Jean Henri Latude (23 March 1725 – 1 January 1805), often called Danry or Masers de Latude, was a French writer famous for his lengthy confinement in the

Bastille The Bastille (, ) was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was sto ...

, at

Vincennes Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Château de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attached ...

, and for his repeated escapes from those prisons.

Life

He was born at

Montagnac Montagnac or Montanhac may refer to the following places in France: * Montagnac, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, a former commune in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence ''département'' that is now a part of Montagnac-Montpezat *Montagnac, Gard, in the Gard ''dé ...

Gascony Gascony (; french: Gascogne ; oc, Gasconha ; eu, Gaskoinia) was a province of the southwestern Kingdom of France that succeeded the Duchy of Gascony (602–1453). From the 17th century until the French Revolution (1789–1799), it was part o ...

. He received a military education and went to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

in 1748 to study

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. He led a dissipated life and endeavoured to curry favor with

Madame de Pompadour Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (, ; 29 December 1721 – 15 April 1764), commonly known as Madame de Pompadour, was a member of the French court. She was the official chief mistress of King Louis XV from 1745 to 1751, and rema ...

by secretly sending her
box of poison
and then informing her of the supposed plot against her life, hoping that he could earn a reward of cash for warning her. The ruse was discovered, and Mme de Pompadour, not appreciating the humor of the situation, had Latude put in the Bastille on 1 May 1749. He was later transferred to Vincennes, from which he escaped in 1750. Captured and reimprisoned in the Bastille, he made a second brief escape in 1756. He was again transferred to Vincennes in 1764, and the next year made a third escape and was a third time recaptured. He was put into the Charenton asylum by Malesherbes in 1775, and discharged in 1777 on condition that he should retire to his native town. He remained in Paris, however, and he was again imprisoned. A certain Madame Legros became interested in him through a chance reading of one of his memoirs, and, through vigorous agitation in his behalf, secured his release in 1784. His considerable ability for mimicry and intrigue were evidenced throughout his long captivity; he posed as a brave military officer, a son of the non-existent marquis de La Tude, and as a victim of Pompadour's nefarious intrigues. He was lauded and pensioned during the Revolution, and, in 1793, the Convention compelled the heirs of Madame de Pompadour to pay him 60,000 francs in damages. He died famous and wealthy in Paris in 1805.

Work

The principal work of Latude is the account of his imprisonment, written in collaboration with Jean-Yrieix de Beaupoil de Saint-Aulaire entitled ''Le Despotisme dévoilé, ou Mémoires de Henri Masers de la Tude, détenu pendant trente-cinq ans dans les diverses prisons d'état'' (Ostensibly Amsterdam, but actually published in Paris, 1787). An English translation of a portion of this work (''Despotism Unveiled: or the Memoirs of Latude, Detained for Thirty-five Years in the Various Prisons of the State'') was published in 1787. Latude himself denied both the authorship and the accuracy of the pamphlet, but it enjoyed a considerable popularity at the time of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

. Latude also wrote essays on a wide variety of subjects. *

Britannica references

* Claude Quetel, ''Escape from the Bastille: The Life and Legend of Latude'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 1990) * J. F. Barrire, ''Mémoires de Linguet et de Latude'' (1884) * G. Bertin, Notice in edition of the Mémoires (1889) * F. Funck-Brentano, "Latude", in the ''Revue des deux mondes'' (1 October 1889)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Latude, Jean Henri 1725 births 1805 deaths 18th-century French criminals French male non-fiction writers French male criminals Prisoners of the Bastille 18th-century French memoirists