Charles-Étienne Jordan (1700 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

– 1745) was a Prussian-born

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

refugee, advisor to

Frederick the Great Frederick II (german: Friedrich II.; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the Sil ...

and

French-language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

author on literature and history. He is mainly remembered for his ''Histoire d'un voyage litteraire'' (1735) describing his literary visits in France, England and the Netherlands. In 1736 Jordan became the Crown Prince's literary secretary, in 1740 he was appointed Curator of the Universities, and in 1744 Vice President of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. At the

Rheinsberg Castle Rheinsberg Palace (german: Schloss Rheinsberg) lies in the municipality of Rheinsberg, about northwest of Berlin in the German district of Landkreis Ostprignitz-Ruppin, Ostprignitz-Ruppin. The palace on the eastern shore of the is a classic exam ...

he was the member of a radical intellectual circle including general Heinrich August de la Motte Fouqué. "... was engaged for Frederick the Great; after 1736 he was attended by, among others, Charles Etienne Jordan (1700- 1745), ... Like Heinrich August de la Motte Fouque (1698-1774), he belonged to the "Rheinsberg Circle," later also joined by ..." Jordan was an avid collector of banned radical and "

Socinian Socinianism () is a nontrinitarian belief system deemed heretical by the Catholic Church and other Christian traditions. Named after the Italian theologians Lelio Sozzini (Latin: Laelius Socinus) and Fausto Sozzini (Latin: Faustus Socinus), uncle ...

" books, obtaining copies of the ''Meditationes'' of Theodor Ludwig Lau,

Jean Bodin Jean Bodin (; c. 1530 – 1596) was a French jurist and political philosopher, member of the Parlement of Paris and professor of law in Toulouse. He is known for his theory of sovereignty. He was also an influential writer on demonology. Bodin l ...

's ''Colloque'', and

Adrian Beverland Hadriaan Beverland (Hadrianus Beverlandus, September–December 1650 Middelburg, Zeeland — 14 December 1716 London) was a Dutch humanist scholar who was banished from Holland in 1679 and settled in England in 1680. Early life Beverland was bor ...

's ''État de l'homme'' for his personal library.Jonathan I. Israel ''Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750'' 2001- Page i "One of the leading Berlin cognoscenti was the former Huguenot pastor and now deist (or at least professed Socinian) Charles Étienne Jordan (1700–45), who in 1736 became the Crown Prince's literary secretary. A savant immersed in Bayle ......In this way, Jordan obtained from Frankfurt manuscript copies of Lau's Meditationes and Bodin's Colloque, as well as Beverland's État de l'homme.59 But while Jordan proudly exhibited his expertise in this field behind closed doors, not least in ...."

Works

* ''Recueil de littérature, de philosophie, et d'histoire'', 1730 * ''Histoire d'un voyage litteraire fait en MDCCXXXIII en France, en Angleterre, et en Hollande'', 1735

References

1700 births 1745 deaths Huguenots 18th-century French writers 18th-century French male writers Writers from Berlin German writers in French {{France-nonfiction-writer-stub