Everything about Jean De La Bruy Re totally explained
Jean de La Bruyère (in French) (
August 16 1645 –
May 10,
1696), was a
French essayist and
moralist.
Ancestry
He was born in
Paris, not, as was once thought, at
Dourdan (in today's
Essonne département) in 1645. His family was
middle class, and his reference to a certain
Geoffroy de La Bruyère, a
crusader, is only a satirical illustration of a method of
self-ennoblement common in France as in some other countries. Indeed he himself always signed the name
Delabruyère in one word, as evidence of this. He could trace his family back at least as far as his great-grandfather, who had been a strong
Leaguer. La Bruyère's own father was controller general of finance to the
Hôtel de Ville.
Early life
The son was educated by the
Oratorians and at the
University of Orléans; he was called to the
bar, and in
1673 bought a post in the revenue department at
Caen, which gave him status and an income. His predecessor in the post was a relation of
Jacques Benigne Bossuet, and it's thought that the transaction was the cause of La Bruyère's introduction to the great orator
Bossuet, who from the date of his own
preceptorship of the
Dauphin, was a kind of agent-general for tutorships in the royal family, introduced him in
1684 to the household of the
Henry II, Prince of Condé, to whose grandson
Henry-Julius as well as to that prince's girl-bride
Mlle de Nantes, one of
Louis XIV's natural children, La Bruyère became tutor. The rest of his life was passed in the household of the prince or else at court, and he seems to have profited by the inclination which all the
Condé family had for the society of men of letters.
Very little is known of the events of this part - or, indeed, of any part - of his life. The impression derived from the few notices of him is of a silent, observant, but somewhat awkward man, resembling in manners
Joseph Addison, whose master in literature La Bruyère undoubtedly was. Yet despite the numerous enemies which his book raised up for him, most of these notices are favourable - notably that of
Saint-Simon, an acute judge and one bitterly prejudiced against
roturiers generally. There is, however, a curious passage in a letter from
Boileau to
Racine in which he regrets that "nature hasn't made La Bruyère as agreeable as he'd like to be."
Literary activity
His
Caractères appeared in
1688, and at once, as
Nicolas de Malezieu had predicted, brought him "
bien des lecteurs et bien des ennemis" (many readers and many enemies).
At the head of these were
Thomas Corneille,
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle and
Isaac de Benserade, who were clearly aimed at in the book, as well as innumerable other persons, men and women of letters as well as of society, identifiable by manuscript "keys" compiled by the scribblers of the day. The friendship of Bossuet and protection of the Condés sufficiently defended the author, and he continued to insert fresh
portraits of his contemporaries in each new edition of his book, especially in the 4th (1689). Those, however, whom he'd attacked were powerful in the
French Academy, and numerous defeats awaited La Bruyère before he could make his way into that guarded hold. He was defeated thrice in 1691, and on one memorable occasion he'd but seven votes, five of which were those of Bossuet,
Boileau,
Racine,
Paul Pellisson and
Bussy-Rabutin.
It wasn't till
1693 that he was elected, and even then an epigram, which, considering his admitted insignificance in conversation, wasn't of the worst,
lacesit lateri:
» "Quand La Bruyère se présente
Pourquoi faut il crier haro?
» Pour faire un nombre de quarante
Ne falloit il pas un zéro?"
His unpopularity was, however, chiefly confined to the subjects of his sarcastic portraiture, and to the hack writers of the time, of whom he was wont to speak with a disdain only surpassed by that of
Alexander Pope. His description of the
Mercure galant as "
immédiatement au dessous de rien" (immediately below nothing) is the best-remembered specimen of these unwise attacks; and would of itself account for the enmity of the editors, Fontenelle and the younger Corneille. La Bruyère's discourse of admission at the Academy, one of the best of its kind, was, like his admission itself, severely criticized, especially by the partisans of the "Moderns" in the "
Ancient and Modern" quarrel. With the
Caractères, the translation of
Theophrastus, and a few letters, most of them addressed to the prince de Condé, it completes the list of his literary work, with the exception of a curious and much-disputed posthumous treatise.
La Bruyère died very suddenly, and not long after his admission to the Academy. He is said to have been struck dumb in an assembly of his friends, and, being carried home to the
Hôtel de Condé, to have expired of
apoplexy a day or two afterwards. It isn't surprising that, considering the recent panic about poisoning, the bitter personal enmities which he'd excited and the peculiar circumstances of his death, suspicions of foul play should have been entertained, but there was apparently no foundation for them. Two years after his death appeared certain
Dialogues sur le Quiétisme, alleged to have been found among his papers incomplete, and to have been completed by the editor.
As these dialogues are far inferior in literary merit to La Bruyère's other works, their genuineness has been denied. But the straightforward and circumstantial account of their appearance given by this editor, the
Abbé du Pin, a man of acknowledged probity, the intimacy of La Bruyère with Bossuet, whose views in his contest with
Fénelon these dialogues are designed to further, and the entire absence, at so short a time after the alleged author's death, of the least protest on the part of his friends and representatives, seem to be decisive in their favour.
The Caractères
Although it's permissible to doubt whether the value of the
Caractères hasn't been somewhat exaggerated by traditional French criticism, they deserve beyond all question a high place.
The plan of the book is thoroughly original, if that term may be accorded to a novel and skilful combination of existing elements. The treatise of Theophrastus may have furnished the first idea, but it gave little more. With the ethical generalizations and social Dutch painting of his original La Bruyère combined the peculiarities of the
Montaigne Essais, of the
Pensées and
Maximes of which
Pascal and
La Rochefoucauld are the masters respectively, and lastly of that peculiar
17th century product, the "portrait" or elaborate literary picture of the personal and mental characteristics of an individual. The result was quite unlike anything that had been before seen, and it hasn't been exactly reproduced since, though the essay of Addison and Steele resembles it very closely, especially in the introduction of fancy portraits.
In the titles of his work, and in its extreme desultoriness, La Bruyère reminds the reader of Montaigne, but he aimed too much at sententiousness to attempt even the apparent continuity of the great essayist. The short paragraphs of which his chapters consist are made up of
maxims proper, of criticisms literary and ethical, and above all of the celebrated sketches of individuals baptized with names taken from the plays and romances of the time. These last are the great feature of the work, and that which gave it its immediate if not its enduring popularity. They are wonderfully piquant, extraordinarily life-like in a certain sense, and must have given great pleasure or more frequently exquisite pain to the originals, who were in many cases unmistakable and in most recognizable.
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