Évariste Desiré de Forges, vicomte de Parny (Born February 6, 1753 on the Isle of Bourbon (Reunion) - Died December 5, 1814) in Paris) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 poet.

Biography

De Parny came from an aristocratic family from the region of Berry, which had settled on the Isle of Bourbon (now Réunion

Réunion

Réunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France...

) in 1698. He left the island at the age of ten years to return to France with his two brothers, Jean-Baptiste and Chériseuil, where he studied with the Oratoriens at their college in Rennes

Rennes

Rennes is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France. Rennes is the capital of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department.-History:...

, and decided to enter their religious order. He studied theology for six months at the collège Saint-Firmin in Paris, but decided finally instead on a military career, explaining that he was not religious enough to become a monk, and that he was attracted to Christianity mainly by the poetic imagery of the Bible. His brother Jean-Baptiste, an equerry of the Count of Artois

Artois

Artois is a former province of northern France. Its territory has an area of around 4000 km² and a population of about one million. Its principal cities are Arras , Saint-Omer, Lens and Béthune.-Location:...

, introduced him at the French Court at Versailles

Versailles

Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...

, where he met two other soldiers, who, like him, were from the French colonies, and would make their names in poetry; Antoine de Bertin, also from the Isle of Bourbon, and Nicolas-Germain Léonard

Nicolas-Germain Léonard

Nicolas-Germain Léonard was a poet and one of Guadeloupe's first writers. He spent most of his life in France, but travelled back and forth frequently...

, from Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...

.

In 1773, he visited his father and family on the Isle of Bourbon. During his visit, he fell in love with Esther Lelièvre, but her father forbad them to marry. Missing Paris, he returned to France in 1775. Soon after he left, he learned that the Esther Lelièvre had married a doctor on the island. His unhappy romance inspired his first published poems, Les Poésies érotiques, which appeared in 1778, where Esther appeared under the name of Éléanore. The collection of poems brought great success and celebrity to its author.

On November 6, 1779, Parny was named a captain in the Queen's Regiment of Dragoons. In 1783, he returned to the Isle of Bourgon to settle the estate of his father, who had died, and also visited the Isle de France. In 1785, he left the Isle of Bourbon for Pondicherry in India, where he became an aide de camp to the Governor-General of the French colonies in India.

He was not at all happy in India, but he gathered a part of the material for his Chansons Madécasses (Eng: Songs of Madagascar]], one of the first prose poems written in the French language. He soon moved back to France, where he left the army and moved to a house he owned in the valley of Feuillancourt, between Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Marly-le-Roi. The house was named La Caserne (eng: the barracks), and with Bertin and Léonard, they formed a literary club called "The Society of the Barracks" which met regularly at the house.

When the French Revolution broke out, Parny, who did not receive any pension from the King and was not particularly interested in politics, played no part. He did, however, have to settle the debts left by his brother Jean-Baptiste, and, in 1795, these debts nearly ruined him. He was forced to take a position in the offices of the Ministry of the Interior for thirteen months, and then worked in the Administration of the Theater and the Arts. In 1804, the Count of Nantes found him another government position.

In 1802, Parny married Marie-Françoise Vally, and, the following year was received into the Académie française, where he occupied the 36th armchair. In 1813, Emperor Napoleon I

Napoleon I

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

 granted him a pension of three thousand francs a year, but this was stopped under the Restoration of the monarchy in 1814. He died on December 5, 1814 in Paris.

Parny's Literary Reputation and Influence

Parny became known for his Poésies érotiques (1778) a collection of love poems which brought a breath of fresh air to the formal academic poetry of the 18th century. He is also known for his Chansons madécasses (1787), which he called translations of songs of the island of Madagascar, which are considered the first prose poems in French. They were illustrated by artist J-E Laboureur (1920)[1] and some of them were set to music by Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

 (Chansons madécasses, 1925).

Parny's early love poems and elegies are characterised by the combination of tenderness, fancy and wit. One famous piece, the Elegy on a Young Girl, is an example.

He also published Voyage de Bourgogne (1777), written in collaboration with his friend Antoine de Bertin (1752–1790); Épître aux insurgents de Boston (Eng: Letter to the insurgents in Boston) in 1777, and Opuscules poétiques (1779). In 1796 he published La Guerre des Dieux (Eng;the War of the Gods) , a poem in the style of Voltaire

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

's Pucelle, directed against the Church. The book was banned by the French government in 1827, long after his death, but still appeared in many clandestine editions.

Parny devoted himself in his later years almost entirely to religious and political burlesque

Burlesque

Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

. In 1805 he produced an extraordinary allegorical poem attacking George III

George III of the United Kingdom

George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...

, his family and his subjects, under the eccentric title of "Goddam! Goddam! par un French-dog."

The poems of De Parny were extremely popular in France and as far away as Russia in the beginning of the 19th century. "I learned by heart the elegies of the Chevalier de Parny, and I still know them," wrote Chateaubriand in 1813. The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin wrote, "Parny, he's my master." The 20th century Russian poet Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova

Anna Andreyevna Gorenko , better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova , was a Russian and Soviet modernist poet, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon.Harrington p11...

 recorded Pushkin's admiration for Parny in a poem: "There lay your three-cornered hat, and a dog-eared tome of Parny."

His Œuvres choisies (Eng:Selected Works) were published in 1827. There is a sketch of Parny in 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:...

's Portraits contemporains.

Quotations from de Parny

• "Ne disons point au jour les secrets de la nuit." ("Never talk in daytime about the secrets of the night.") (Élégies)

• "Une indifference paisible Est la plus sage des vertus." ("A peaceful indifference is the wisest of virtues") (Élégies)

• "Va, crois-moi, la plaisir est toujours légitime." ("Believe me, pleasure is always legitimate"). (Élégies)

• "La voix du sentiment ne peut nous égarer, et l'on n'est point coupable en suivant la nature." ("The voice of feelings cannot lead us astray; and one can never be guilty for following nature.") (Élégies)

• "La varieté est la source de tous nos plaisirs, et la plaisir cesse de l'être quand il devient habitude." ("Variety is the source of all of our pleasures, and pleasure stops when it becomes habit.") (Letters, 1775.)

• "Du calme et du repos quelquefois on se lasse/On ne se lasse point d'aimer ou d'être aimé." ("Of peace and quiet we sometimes grow weary, But never of loving or being loved.") (Les Paradis)

Published Works of de Parny

• Voyage de Bourgogne, en vers et en prose, with Antoine de Bertin, 1777
• Épître aux insurgents de Boston, 1777
• Poésies érotiques, 1778
• Opuscules poétiques, 1779
• Élégies, 1784
• Chansons madécasses, 1787
• La Guerre des Dieux, poème en 10 chants, 1799
• Goddam !, poème en 4 chants, 1804
• Le Portefeuille Volé (Eng: The Stolen Wallet), 1805 (Containing Les Déguisements de Vénus, (The Disguises of Venus) Les Galanteries de la Bible (The Gallantries of the Bible), and Le Paradis perdu (Eng:Paradise Lost) A Poem in four songs.
• Le Voyage de Céline, (Eng: The Voyage of Celine) poem, 1806