Louis-Édme Billardon de Sauvigny

Louis-Édme Billardon de Sauvigny (* (baptized) March 15, 1738 (1736?) Near La Rochelle , † April 19 (August?) 1812 in Paris ) was a French playwright , writer and journalist .

Life and work

There are various reports about his life, only the year of his death, 1812, seems certain. Billardon de Sauvigny studied in Paris. At some point he could have completed training as a polygraph (typesetter in the publishing industry, among others), because the French national library also shows this job title. At least Billardon de Sauvigny's publications can be found in various contacts to publishers in different places and countries. His first literary work appeared in Berlin in 1756. In 1759 he published a polemic against a poem by Voltaire, La Religion naturelle, under the pseudonym S ******* . He went to the military, where he became an officer and earned the royal order of Croix de l'ordre de Saint-Louis . Among other things, he served in the Garde du corps of King Stanislaus I Leszczyński of Poland, the Duke of Lorraine . In 1762 he returned to Paris, worked various times as a journalist, for example in the editorial office of the Journal des Dames and was the personal poet of the Comtesse du Barry .

As has been testified, the work of women was of particular concern to him. He also worked as a librettist with the composers Nicolas Dalayrac , Philidor the Younger and Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny and was friends with the poets Crébillon the Younger (1707–1777) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). He was at war with Voltaire.

Throughout his life he served in the military, as he could not make a living from his literary work, and yet he left behind a versatile literary work, including as editor and author the ten-volume poets - anthology "all times and peoples" (his name) Parnasse des Dames , which he provided with literary-historical comments. The first volume, which deals with the poets of ancient Greece and Rome, arouses particular interest because of the eighteen odes of the Sappho , alongside works of other genres. In 1806 he published in Paris, apparently the last work, a three-volume Encyclopédie des dames .

Selected Works

See also French National Library

• La Religion révélée, poëme en réponse à celui de la Religion naturelle, avec un poëme sur la cabale anti-anciclopédique, au sujet du dessein qu'ont eu les Encyclopédistes de discontinuer leurs travaux, par M. de S ****** * , Genève, 1758. (Answer to Voltaire's La Religion naturelle )
• Le masque enchanté , play Lyon 1759, 1 act
• La Mort de Socrate , tragedy in 3 acts, May 1763, Paris, Théâtre Francois
• Apologues orientans , dedicated to Monseigneur le dauphin 1764
• Parnasse des Dames , anthology of poets, 10 volumes, Paris 1773
• Le Petit Souper ou L'Abbé qui veut parvenir , opéra comique ( libretto ), 1 act, Paris ~ 1781. Composer Nicolas Dalayrac
• Washington, ou la Liberté du nouveau monde , tragedy in four acts Théâtre de la Nation , July 13, 1791. Paris, Maillard d'Orivelle, 1791.
• Encyclopédie des dames, ouvrage destiné à l'instruction du beau sexe , Paris, 1806, 3 volumes

Biographical literature

• Article by Michel Gilot in: Dictionnaire des journalistes 1600–1789. Voltaire Foundation, Oxford University, J. Sgard 1976
• Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne , Vol. 17-18, Bruxelles, H. Ode, 1847, p. 360 u. 303

Web links

• Works in the French National Library
• Dictionnaires des journalistes , article by Michel Gilot
• Parnasse des Dames Paris 1773, present in the Duchess Anna Amalia Library Weimar
• First volume by Parnasse des Dames on google books
• La Mort de Socrate , tragedy in 3 acts

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Information here: Polygraf [1] .
2. ↑ See œuvres in the article Louis-Édme Billardon de Sauvigny of the French Wikipedia.
3. ↑ La Religion révélée, poëme en réponse à celui de la Religion naturelle, avec un poëme sur la cabale anti-anciclopédique, au sujet du dessein qu'ont eu les Encyclopédistes de discontinuer leurs travaux, par M. de S ***** ** , Genève, 1758. (Answer to Voltaire's La Religion naturelle with a poem about the anti-encyclopaedic intrigues which one has on the subject to interrupt their work ???)
4. ↑ This information only in the French Wikipedia.
5. ↑ See article by Michel Gilot in Dictionnaire des journalistes .
6. ↑ See web links: first volume Parnasse des Dames , via google books.