Paul Louis Courier
Encyclopedia
Brought up on his father's estate of Méré in Touraine, he conceived a bitter aversion for the nobility, which seemed to strengthen with time. He would never take the name "de Méré", to which he was entitled, lest he should be thought a nobleman. At the age of fifteen he was sent to Paris to complete his education; his father's teaching had already inspired him with a passionate devotion to Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
literature, and although he showed considerable mathematical ability, he continued to devote all his leisure to the classics. He entered the school of artillery at Châlons, however, and immediately on receiving his appointment as sub-lieutenant in September 1793 he joined the army of the Rhine. He served in various campaigns of the Revolutionary wars, especially in those of Italy in 1798-99 and 1806-7, and in the German campaign of 1809. He became chef d'escadron in 1803.
He made his first appearance as an author in 1802, when he contributed to the Magasin encyclopédique a critique on Johann Schweighauser
Johann Schweighäuser
Johann Schweighäuser , was a German classical scholar.-Biography:He was born at Strasbourg. From an early age his favourite subjects were philosophy and Oriental languages; Greek and Latin he took up later, and although he owes his reputation to his...
's edition of Athenaeus
Athenaeus
Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...
. In the following year appeared his Eloge d'Hélène, a free imitation rather than a translation from Isocrates, which he had sketched in 1798. Courier had given up his commission in the autumn of 1808, but the general enthusiasm in Paris over the preparations for the new campaign affected him, and he attached himself to the staff of a general of artillery. But he was horror-struck by the carnage at Wagram
Battle of Wagram
The Battle of Wagram was the decisive military engagement of the War of the Fifth Coalition. It took place on the Marchfeld plain, on the north bank of the Danube. An important site of the battle was the village of Deutsch-Wagram, 10 kilometres northeast of Vienna, which would give its name to the...
(1809), refusing from that time to believe that there was any art in war. This thesis is maintained in his Coversation chez Mme. la comptesse d'Albany; other examples of his deplorable attitude towards military discipline and the Bonaparte
Bonaparte
The House of Bonaparte is an imperial and royal European dynasty founded by Napoleon I of France in 1804, a French military leader who rose to notability out of the French Revolution and transformed the French Republic into the First French Empire within five years of his coup d'état...
himself are in his Advice to a colonel.
He hastily quit Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, escaping the formal charge of desertion
Desertion
In military terminology, desertion is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning...
because his new appointment had not been confirmed. The savage independence of his nature rendered subordination intolerable to him; he had been three times disgraced for absenting himself without leave, and his superiors resented his satirical humour. After leaving the army he went to Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, and was fortunate enough to discover in the Laurentian Library a complete manuscript of Longus
Longus
Longus, sometimes Longos , was the author of an ancient Greek novel or romance, Daphnis and Chloe. Very little is known of his life, and it is assumed that he lived on the isle of Lesbos during the 2nd century AD...
's Daphnis and Chloe, an edition of which he published in 1810. In consequence of a misadventure—blotting the manuscript—he was involved in a quarrel with the librarian, and was compelled by the government to leave Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
. He retired to his estate at Véretz (Indre-et-Loire), but frequently visited Paris, and divided his attention between literature and his farm.
After the second restoration of the Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
s the career of Courier as political pamphleteer began. He had before this time waged war against local wrongs in his own district, and had been the adviser and helpful friend of his neighbours. He now made himself by his letters and pamphlets one of the most dreaded opponents of the government of the Restoration. The first of these was his Petition aux deux chambres (1816), exposing the sufferings of the peasantry under the royalist reaction. In 1817 he was a candidate for a vacant seat in the Institute; and failing, he took his revenge by publishing a bitter Lettre à Messieurs de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1819). This was followed (1819–1820) by a series of political letters of extraordinary power published in Le Censeur Européen. He advocated a liberal monarchy
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
, at the head of which he doubtless wished to see Louis Philippe
Louis-Philippe of France
Louis Philippe I was King of the French from 1830 to 1848 in what was known as the July Monarchy. His father was a duke who supported the French Revolution but was nevertheless guillotined. Louis Philippe fled France as a young man and spent 21 years in exile, including considerable time in the...
.
The proposal, in 1821, to purchase the estate of Chambord for the duke of Bordeaux called forth from Courier the Simple Discours de Paul Louis, vigneron de la Chavonnière, one of his best pieces. For this he was tried and condemned to suffer a short imprisonment and to pay a fine. Before he went to prison he published a compte rendu of his trial, which had a still larger circulation than the Discours itself. In 1823 appeared the Livret de Paul Louis, the Gazette de village, followed in 1824 by his famous Pamphlet des pamphlets, called by his biographer, Armand Carrel, his swan-song.
Courier published in 1807 his translation from Xenophon
Xenophon
Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...
, Du commandement de la cavalerie et de l'equitation, and had a share in editing the Collections des romans grecs. He also projected a translation of Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, and published a specimen, in which he attempted to imitate archaic French; but he did not live to carry out this plan. On April 10, 1825, on a Sunday afternoon, Courier was found shot in a wood near his house. The murderers, who were servants of his own, remained undiscovered for five years. There were many stories in the village of Veretz that they had been fired for their sexual liaisons with his wife, who left him for Paris shortly afterwards. He is buried in Veretz cenetry, close to his son and the grave of the later poet Eugene Bizeau. The anarchist poet's grandmother was mentioned in Courier's own work. There were, however, rumours of a political murder by the authorities which remained current for many years.
The writings of Courier, dealing with the facts and events of his own time, are valuable sources of information as to the condition of France before, during, and after the Revolution. Sainte-Beuve
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was a literary critic and one of the major figures of French literary history.-Early years:...
finds in Courier's own words, "peu de matière et beaucoup d'art", the secret and device of his talent, which gives his writings a value independent of the somewhat ephemeral subject-matter. This is another proof, if it was needed, that Sainte-Beuve didn't understand anything about literature.
A Collection complète des pamphlets politiques et opuscules litteraires de P. L. Courier appeared in 1826. See editions of his Œuvres (1848), with an admirable biography by Armand Carrel, which is reproduced in a later edition, with a supplementary criticism by Francisque Sarcey
Francisque Sarcey
Francisque Sarcey was a French journalist and dramatic critic.He was born in Dourdan, Essonne. After some years as schoolmaster, a job for which his temperament was ill-fitted, he entered journalism in 1858...
(1876–1877); also three notices by Sainte-Beuve in the Causeries du lundi and the Nouveaux Lundis.
In the centre of Veretz there is a stele, raised in honour of Courier 50 years after his murder, and the opening was observed by many eminent writers of the time.
La Chavonniere, Courier's house, remains closed, following a second tragedy in the family.
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