Nicolas Chamfort

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort, image of the adult

Nicolas Chamfort , born as Sébastien-Roch Nicolas (born April 6, 1741 in Clermont , Auvergne , † April 13, 1794 in Paris ) was a French writer during the Enlightenment and the French Revolution .

Live and act

Chamfort came from the relationship between a noblewoman and the local cathedral priest. Immediately after his birth, his mother left him to the grocer François Nicolas and his wife, whose own child had recently died.

Nicolas Chamfort

As a young man he went to the capital for training. He left the Collège des Grassins , which his biological mother had made it possible for him to attend, with the title of Abbé , but did not want to make the clergy his profession. Instead he worked as a private tutor, first in Cologne in 1761, later in Paris.

Already at the age of 24 Chamfort had success on the Parisian stages in 1764 with his comedy La jeune Indienne (The young Indian woman), which was based on the popular theme of the contrast between the natural and the cultural state. After winning academic award speeches such as the Éloge de Molière (1769), Éloge de Lafontaine (1774) and several other awards, he received the Queen's favor with his greatest poetic achievement, the tragedy Mustapha et Zéaugir ( 1778 ) Marie Antoinette and at the same time the applause of the court. This piece is about brotherly love that ends tragically.

Chamfort subsequently received an annual pension of 1,200 francs , became secretary to the Prince of Condé and in 1781 a member of the Académie française .

During the revolution , Chamfort tried to follow the different currents, coined slogans and wrote speeches. Among other things, the title for Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès ' famous pamphlet on the Third Estate is said to go back to him. For Mirabeau he formulated the also famous “speech against the academies”. Chamfort is also attributed the saying guerre aux chateaux, paix aux chaumières (war to the palaces, peace to the huts), which he imposed on the revolutionary army as a motto. It was only later, in 1834, that Georg Büchner made famous in his political pamphlet Der Hessische Landbote in Germany.

Under the rule of the Girondins , he became head of the national library. During the months of the reign of terror under Maximilien de Robespierre , a denunciation brought him to prison. Only after he had denied his friends, the Girondists, was he released again. When he was threatened with arrest again, he tried to commit suicide, which resulted in death on April 13, 1794.

Works

  • Produits de la Civilization perfectionnèe. Maximes et pensées, caractères et anecdotes. In: Œuvres complètes, published by Ginguené, Paris 1795
  • Mustapha et Zéangir , tragedy, 1776
  • Éloge de La Fontaine , 1774
  • Le marchand de Smyrne , comedy, 1770
  • Éloge de Molière , 1769
  • La jeune Indienne , comedy, 1764

literature

  • Renato Fondi : Chamfort , Florence 1916
  • Renate List-Marzolff: Sebastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort. A moralist in the 18th century , Munich 1966
  • Claude Arnaud: Chamfort. Women, the nobility and the revolution [with an appendix of seventy previously unpublished or never reprinted maxims, anecdotes, sayings and dialogues], Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-88221-875-6
  • Hans Peter Balmer : Condicio humana or What human being means. Moralistic Perspectives on Practical Philosophy . readbox unipress, Münster 2018, pp. 179–194, ISBN 978-3-95925-067-2 . (Open Access: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:19-epub-41154-9 )
  • Volker Harry Altwasser: Happy Dying - Volker Harry Altwasser's novel about Bruno Frank's report, in which Chamfort tells his death , Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-88221-197-9

Web links

Commons : Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Nicolas-Sébastien de Chamfort  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Claude Arnaud: Chamfort - The women, the nobility and the revolution. Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2007
  2. ^ Hasselbach, Karlheinz: Georg Büchner. Literary knowledge for school and university. Reclam, Stuttgart 1997. p. 27.
personal data
SURNAME Chamfort, Nicolas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nicolas, Sébastien Roch
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author
DATE OF BIRTH April 6, 1741
PLACE OF BIRTH Clermont-Ferrand
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 1794
Place of death Paris