Jacques-André Naigeon was a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 artist, atheist philosopher, editor and man of letters best known for his contributions to the Encyclopédie

Encyclopédie

Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It was edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert...

and for reworking Baron d'Holbach

Baron d'Holbach

Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach was a French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist and a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, but lived and worked mainly in Paris, where he kept a salon...

's and Diderot's manuscripts.

Life and works

After trying his hand at painting and sculpture, Naigeon became a friend and associate of Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie....

, whom he helped to work on the Encyclopédie. He soon became involved with the Coterie Holbachique, a group of radical French Enlightenment thinkers centered around the Paris salon

Salon (gathering)

A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...

 of Baron d'Holbach

Baron d'Holbach

Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach was a French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist and a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, but lived and worked mainly in Paris, where he kept a salon...

. Naigeon quickly adopted the Baron's atheist principles and collaborated with him on his works, overseeing their clandestine printing in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 and editing d'Holbach's Morale Universelle and his Essai sur les préjugés. Priding himself on a through knowledge of the classics, Naigeon would also edit a French translation of the works of Seneca

Seneca the Younger

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...

 begun by Nicolas La Grange

Nicolas La Grange

Nicolas La Grange was a French playwright and translator, notable for his 1768 translation of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and for several plays....

, publishing it along with Diderot's Essai sur les régnes de Claude et de Néron (Paris, 1778). Other editorial work included the Essays of Montaigne, and a translation of Toland

John Toland

John Toland was a rationalist philosopher and freethinker, and occasional satirist, who wrote numerous books and pamphlets on political philosophy and philosophy of religion, which are early expressions of the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment...

’s philosophical letters

Naigeon became the editor, compiler, and commentator of Diderot's works after the latter made him his literary executor. He published an incomplete edition of Diderot's works in 1798 after writing Mémoires historiques et philosophiques sur la vie et les ouvrages de Diderot, an unfinished commentary on his life and works.

Naigeon's only original stand-alone work was Le militaire philosophe, ou Difficultés sur la religion, proposées au Pére Malebranche (London and Amsterdam, 1768) which was based on an earlier anonymous manuscript, and whose final chapter was written by d'Holbach. This work mostly repeated the atheist, anti-Christian, determinist materialist arguments found in the radical literature of the second half of the 18th century.

Naigeon continued his attacks on religion in his Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Philosophy in the Encyclopédie méthodique

Encyclopédie Méthodique

The Encyclopédie méthodique par ordre des matières is a roughly 210 to 216 volumes encyclopedia that was published between 1782 and 1832 by the French publisher Charles Joseph Panckoucke, his son-in-law Henri Agasse, and the latter´s wife, Thérèse-Charlotte Agasse...

(1791–1794). In his address to the National Assembly

National Assembly (French Revolution)

During the French Revolution, the National Assembly , which existed from June 17 to July 9, 1789, was a transitional body between the Estates-General and the National Constituent Assembly.-Background:...

 in 1790 () he called for absolute freedom of the press, asking the Assembly to withhold the name of God and religion from their declaration of the rights of man.

Naigeon's works

• Les Chinois, a comedy written with Charles Simon Favart
  Charles Simon Favart
  Charles Simon Favart was a French dramatist.Born in Paris, the son of a pastry-cook, he was educated at the college of Louis-le-Grand, and after his father's death he carried on the business for a time...
  
   (1756)
• Le Militaire philosophe ou, Difficultés sur la religion proposées au R.P. Malebranche (London and Amsterdam, 1768) ;
• Éloge de La Fontaine (1775)
• (1790)
• Dictionnaire de philosophie ancienne et moderne 3 vol. (1791-1794)
• Mémoire sur la vie et les œuvres de Diderot (1821)

Secondary literature

• Alan Charles Kors, "The Atheism of D'Holbach and Naigeon," Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992)

External links

• Le militaire philosophe - online text in French