims .
Correspondence with Voltaire (established in 2006)

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