Armand-Jérôme Bignon (21 October 1711,

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 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), ma ...

– 8 March 1772,

) was a French lawyer, royal librarian and conseiller d'État.

Biography

The lord of Île Belle and Hardricourt, he was made avocat général to the

Grand Conseil The term Grand Conseil () or Great Council refers two different institutions during the Ancien Régime in France. It also is the name of parliaments in several Swiss cantons. Ancien Régime France Part of the King's Council Starting in the 13 ...

in 1729,

maître des requêtes A Master of Requests () is a counsel of the French ''Conseil d'État'' (Council of State), a high-level judicial officer of administrative law in France. The office has existed in one form or another since the Middle Ages. The occupational title ...

for Soissons in 1737 and president of the Grand Conseil in 1738. In 1743, on his brother's death he was made royal librarian (a post Armand-Jérôme had inherited in turn from their uncle

Jean-Paul Bignon The Abbé Jean-Paul Bignon, Cong.Orat. (19 September 1662, Paris – 14 March 1743, Île Belle) was a French ecclesiastic, statesman, writer and preacher and librarian to Louis XIV of France. His protégé, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, named ...

). Armand-Jérôme resigned from it in 1770 in favour of his son Jérôme-Frédéric. He was elected to the Académie française in 1743 and to the

Académie des Inscriptions An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

in 1751. He was made conseiller d’État in 1762 and prévôt des marchands de Paris in 1764. The scholar Dupuy pronounced his elogy. It was his negligence in the latter post that caused the accidents in the firework display for the marriage of the Dauphin (later

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

) and

Marie-Antoinette Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child ...

in May 1770 that left over 300 dead and a greater number of wounded. Even so, he appeared in his box at the Opéra only three days after the disaster, causing all Paris to become indignant. Under

Louis XIII Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...

, the prévôt des marchands de Paris and the two premiers échevins were fined for not having repaired a bridge whose collapse killed four or five people. Under

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 reached ...

, his faults born of a lack of foresight were never punished. Paris thus avenged itself by ''bon mots'' against him, including the Latin anagram of his name as ''Ibi non rem, damna gero'' (I don't do good, I do evil).

Works

Armand Jérôme Bignon never published anything, though he did leave manuscript memoirs of a journey to Spain and Italy (now held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France).

References

External links

Académie française

Biography – Bibliothèque nationale de France
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bignon, Armand-Jerome 18th-century French lawyers French librarians Conseil d'État (France) Ancien Régime office-holders Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1711 births 1772 deaths Provost of the Merchants of Paris