Jean-Charles Laveaux

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jean-Charles Laveaux (born November 17, 1749 in Troyes , † March 15, 1827 in Paris ) was a French author , journalist , politician , lexicographer , grammarian , translator and historian who worked in France, Germany and Switzerland.

life and work

Jean-Charles Laveaux (also: Jean-Charles Thibault de Laveaux , or Thiébaud de La Veaux ) studied in Troyes and Paris and went to Haute-Marche (today: Département Creuse ) as a theology professor . For private reasons he had to flee to Switzerland, where, after great difficulties in Basel, he was given a professorship for French literature at the university. Here he also worked for the art dealer Christian von Mechel . He took a large stake in various important art books published by Mechel, translated Wieland and Miller, and tried to publish his own educational books. However, he had to leave the city in 1780 and, advised by Basel friends (Bernoulli, Merian), he went to Berlin where he tried to found a school.

Berlin

His situation in Berlin was not good at first: the school went under very quickly, and out of anger at this bad start he made many enemies in Berlin, especially among the pastors of the Huguenot colony , whom he considered unable to properly write or to write French teaching. The pamphlets he wrote were praised by the king, as were the works he successfully published, his Tableaux philosophiques (1782) and Les nuits champêtres (1783). These works were also very well received in Germany and Austria. Convinced of his abilities, Frederick II commissioned him with a mission: to improve the French language of the colonists. In order to support his company, the king gave him the title of "Royal Professor". With irony and method he then tried to act in the interests of the king. His Leçons de langue française données à quelques Académiciens , his Cours Théorique et pratique and his German-French dictionary were recognized all over Germany. He translated a lot and wrote essays and critical novels in the style of Voltaire.

He was aware of his role as a mediator: although he was convinced of the superiority of the French language, he believed (like Friedrich) that the German language is on the right track and that German literature has already produced great works. He took a considerable part in the dispute over the Discours sur l'universalité de la langue française (Speech on the universality of the French language) by Antoine de Rivarol and The causes of the generality of the French language and the likely duration of its rule by Johann Christoph Schwab (1784 ). He thinks that a language must also be required, that it represents the genius of a people, but not just the instrument of a class. and the grammarian as well as the lexicographer should seek a kind of juste milieu between what well-known writers like Racine have made of it and the necessary reforms that "modernize" the language without distorting it.

Stuttgart and Strasbourg

Shortly before his protector, Friedrich II., Died, he left Berlin for Stuttgart, where he was appointed professor at the Carolinum by the Duke of Württemberg. There he made a name for himself as a historian, grammarian and educator, but his penchant for irony, his difficult dealings with colleagues and fellow human beings, the lack of professional prospects in Württemberg, the opportunity for the revolution, made him go to Strasbourg at the end of 1791, where he editor of the important Courrier de Strasbourg. Journal politique & littéraire uniquement consacré aux nouvelles des frontières & des pays étrangers, & particulièrement à celles des deux rives du Rhin . However, his stay in Alsace turned out to be difficult: he quickly understood that the revolution was far from over and that the city's intelligentsia would not give him a real chance as a newcomer. Because of his speeches, his newspaper, his campaign against the mayor Dietrich, he became the most important man of the Jacobins. As such, however, he made many enemies, and he realized that his future was not in Alsace.

Paris

In 1793 he finally moved to Paris, where he edited the Mountain Party's newspaper , the Journal de la Montagne , until 1794 . During the turmoil of that time, he survived several stays in prison, became a publisher and continued to write (translations, dictionaries, history). Under Napoleon he was a high official of the prefecture, then prison and hospital inspector of the Seine department . In 1815 he had to vacate this position and devoted himself entirely to his successful lexicographical work.

Laveaux was the grandfather of Charles Marty-Laveaux . He must not be confused with Dieudonné Thiébault , who was in Berlin at the same time as Thibault de Laveaux, nor with Pierre-François Lavau, "professeur de l'École centrale de Seine-et-Oise", nor with J.-A. Lavau, "président de la seconde section du Tribunal établi par la loi du 17 août", who had Cazotte convicted.

Works

Fiction

  • Vituline ou la courtisanne insolente . German translation: August Friedrich Cranz : Apologie de la Dame Vituline that is interpreted the justified Vituline as a second supplement to the Ackten of the Bockiade. Berlin, self-published by the author of the Gallery of Devils , 1782
  • Les nuits champêtres , Lausanne 1784, Berlin 1794 (German: Rural nights , translated by Wilhelm Christhelf Sigmund Mylius , Berlin 1784; Polish, Warsaw 1788; it is about reflections on God and the world)
  • Eusèbe, ou les Beaux profits de la vertu dans le siècle où nous vivons , Amsterdam 1785 (philosophical story)

Translations (selection)

Dictionaries

  • Dictionnaire français-allemand et allemand-français , à l'usage des deux nations, rédigé par une société de gens de lettres. 2e édition, revue par M. de Laveaux, 3 vols., Berlin 1784–1785 (published by Arnold Wever; the first edition was by Heinrich Friedrich Roux ; eight editions until 1807, from 1797 in 4 vols., Most recently Strasbourg 1810–1812 )
  • (Editor) Dictionnaire de l'Académie française. Nouvelle édition, augmentée de plus de vingt mille articles , 2 vol., Paris 1802 (in collaboration with the publisher Nicolas Moutardier; the 5th edition from 1798 was edited)
  • Dictionnaire raisonné des difficultés grammaticales et littéraires de la langue française , Paris 1818 (810 pages), 6th edition 1910, 1972
  • Nouveau dictionnaire de la langue française , 2 vols., Paris 1820 (1093 + 1063 pages), 1828, 1973
  • Nouveau dictionnaire portatif de la langue française , Paris 1825 (559 pages)
  • Dictionnaire synonymique de la langue française , Paris 1826 (306 pages, this is the type of dictionary that distinguishes synonyms, e.g. what distinguishes abattre and demolir  ?)

More Romance studies

  • (anonymous) Le maître de langue ou Remarques instructives sur quelques ouvrages français écrits en Allemagne , Berlin 1783
  • Cours théorique et pratique de langue et de littérature française , 2 vols., Berlin 1784–1785
    • Critique de quelques auteurs françois qui écrivent en Allemagne. Ouvrage extrait du cours théorique et pratique de langue et de littérature françoise , Berlin 1787
  • (anonymous) Les vrais principes de la langue française or New French grammar for the Germans by a society of scholars of both nations , Berlin 1785
  • Methodical instruction in the French language , 4 vols., Berlin 1790

Contemporary history and more

  • Vie de Frédéric II roi de Prusse , 7 vols., Strasbourg 1787–1789
  • (Ed.) Oeuvres posthumes de Frédéric II, roi de Prusse , 15 vols., Berlin 1788
  • Frédéric II, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques, d'Alembert, et l'Académie de Berlin vengés du secrétaire perpétuel de cette académie, ou M. Formey peint par lui-même, avec plusieurs lettres curieuses de Voltaire , Paris 1789
  • Journal d'instruction civique et politique dédié aux citoyens de bonne foi , Strasbourg 1793
  • Histoire de Pierre III, empereur de Russie, suivie de l'Histoire secrète des amours et des principaux amans de Catherine II, par l'auteur de la Vie de Frédéric II , 3 vols., Paris 1798
  • Histoire des premiers peuples libres qui ont habité la France , 3 vols., Paris 1798

literature

  • Joseph Marie Quérard , La France littéraire ou Dictionnaire bibliographique des savants, historiens et gens de lettres de la France . Vol. 4, Paris 1830, pp. 636-637
  • Franz Josef Hausmann , Les dictionnaires bilingues (et multilingues) en Europe au XVIIIe siècle. Acquis et suggestions de recherche, in: Travaux de linguistique et de philologie 26, 1988, pp. 11–32 (here: 26)
  • Jürgen Storost , Laveaux and his Eusèbe. A history of censorship from Frederician Prussia, in: Wolfenbütteler Notizen zur Buchgeschichte 27, 2002, pp. 105–122.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Laveaux, Jean-Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Laveaux, Jean-Charles Thibault de; La Veaux, Jean-Charles Thiébaud de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author, journalist, politician, lexicographer, grammarian, translator and historian who worked in Germany and France
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1749
PLACE OF BIRTH Troyes
DATE OF DEATH March 15, 1827
Place of death Paris