Paul-Louis Courier

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Paul-Louis Courier (born January 4, 1772 in Paris , † April 10, 1825 near Véretz , Département Indre-et-Loire ), with full name Paul-Louis Courier de Méré , was a French author of works on antiquity and texts on political issues. He was considered a bitter opponent of the monarchy under Louis XVIII. and wrote writings and letters in which from 1814 he sharply attacked the situation after the restoration of the Bourbon rule in France . The circumstances of his death - he was found shot dead near his home - could never be fully clarified.

Life

Youth and Army Careers

Paul-Louis Courier; Adèle Ethiou after an etching by Ary Scheffer ; published 1834

Paul-Louis Courier was born in Paris in 1772 and grew up on his parents' estate in Luynes in the Touraine province . Despite his own aristocratic origins, he developed an aversion to the nobility that grew stronger over time . At the age of 15, his parents sent him to Paris to continue his education. Since he had already been instructed in Greek literature by his father, he subsequently deepened his interests in classical studies . He then began military training at the Artillery School in Châlons-en-Champagne and, after being appointed sub-lieutenant in 1792, joined the French Army on the Rhine .

During the French Revolution and the years after, he took part in various campaigns in Italy , especially in the battles around Mainz , where he also received his patent as a capitaine en second . In 1808 he retired from his active army career, but a short time later he joined the corps of an artillery general. Shocked by his experiences during the Battle of Wagram in early July 1809, however, he left the army again and escaped charges of desertion only because his previous renewed engagement had not yet been officially confirmed.

Writing activities

After his final retirement from the army, Paul-Louis Courier went to Florence . Here he discovered in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana a completely preserved manuscript of the work Daphnis and Chloe by the ancient writer Longos of Lesbos , of which he published an edition in 1810. Due to a dispute with the librarian over the staining of the manuscript with ink, the provincial government forced him to leave the Tuscany region . He retired to France in 1812 on a property in Veretz in the Indre-et-Loire department .

From then on he visited Paris regularly and devoted himself to both literary and agricultural activities. After the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy with the return of Louis XVIII. on the French throne in 1814, Paul-Louis Courier devoted himself increasingly to the writing of political writings and in the following years became a bitter opponent of the ruling monarchy. At the beginning of the 1820s he was sentenced to a short prison term and a fine for his work.

Circumstances of death

On April 10, 1825 (according to the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica from 1911 on August 18, 1825) Paul-Louis Courier was found shot in a forest near his property. The exact circumstances of his death have never been fully clarified. Five years after his death there were murder trials of three former servants in his household, but the lack of evidence resulted in an acquittal. Evidence of her guilt that emerged later could not be used in a conviction due to the previous decision. His wife Esther-Etienne-Herminie geb. Clavier, who is rumored to have betrayed him with one or more of these servants and who later initiated the murder, was also acquitted of this charge.

Literary work

Paul-Louis Courier's first publication as an author was a criticism of Johannes Schweighäuser's Athenaios edition published in the magazine Magasin encyclopedique in 1802 . The following year his Eloge d'Helene , a free imitation of Isocrates, appeared . In 1807 he published a Xenophon translation. In 1816 he published the pamphlet Petition aux deux chambres (Petition to both chambers), in which he presented the situation of the rural population after the Restoration and opposed arbitrary arrests.

In the following years he wrote other political writings and letters to various institutions in which he campaigned for a liberal monarchy under Ludwig Philipp . In 1824 he published his pamphlet des pamphlets (pamphlet of pamphlets). A year after his death, a collection of his political writings and letters was published under the title Collection complète des pamphlets politiques et opuscules littéraires de P. L. Courier .

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Date of death April 10, 1825 according to Brockhaus, Cajumi, SAPLC and Mullié, Meyers gives March 10, 1825, Britannica gives August 18, 1825. Year of birth 1772 according to Meyers, Brockhaus, SAPLC and Cajumi, 1773 is named by Britannica and Mullié as the year of birth.
  2. ↑ L.-P. Courier: Pétition aux deux chambres. , December 10, 1816; gallica.bnf.fr (French)
  3. ^ Paul-Louis Courier: Pamphlet des pamphlets , Paris 1824 (online at gallica.bnf.fr and digital-sammlungen.de , Bayerische Staatsbibliothek )
personal data
SURNAME Courier, Paul-Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Courier de Méré, Paul-Louis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author of texts on antiquity and on political issues
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1772
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1825
Place of death near Véretz , Indre-et-Loire department