Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens

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Marquis d'Argens

Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens (June 24, 1704 - January 11, 1771) was a French philosopher and writer who made a substantial contribution to the Enlightenment.

D'Argens' writings are extremely wide-ranging and include works on philosophy, such as La Philosophie du Bon-Sens, along with French literature and drama, aesthetics, psychology and art criticism. He was an enthusiast of music, theater, opera and painting.

Although he is widely regarded as the author of the novel Thérèse Philosophe (1748) this is a spurious attribution that has been rejected in the most authoritative modern study of d'Argens. [1] [2]

Early Life

D'Argens was born in Aix-en-Provence, the eldest son of a magistrate who was made a marquis in 1720. He was given an intensive Catholic and classical education at the hands of the Jesuits, but became a skeptic and eventually a Deist. An arch-opponent of the Catholic Church, intolerance and religious oppression, his books were frequently denounced by the Inquisition. In 1724 he accompanied the French ambassador on a journey to Constantinople, where he lived for a year. After an adventurous youth, he was disinherited by his father.

Literary Works

In 1734 d'Argens moved to the Netherlands, where he wrote his Memoirs and the celebrated Lettres juives (The Hague, 6 vols, 1738-1742). It was followed by Lettres chinoises (The Hague, 6 vols, 1739-1742), and Lettres cabalistiques (2nd ed., 7 vols, 1769). Next came the Mémoires Secrets de la République des Lettres(7 vols, 1743-1478), afterwards revised and augmented as Histoire de l'esprit humain (Berlin, 14 vols, 1765-1768). He also wrote six novels, which are unjustly neglected.

Career at Prussian Court

After the success of Lettres Juives made him famous, d'Argens was invited by Frederick the Great of Prussia to his court where he spent the greater part of his career. He was appointed a Royal Chamberlain and Director of the Belles-Lettres section of the Academy. He married a Berlin actress, Barbe Cochois and had one daughter. D'Argens returned to France in 1769, and died near Toulon on the 11th of January 1771, aged 66.[3]

His epitaph was written by Voltaire: Erroris Inimicvs, Veritatis Amator (The enemy of error, the lover of truth)

He was a friend of Voltaire, Algarotti, Pierre-Louis de Maupertuis, Leonhard Euler, Samuel Formey, Andreas Sigismund Marggraf, Charles-Louis de Beausobre, the Abbé de Prades, C.P.E.Bach Friedrich Nicolai and Moses Mendelssohn.

References

  1. Julia Gasper, The Marquis d’Argens: A Philosophical Life, Lexington Books, Lanham USA, 2013
  2. Julia Gasper, "The Marquis d'Argens and the Authorship of Therese Philosophe" https://www.academia.edu/5337042/The_Marquis_d_Argens_and_the_Authorship_of_Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Philosophe
  3. Chisholm 1911.
Attribution
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External links

References

Attribution
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainLua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links