Pierre-Joseph Bernard

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Pierre-Joseph Bernard (born August 26, 1708 (or 1710 ) in Grenoble , † November 1, 1775 in Choisy-le-Roi , Département Val-de-Marne ), also Gentil-Bernard , was a French poet , playwright and librettist .

Life

Bernard was the son of a sculptor . He studied at a Jesuit college in Lyon and then worked for a public prosecutor in Paris for two years . He then joined the army and took part in the campaigns of the Duc de Coigny in the War of the Polish Succession in 1733/34 . Here he did particularly well in the battles of Parma and Guastalla . In free moments he occupied himself with poetry, which the marshal noticed and employed him as secretary, but without showing him great benevolence - he refused to allow him to sit at the table - on the condition that Bernard give up poetry.

Nevertheless, Bernard entered around 1736 with a few short poems that appeared in the Almanach des Muses (Eng. Musen-Almanach ), u. a. Épître à Claudine , hymn à la Rose . 1737 he wrote Castor et Pollux on the Dioskuren -Stoff after the tragédie lyrique by Philippe Quinault , whose opera soundtrack by Jean-Philippe Rameau was a great success. Madame de Pompadour , the mistress of Louis XV. and dedicatee of the work, thereupon appointed him court librarian to the king at Choisy Castle , which secured him an annual salary of 30,000 livres without fulfilling any official duties . Shortly before his death, the marshal gave him to the service of his son, the Duc de Coigny , who appointed him general secretary of the Dragoons in 1740 , which brought Bernard a further salary of 20,000 livres. On May 27th of that year Voltaire congratulated him as secrétaire de l'amour ; Bernard already wrote to L'art d'aimer (Eng. The Art of Love ).

As a very rich man, he now gave himself up to the pleasurable life. He was a member of the second Société du Caveau and found a patron in Voltaire who gave him his nickname Gentil-Bernard . Bernard was celebrated in the highest social circles, enjoyed the dissolute life with its table pleasures, which however harmed his health. In 1771 he probably suffered a stroke , after which he vegetated for the last five years of his life. His friend Bernard-Joseph Saurin (1706–1781) described him as

"(...) Ne fut plus qu'un fantôme errant / Qu'une ombre vaine qui respire"

"He was nothing more than a fleeting ghost than a vain shadow that still breathes."

Work and effect

Pierre-Joseph Bernard, Phrosine et Mélidore , illustrated by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon

Bernard's work includes epistles , odes and chansons that are counted as poésie fugitive , and finally L'art d'aimer , a revealing poem on which he worked for 30 years. It appeared shortly before his death and had a great public impact even before it was published, although Bernard had only read passages from it in the salons .

The literary critic Jean-François de La Harpe rated the work as "fairly mediocre" and saw it

"Many inventive verses, but nothing in which one finds the poet's drive or the sensitivity of the person."

After Voltaire read the manuscript, he wrote in a letter dated September 1, 1773 to Jean-François de Saint-Lambert :

“Poor Bernard was wise not to publish his poem. It's a pile of sand and straw with a few well-cut diamonds in it. ”In a letter to Madame du Deffand he said:“ I recently read Bernard's L'Art d'aimer . It's one of the most boring poems ever written. However, there are probably thirty verses in this long work, admirable and worthy of eternity, as will be the subject of this poem. "

In the meantime, Bernard was still valued personally by Voltaire. Voltaire wrote an empathic short poem about Bernard: Les trois Bernards . “Dans ce pays trois Bernards sont connus; l'un est ce Saint, ambitieux Reclus. Precheur adroit, fabricateur d'oracles. L'autre Bernard est l'enfant de Plutus, bien plus grand Saint, faisant plus grands miracles; et le troisiéme est l'enfant de Phébus; Gentil Bernard, dont la Muse second doit faire encore le délices du monde, quand des premiers on ne parlera plus. «Voltaire.

According to Prince de Ligne , the “dear” Gentil-Bernard, as he was nicknamed, was by no means decent, “neither his face, his manners nor his mind”, but “a tall, very stout, good-looking, brown [skinned] man, amiable, easy-going, accommodating good company, who was popular with everyone, gave neither ingenuity nor compliments, was an eater and read wonderfully from his art d'aimer . "

Works

The complete works of Bernard were published in one volume in 1776 and appeared in an expanded two-volume new edition in 1803.

  • Castor et Pollux , Tragédie lyrique with music by Jean-Philippe Rameau (first performance on October 24, 1737)
  • Madrigal aux muses ( set to music by Albert Roussel in 1923 )
  • Les surprises de l'amour , divertissement in two acts with music by Jean-Philippe Rameau (first performance on May 31, 1757)
  • Callirhoé , together with André Destouches , Jean-Philippe Rameau and Antoine Houdar de la Motte
  • Phrosine et Mélidore , Poem in four songs (1772)
  • Les heureux malheurs, ou Adélaïde de Wolver (1773)
  • L'Art d'aimer , Poem in three songs (1775)

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