Nicolas-Joseph-Laurent Gilbert (December 15, 1750 – November 16, 1780) was a French poet born at

Fontenoy-le-Château Fontenoy-le-Château () is a commune in the Vosges department in Grand Est in northeastern France. In January 2013 it merged with the former commune of Le Magny. Personalities The poet Nicolas Joseph Florent Gilbert was born on December 15, 1 ...

Vosges The Vosges ( , ; german: Vogesen ; Franconian and gsw, Vogese) are a range of low mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single ...

Lorraine Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Gr ...

. Having completed his education at the college of

Dole Dole may refer to: Places * Dole, Ceredigion, Wales * Dole, Idrija, Slovenia * Dole, Jura, France ** Arrondissement of Dole * Dole (Kladanj), a village at the entity line of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina-Republika Srpska * Dole, Ljubušk ...

, he devoted himself for a time to a half-scholastic, half-literary life at Nancy, but in 1774 he found his way to the capital. As an opponent of the Encyclopaedists and a

panegyrist A panegyric ( or ) is a formal public speech or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing. The original panegyrics were speeches delivered at public events in ancient Athens. Etymology The word originated as a compound of grc, ...

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...

, he received considerable pensions. He died in

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 1780 from the results of a fall from his horse. The

satiric Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

force of one or two of his pieces, as ''Mon Apologie'' (1778) and ''Le Dix-huitième Siècle'' (1775), would alone be sufficient to preserve his reputation, which has been further increased by modern writers, who, like

Alfred de Vigny Alfred Victor, Comte de Vigny (27 March 1797 – 17 September 1863) was a French poet and early French Romanticist. He also produced novels, plays, and translations of Shakespeare. Biography Vigny was born in Loches (a town to which he never re ...

in his ''Stello'' (chaps. 7-13), considered him a victim to the spite of his philosophic opponents. His best-known verses are the ''Ode imitée de plusieurs psaumes'', usually entitled ''Adieux à la vie''. Among his other works may be mentioned ''Les Familles du Darius et d'Eridame, histoire persane'' (1770), ''Le Carnaval des auteurs'' (1773), ''Odes nouvelles et patriotiques'' (1775). Gilbert's ''Œuvres complètes'' were first published in 1788.

References

*
Catholic Encyclopedia article

Complete works scanned on Gallica

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gilbert, Nicolas-Joseph-Florent 1750 births 1780 deaths People from Vosges (department) French poets French male poets