César-Pierre Richelet

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César-Pierre Richelet (born November 1626 in Cheminon , Département Marne , † November 23, 1698 in Paris ) was a French Romance philologist , translator and lexicographer.

life and work

Richelet in the province

Richelet, who lost his mother at the age of 6, went to school in Vitry-le-François and from 1641 lived in the household of the translator Nicolas Perrot d'Ablancourt (1606–1664, member of the Académie française since 1637 ). He became a soldier and was tutor in Dijon before 1654 . There he associated with the scholars Jean-Baptiste Lantin (1620–1695) and Claude Nicaise (1623–1701). From 1654 he taught at the high school in Vitry-le-François.

Richelet in Paris

In 1661 Richelet went to Paris, where he was sponsored by Perrot d'Ablancourt and Olivier Patru and was in contact with Jean Chapelain . He studied law for three years and was then allowed to call himself a lawyer ("avocat"), but does not seem to have practiced the profession, but rather lived as a writer and French teacher for rich foreigners.

After Perrot d'Ablancourt's death, he published his translation of Luis del Mármol Carvajal's book on Africa at the request of the deceased. He contributed to the rhyming dictionary of Jean Jacobé Frémont d'Ablancourt (1621–1696, nephew of Perrot d'Ablancourt) with a verse apprenticeship and, via the (unrealized) idea of ​​adding definitions to the words in the rhyming dictionary, came up with the project of a monolingual dictionary of the French, which was missing in France because the Académie française had had a dictionary monopoly since 1635, but had a long time coming for its dictionary (and was not due to appear until 1694).

Richelets Dictionary

In the academy, Patru belonged to the minority who would have preferred quotations for the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (based on the original plan by Jean Chapelain). Therefore, from 1677 onwards, he encouraged his acquaintances to collect quotations, with which Richelet then created the Dictionnaire françois contenant les mots et les choses , the first dictionary of French definitions, in an astonishingly short time . The dictionary, financed by Ferdinand von Fürstenberg , to whom it is dedicated, had to be printed by Jean Baptiste Fatio (1625–1708, father of the mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier ) in 1680 without privilege from the Franconian Johann Hermann Widerhold (1635–1683) in Geneva appear and are illegally brought to Paris for sale, which is why numerous copies were confiscated and pulped. The success was nevertheless great, but with little financial gain for the author.

Richelet's dictionary as a source

Philibert-Joseph Le Roux may have used a manuscript by Richelet for his dictionary Dictionaire comique, satyrique, critique, burlesque, libre et proverbial from 1718. François Cassandre († 1695), Patru's secretary, wrote out Richelet's dictionary extensively in his dictionary Dictionnaire des mots obscurs (in: La porte des sciences , Paris 1682).

Honors

A bust of Richelet stands in front of the town hall of Cheminon, Département Marne . A street there also bears his name.

Works

Dictionaries

  • Dictionnaire françois, contenant les mots et les choses , 2 vols., Geneva 1680 (numerous editions up to 1769; Hildesheim / New York 1973)
    • Dictionnaire portatif de la langue françoise , Lyon 1756 (numerous editions up to 1811)
  • Dictionnaire de rimes dans un nouvel ordre , Paris 1692 (numerous editions until 1817, originally anonymous, Nouveau dictionnaire de rimes , Paris 1667)

Other works

  • (Ed.) L'Afrique de Mármol , Paris 1667
  • (Translator) Inca Garcilaso de la Vega , Histoire de la Floride , 2 vols., Paris 1670 (translated from Spanish)
  • La versification françoise , Paris 1671, 1672, 1677
  • (Translator with Augustin Lubin, 1624–1695) Johannes Scheffer , Histoire de la Laponie , Paris 1678 (translated from Latin, Richelet took over chapters 1–5)
  • (Ed.) Les plus belles lettres des meilleurs auteurs françois , Paris 1689 (numerous editions up to 1761)
  • La connoissance des genres françois , Paris 1695

literature

  • Laurent Bray, César-Pierre Richelet (1626–1698) , Tübingen 1986 (bio-bibliographical basic)
  • Gilles Petrequin, Le Dictionnaire françois de P. Richelet (Genève 1679/1680). Etude de métalexicographie historique , Leuven / Paris 2009 (metalexicographically fundamental)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Richelet, César-Pierre
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Richelet, Pierre; PRA (Pierre Richelet Avocat)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Romance philologist, translator and lexicographer
DATE OF BIRTH November 1626
PLACE OF BIRTH Cheminon , Marne department
DATE OF DEATH November 23, 1698
Place of death Paris