Mathieu-François Pidansat de Mairobert

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Carmontelle : Pidansat de Mairobert

Mathieu-François Pidansat de Mairobert (born February 27, 1727 in Chaource , † March 3, 1779 in Paris ) was a French journalist and pamphleteer of the Enlightenment . In his time he was considered a polygraph who wrote books and articles for newspapers and magazines on a wide variety of topics.

Life

Pidansat's parents are unknown. Like his brother, he had a law degree but never worked as a lawyer. At a young age he appeared in the household of the Salonnière Marie Anne Doublet , who patronized him and as whose son he occasionally pretended to be, even if she was 49 years old at the time of his birth. From a young age he was familiar with the atmosphere of the Paris salons and the issues that were discussed there.

Pidansat de Mairobert was for a time royal censor and carried the honorary title of Sécretaire du roi . He was Sécretaire des Duc de Chartres , father of Philippe Égalité .

Guests in Café Procope, 1743

In Paris he was a regular at Café Procope , where the city's intellectuals and chess players met.

On July 2, 1749, at the height of the persecution of the Jansenists by the state, he was arrested for a ridiculous poem and sent to the Bastille , where he spent a year. During the Seven Years' War he was employed in the Navy Department as a naval clerk. The results of his work were only published as a manuscript in 1775 under the title "Principes sur la Marine, tirés des dépêches & ordres du Roi ...".

He was involved with polemics in the Querelles des bouffons and took against Grimm and the encyclopedists with his pamphlet "Les Prophéties du grand prophète Monet" for Lully and the Italian opera.

Pidansat de Mairobert corresponded with the French Chancellor René Nicolas de Maupeou . He was friends with the writer Restif de La Bretonne , the lawyer and writer Moufle d'Angerville (1728–1795), with the Duke of Caumont , politician and co-founder of the Académie française , and probably with the poet Baculard d'Arnaud .

Together with Mouffle d'Angerville and other authors, he continued the Mémoires secrets pour servir à l'histoire de la République des Lettres begun by Louis Petit de Bachaumont , which appeared in 36 volumes between 1774 and 1779.

On March 3, 1779, he was to be arrested in the course of a legal dispute with the eccentric Marquis de Brunoy . On the same day he cut his wrists in a public bath and then shot himself with a pistol. By order of the king, he was buried in the cemetery of St. Eustache , after the clergy in charge initially refused to undertake the burial. Pidansat de Mairobert was not married.

Fonts (selection)

Pidansat de Mairobert was an extremely prolific writer who commented on a wide variety of topics, in a variety of media, anonymously or under his own name.

  • Principes sur la marine, tirés des dépêches et des ordres du roi données sous les ministères de MM Colbert, de Seignelay, de Pontchartrain père et fils, du Conseil de la Marine depuis 1715 jusqu'à 1723 et de M de Morville par MF Pidansat de Mairobert, SAS Monseigneur le duc de Chartres [Paris] 1775.
A memorandum that only exists in handwritten versions, which are often lavishly bound in leather and embossed with gold. Files and memoranda from 1715 to 1723 by Jean-Baptiste Colbert , the Marquis de Seignelac , the Naval Minister Pontchartrain and the Naval State Secretary Charles-Jean-Baptiste Fleuriau de Morville have been evaluated . The appendix contains descriptions of the state of the navy in France, Great Britain, Spain and Portugal as well as notes on the armament of the navy, trade and the colonies as well as the current war trade.
  • L'Espion anglois, ou correspondance secrete entre Milord All'Eye et Milord All'Ear . 2nd ed. 10 vols. London: John Adamson, 1779–85.
The book contains the bogus correspondence between an alleged English spy at the French court and two addressees in England. It is a kind of chronicle of the events in Paris between 1774 and 1778. It is full of gossip and anecdotes about the actors at court, about M me DuBarry , Beaumarchais , Voltaire or the Chevalier d'Éon , a transvestite whose biological gender only began with his Death was determined.
The book is a source not only for the French history of the time, but also for American history in relation to the Franco-American alliance. It contains e.g. B. a conversation with Benjamin Franklin , reports on Lafayette's departure to America or the departure of the future Admiral d'Estaing to North America.
New edition by Adegi Graphics LLC, New York, 2011. ISBN 0-54387182-7
  • Lettres originales de Madame la Comtesse Du Barry : Avec celles des Princes, Seigneurs, Ministres & autres, qui lui ont écrit, & qu'on a pu recueillir. On ya joint une grande quantité de notes amusantes & instructives, propres a donner les eclaircissemens les plus curieux sur les causes des principaux evenemens de la fin du Regne de Louis XV. London, Berlin Pauli, 1779.
Fake letters from M me DuBarry, first printed in London in 1779, which were reprinted several times and also translated into German.
Original letters from the Countess Du Barry . Edited by René Schickele . Berlin u. Leipzig, Hegner, 1905.
Madam Dubarry's letters . Edited by Viktor von Koczian. Berlin, Rowohlt, 1924.

literature

Web links

Contains an extensive bibliography of his writings.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rolf Reichardt, Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink (Ed.): Handbook of political-social basic concepts in France. 1680-1829 . Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-486-56459-5 , p. 81.
  2. ^ A b Robert Tate: Mathieu Pidensat de Mairobert . In: Jean Sgard (Ed.): Dictionnaire de la presse, Vol. 2: Dictionnaire des journalistes . Édition Universitas, Paris 1999.
  3. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911.
  4. ↑ Full text, French
  5. ↑ Les séccretaires d'etat la marine sous l'ancien régime . Retrieved October 11, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Mairobert, Mathieu-François Pidansat de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French journalist and pamphleteer
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1727
PLACE OF BIRTH Chaource
DATE OF DEATH March 3, 1779
Place of death Paris