Nicolas-Charles-Joseph Trublet

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Nicolas-Charles-Joseph Trublet (also: Abbé Trublet ; * December 4, 1697 in Saint-Malo ; † March 14, 1770 ibid) was a French Roman Catholic clergyman, man of letters and member of the Académie française .

life and work

Life

Trublet attended the Jesuit college in Rennes and was ordained a priest in 1723. He went to Paris, where he was first tutor, from 1736 royal censor for fiction and from 1739 to 1748 secretary to Cardinal Pierre Guérin de Tencin , whom he accompanied to Rome from 1740 to 1742. Then he lived at the court of Versailles . In 1841 he was appointed treasurer of the church of Nantes , and in 1842 that of archdeacon of Dinan in the cathedral chapter of Saint-Malo. From 1750 to 1753 he lived in Saint-Malo, then he took over the censor's office in Versailles again until 1760. In 1767 he returned to Saint-Malo and died there in 1770 at the age of 72. Streets are named after him in Rennes and Saint-Malo.

The man of letters

Trublet worked at the Mercure de France from 1717 . He frequented the salons of Madame Lambert and Madame de Tencin , the cardinal's sister, and from 1735 published essays on literature and morality, which were translated into German and English and which earned him a place in the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1749 . He ran for the Académie française from 1736 and was elected in 1761 (with a majority of one vote) (seat no. 10). Trublet was a friend and admirer of Antoine Houdar de la Motte and Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle , to whom he dedicated writings.

The polemic with Voltaire

1760 criticized Trublet in the fourth volume of his essays the Henriade from Voltaire to have written the work in verse rather than prose, whom he accused. Voltaire retaliated by disqualifying Trublet as a pure compiler. He was able to do that all the more easily because at this point in time, as Alain Niderst shows, Trublet was no longer in tune with the zeitgeist.

Works (selection)

  • Eloge historique de Monsieur de La Motte . 1732. [1]
  • Essais on diverse subjects of literature and morale . Paris 1735, 1737, 1741, 1749 (2 vols.) 1754-1760 (4 vols.), 1762, 1768. Geneva 1968.
    • (German) Des Abbot Trublet's thoughts on various things that belong to erudition and ethics . Translated from the French by Christiana Mariana von Ziegler . Weitbrecht, Greifswald and Leipzig 1744. [2]
    • (German) experiments on various subjects of ethics and erudition . Berlin 1765.
    • (English) Essays upon several subjects of literature and morality . Particularly upon the manner of writing in single thoughts. Of conversation. Of the different talents of writing and speaking. Of the qualities necessary for society. Of Criticism upon works of wit. Of the effects of habit. Of self-love and of modesty. Of simplicity, and the different kinds of modesty. Of the necessity of following one 's genius. Of prepossession, and its effects. Of good humor. Of judgment and genius. Of happiness. Of reading and memory. Of nobility. The distinction between pride and vanity. Of politeness. Of the natural. Of parts. Of regard to human judgment. Of infidelity. Of riches. With reflections upon taste; and many other curious topicks. London 1746.
    • (English) Essays moral and critical . By M. L'Abbé Trublet, first secretary to his eminence Cardinal Tencin, and treasurer of the cathedral of Nantz. London 1760.
  • Panégyriques des saints , précédés de réflexions sur l'éloquence en général, et sur celle de la chaire en particulier. Paris 1755, 1764.
  • Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de M. de Fontenelle , tirés du "Mercure de France", 1756, 1757 et 1758. Amsterdam 1759, 1761.
  • A journal de la vie littéraire au XVIIIe siècle. La correspondance de l'Abbé Trublet . Edited by Jean Jacquart. Picard, Paris 1926.
  • Correspondance passive de Formey. 1. Lettres adressées à Jean Henri Samuel Formey : 1739–1770. Antoine-Claude Briasson and Nicolas-Charles-Joseph Trublet . Edited by Martin Fontius , Rolf Geissler and Jens Häseler. Champion, Paris 1996.

literature

  • Jean Jacquart: Un témoin de la vie littéraire et mondaine au XVIIIe siècle. L'Abbé Trublet, critique et moraliste, (1697–1770), d'après des documents inédits . Paris, Picard, Paris 1926.
  • Alain Niderst: "Modernism et catholicisme de l'abbé Trublet". In: Dix-huitième siècle 34, 2002, pp. 303-313. [3]

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Trublet, Nicolas-Charles-Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Trublet, Nicolas; Trublet, Abbé
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French clergyman, man of letters and member of the Académie française
DATE OF BIRTH 4th December 1697
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint Malo
DATE OF DEATH March 14, 1770
Place of death Saint Malo