Jean-Aymar Piganiol de la Force (Aurillac, 1673 – Paris, 1753), son of Pierre and of Marguerite Parisot, dame de La Force, was a French man of letters known above all for works of a descriptive geographical character, for which he travelled extensively in France. He held an appointment as

historiographer royal Historiographer Royal is the title of an appointment as official chronicler or historian of a court or monarch. It was initially particularly associated with the French monarchy, where the post existed from at least 1550, but in the later 16th and 1 ...

, resulting in his ''Description de la France''. He spent his youth at his mother's family château de La Force at

Saint-Simon, Cantal Saint-Simon (; Auvergnat: ''Sant Simon'') is a commune in the Cantal department in south-central France. The medieval town of Belliac, located near the present-day Saint-Simon, was the birthplace (in 946) of the prolific scholar Gerbert d'Au ...

on the little River Jordanne, near Aurillac, where he studied. Piganiol de la Force for four decades was the tutor to the young pages of the comte de Toulouse, and as a young man wrote a set of ''Mémoires des intendants pour l’instruction du duc de Bourgogne'' (1698)

Selected works

* ''Nouvelle description des châteaux et parcs de Versailles et de Marly'' (1702) * ''Nouvelles descriptions historiques et géographiques de la France'', 1715, in 5 volumes, and 1751-1753, in 15 volumes * ''Nouveau voyage en France'', 1724, 2 volumes * ''Description de la ville de Paris et de ses environs'', 1742, 10 volumes.

References

* Dezobry et Bachelet, ''Dictionnaire général de biographie et d’histoire'', Paris, 1889. * ''Larousse du XXe siècle''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Piganiol de la Force, Jean-Aymar French didactic writers French information and reference writers 1753 deaths 1673 births French male non-fiction writers