Évrard Titon du Tillet is best known for his important biographical chronicle, Le Parnasse françois, composed of brief anecdotal vite

Biography

A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...

 of famous French poets and musicians of his time, under the reign of Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

 and the Régence.

Biography

Of Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 origin, Évrard Titon du Tillet was the son of Maximilien Titon de Villegenon, seigneur d'Ognon, a secretary of the King and general manager of the armories

Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...

 under Louis XIV. He studied law before his father obliged him to embrace a military career. He was already a "captain of dragoons" at the age of twenty, when unfortunately for him, the long awaited peace prevented him from advancing his career. He then purchased the sinecure of maître d'hôtel to the thirteen-year-old duchess of Burgundy

Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy

Marie Adélaïde of Savoy was born a Princess of Savoy and was the wife of Louis, Duke of Burgundy. She was the eldest daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy and of Anne Marie d'Orléans. Her betrothal to the Duke of Burgundy in June 1696 was part of the Treaty of Turin, signed on 29 August...

, the future mother of Louis XV

Louis XV of France

Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...

. Alas, in 1712, the Dauphine died of measles, and Titon du Tillet was unemployed for the second time. He was, however, soon named a provincial commissioner of war.

Titon du Tillet had the privilege of receiving the celebrities of his time, and from 1708 he was at work on an imposing project: to create a garden surrounding a monument, "the French Parnassus" (Le Parnasse françois), celebrating the glory of French poets and musicians under the reign of Louis XIV. He worked with the sculptor Louis Garnier, a pupil of François Girardon

François Girardon

François Girardon was a French sculptor.He was born at Troyes. As a boy he had for master a joiner and wood-carver of his native town, named Baudesson, under whom he is said to have worked at the chateau of Liebault, where he attracted the notice of Chancellor Séguier...

, to produce a model of the monument. A maquette in bronze for the project was completed in 1718. He also ordered a drawing by the painter Nicolas de Poilly, which was presented to Louis XV in 1723. The monument was to represent Mount Parnassus

Mount Parnassus

Mount Parnassus, also Parnassos , is a mountain of limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth, and offers scenic views of the surrounding olive groves and countryside. According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Apollo and the Corycian nymphs,...

, ornamented with laurels and myrtle, with Louis XIV in the figure of Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 at the summit, playing the lyre. On a slightly lower level the three Graces

Grâces

Grâces is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Bretagne in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of Grâces are called gracieux.-External links:*...

 were represented with the features of Mmes des Houlières, de La Suze and de Scudéry

Madeleine de Scudéry

Madeleine de Scudéry , often known simply as Mademoiselle de Scudéry, was a French writer. She was the younger sister of author Georges de Scudéry.-Biography:...

. Lower down, surrounding the mountain, Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...

 occupied the principal place, surrounded by Molière

Molière

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

, Racine

Jean Racine

Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...

, Racan and Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...

 carrying medallions of Quinault

Philippe Quinault

Philippe Quinault , French dramatist and librettist, was born in Paris.- Biography :Quinault was educated by the liberality of François Tristan l'Hermite, the author of Marianne. Quinault's first play was produced at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1653, when he was only eighteen...

, Segrais, La Fontaine, Boileau

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux was a French poet and critic.-Biography:Boileau was born in the rue de Jérusalem, in Paris, France. He was brought up to the law, but devoted to letters, associating himself with La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière...

 and Chapelle, the nine male Muse

Muse

The Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...

s of the grand siècle. Unluckily, Titon du Tillet could not stop there: scattered among the bronze trees were to be seen further medallions of distinctly secondary figures, now slightly passé as musical taste had shifted towards the galante, choices that elicited from 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...

 the epigram

Dépêchez-vous, monsieur Titon,

Enrichissez votre Hélicon ;

Placez-y sur un piédestal

Saint-Didier, Danchet

Antoine Danchet

Antoine Danchet was a French playwright, librettist and dramatic poet.-Biography:Danchet was born in Riom, in the Auvergne, France. Having been a professor of rhetoric at Chartres and then a tutor at Paris, Danchet gaveup teaching to write for the theatre. He wrote some opera libretti which, set...

 et Nadal

Augustin Nadal

The abbé Augustin Nadal was the author of plays, through the failure of which he became the butt of a withering public reply from Voltaire that has rendered the abbé immortal....

 ;

Qu'on voie armés d'un même archet

Saint-Didier, Nadal et Danchet,

Et couverts du même laurier

Danchet, Nadal et Saint-Didier.

The expected expenditure, estimated at nearly two million livres, forced him to terminate a project that had something to it of the character of a folly

Folly

In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but either suggesting by its appearance some other purpose, or merely so extravagant that it transcends the normal range of garden ornaments or other class of building to which it belongs...

.

Titon du Tillet then decided to carry the project out to some extent in a virtual form: he published in 1727, "a Description of the Parnasse François" followed by "an alphabetical List of the Poets and Musicians gathered on this monument". In 1732, he published a second edition and increased the notes on the lives of the poets and musicians. Two further supplements were published in 1743 and 1755. This collection constitutes an invaluable source of biographical information for the mysterious Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe

Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe

Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe was a French composer and violist.It is speculated by various scholars that Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe was of Lyonnais or Burgundian petty nobility; and also the selfsame 'Jean de Sainte-Colombe' noted as the father of 'Monsieur de Saint Colombe le fils.This assumption...

, Marin Marais

Marin Marais

Marin Marais was a French composer and viol player. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for 6 months. He was hired as a musician in 1676 to the royal court of Versailles...

, Louis Couperin

Louis Couperin

Louis Couperin was a French Baroque composer and performer. He was born in Chaumes-en-Brie and moved to Paris in 1650–51 with the help of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières. Couperin worked as organist of the Church of St. Gervais in Paris and as musician at the court...

, Michel Richard Delalande

Michel Richard Delalande

Michel Richard Delalande [de Lalande] was a French Baroque composer and organist who was in the service of King Louis XIV. He was one of the most important composers of grand motets. He also wrote orchestral suites known as "Simphonies pour les Soupers du Roy" and ballets...

, Nicolas Bernier

Nicolas Bernier

Nicolas Bernier was a French composer.-Biography:He was born in Mantes-sur-Seine , the son of Rémy Bernier and Marguerite Bauly. He studied with Antonio Caldara and is known for an Italian-influenced style. After Marc-Antoine Charpentier he is probably the most Italian-influenced French composer...

 and other celebrated poets and musicians.
A confirmed bachelor, Titon du Tillet was a cordial man always surrounded by many friends (some say that he was obstinate); his interesting conversation provided numerous anecdotes. In spring 1749, he withdrew to Montreuil

Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis

Montreuil is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. It is the third most populous suburb of Paris...

, then on the outskirts of Paris, to a beautiful little hôtel, the Folie Titon, which, after his purchase in 1751 of the adjoining plot from the vicomte d’Argentière, captain of the guards, he was able to surround by a large park, with Paris laid out below his garden doors. The diarist Edmond Jean François Barbier

Edmond Jean François Barbier

Edmond Jean François Barbier was a Frenchjurisconsult of the parliament and author of a historical journal of the time of Louis XV. He was born in Paris.- Works :* Chronique de la régence et du règne de Louis XV ...

, himself a lawyer attached to the Parlement de Paris, noted disapprovingly that Titon du Tillet lived in public debauchery with girls at the dinner table in a manner not "appropriate to a magistrate".

A passionate lover of arts and letters, Titon du Tillet supported ballets and plays. He constructed a theatre in his house where a number of performances were put on, introducing in 1760 Demoiselle Leclair, who went on to a dance career at the Comédie-Italienne

Comédie-Italienne

Over time, there have been several buildings and several theatrical companies named the "Théâtre-Italien" or the "Comédie-Italienne" in Paris. Following the times, the theatre has shown both plays and operas...

, and in 1762 Marmontel

Jean-François Marmontel

Jean-François Marmontel was a French historian and writer, a member of the Encyclopediste movement.-Biography:He was born of poor parents at Bort, Limousin...

's play Annette et Lubin, which attracted a considerable crowd.

Titon du Tillet died of a cold the day after Christmas, 1762, in Paris, aged 85.