Valentine Conrart , born with Paris in 1603 where he died the September 23rd 1675, is a man of letters French. Initiator of the project of the French Academy, it is elected by it perpetual secretary in 1635.

Biography

Of a family calvinist, Valentine Conrart having received an education to enter the trade, began too late his studies to learn the old languages and applied to Italian, Spanish and the thorough knowledge of the French language. In 1627, it acquires a load of adviser-secretary of the King and his finances, and starts to invite at his place men of letters.

Friend of Jean Chapelain and Guez de Balzac, it is at his place that the men of letters meet which will form the core of the future French Academy: Antoine Godeau, Jean Ogier de Gombauld, Philippe Habert, Claude Malleville, François Métel de Boisrobert, Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, Nicolas Faret, Paul Pellisson. These literary meetings inspire with Richelieu, of which the ideas take a character of size, the project to create the French Academy. Conrart draws up the letters patent of them and the payments in of them 1635 writes. He is the first secretary and, in spite of its attachment inébranlable in the Protestant religion, Richelieu maintains it in this function until its death.

It has a paramount influence on the first wave of the great French translations, carried out by Giry, of Ablancourt, Patru and that one appellere later “beautiful infidels”. He collaborates with Vaugelas in the final text of the translation of Fifth-Curce. With Chaplain, he plays a big role in the debates of the Academy on Cid ( Sentiments of the Academy on Cid ).

He did not publish of sound living any notable writing; what made write with Nicolas Boileau: I imitate of Conrart careful silence (Epistle first).

Publications

• Letters familieres of Mr. Conrard, has Mr. Félibien (1681)
• the Psalms of David put in François worms and re-examined by order of the Walloon Synod of the United Provinces (1730)
• Mémoires on the history of its time (1825). Extracts published according to the manuscripts of the Library of the Arsenal by Louis Jean Nicolas Monmerqué.
• Memories of Valentine Conrart, first perpetual secretary of the French Academy, (1652-1661) (1854). Extracts published according to the manuscripts of the library of the Arsenal by Louis Jean Nicolas Monmerqué.
• the Day of the madrigaux , followed the Gazette of Tightening (with the Chart of Tightening) and of the Carnival of prétieuses the (1856)
• Letters in Lorenzo Magalotti , Saint-Etienne, University of Saint-Etienne, 1981.

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